EPSON Stylus Pro 4000 printer

Page 1.

Day 1.

Before you get engrossed in this review, I should point out that the Pro 4000 is a lot bigger than you might expect. The two delivery men had considerable difficulty in manoeuvring the box through the front door (my door isn’t small either) the printer had to be unpacked in the lobby. It also took two men to carry the printer upstairs to my studio and it dominates a large portion of my office desk. Just in case you thought of picking one up on your way home after your Saturday shopping, then forget it. The box won’t fit in your car boot/trunk unless of course you drive a truck. Your wife, kids and dog won’t appreciate being left behind on the pavement either. If you don’t think your man enough for this then wait for my next EPSON review - the 6x4 PictureMate. Lets get on with the 4000 review.

All the interactive tests are carried out in real time and I check the forum every hour (whilst I am working on the review). If there is anything you want me to check out, then use the forum and post your questions, don't worry if you don't catch me, I generally tend to answer all questions at some stage.

What is in the big box?

	The EPSON Stylus Pro 4000
	1. Epson Stylus Pro 4000 2. Power cable 3. Eight inks Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Matte Black, Photo Black, Light grey, Light Magenta and Light Cyan. 4. Front paper tray 5. Roll paper holder 6. Three instruction books (several languages) 7. Warranty cards etc. 8. Media guide 9. Roll Paper Belt 10. Installation CD

As stated earlier, this printer is very large and due to lack of studio space I could not do the usual what's in the box shot - hence the composite picture.

The printer weighs in at a hefty 38kg (83.7 lbs - approx 6 Stone) without inks, the manual states that if you use a printer stand then it must be able to support at least 50kg (110.3 lb approx 7.8 stone)

The dimensions :

Width - 848mm (33.4 inches)
Depth - 790mm (31 inches) - with front tray extensions 1155mm (45.5 inches)
Height - 345mm (13.5 inches)

The Pro 4000 is built to a very high standard with meticulous attention to detail throughout. The included accessories seem to be sparse after seeing what Canon include with their printers. The Paper holder is a solid looking affair, a better offering than the one included with the 2100. Three manuals are included, but only one is needed for English speaking users. As with 99.9% of all printers I have reviewed, there isn't a printer cable included, the 4000 uses either USB 2.0 (USB 1.1 compatible) or Firewire. To compensate for this two mains cables are included, one two and one three pin cable - one will come in handy to tie your bike up to the railings.

One excellent item which will interest most of you is a Media guide. This three page fold out brochure includes 20 printed swatches of all the media types that are available. These swatches have been printed on either a 4000 or 9600 printer with UltraChrome inks, on the rear cover is a full media compatibility list for all the EPSON printers that use UltraChrome.

The superbly printed media guide should give you an idea of which paper will suit your needs

A notable absence is the Gray Balancer software and charts, this will be available as an optional extra, but no decision has been made on price at the time of writing. I will put this printer through extensive b/w testing, with and without the Gray Balancer, later in the review.

Setting up

Looking at this imposing printer on my desk, seems daunting – where do you start? Once the packaging and tape has been removed, it’s a relatively easy job to fit all the bits into place, these are easy enough to assemble without having to read the instruction manual. Despite being a large book, the Set up guide only has 13 pages and you should be able to get the printer fitted up within 10 – 15 minutes. I missed the bit about unlocking the print head, it's important to read all the documentation carefully. There is a small green lever by the print head which needs to pulled outwards before the head can move, failing to do this will result in an error message on the LCD.

The 4000 & 2100 ink cartridges	Shaken but not stirred
Make sure you unlock the print head	The right hand side cartridges

The 4000 uses the same 110ml ink cartridges that are used on the 7600 & 9600 printers. The eight inks are fitted in two bays on either side of the printer. In the left hand side bay; Matte Black, Cyan, Magenta and Yellow. In the right hand side bay; Photo Black, Light Cyan, Light Magenta and Light Grey. The right hand side could be configured to accept the same four inks as the left hand side. This would be for extra printing speed, for CAD and Point of Sale printing. Photographers should use the eight ink configuration, this will be the setup for this review. Each cartridge must be shaken before fitting, not stirred. Page 4 of manual says "do not drink", someone at EPSON has a good sense of humour. The ink cartridges do not move with the print head, ink is fed through a series of tubes to the print head.

The charging of inks takes approx 8 minutes according to the manual, in my test it took 7 minutes 45 seconds. The printer makes a considerable amount of noise during the charging process, clunks, whirrs and clicks. You can't leave the printer to get on with it either, at the 50 & 60% stages you have to raise and lower the ink cartridge locking levers.

Indicator for ink charging	The print head and ink tubes
surplus ink is caught in this tray	tray is located under the right ink set

The charging of inks will consume a large quantity of your first ink set, in the above picture you can see just how much has been wasted. Of course subsequent replacement inks will not have to fill the tubes again, there will always be a quantity of ink in the "pipe-line". The one thing that all inkjet printers have in common, is that there is always some ink overspill. Generally this will be caught by an internal nappy, eventually this will become over saturated and will need replacing. For an A4 desk printer this shouldn't occur in the life of the printer, but with larger format printers the need to replace the nappy is more important. On the 4000 this can be easily accessed by a draw under the right hand side inks. The above shot shows how much has been wasted in the in charging process, I haven't made a single print yet.