Q: I am looking for the best standalone photo printer capable of printing all sizes. I would like a printer that can print pictures without having to be attached to a computer. Also, it is important that the printer can print all size prints, not just up to a 4x6. Price Range is below $200
A: I highly recommend the Epron RX595. I have this printer and I love it. There are a few things you should know about these printers, that may help quell any bad recommendations you may read. First is that if you are using Epson inks, you need to use Epson papers. This is true with any printer. The ink and paper are made to work together, causing a reaction, so that they are waterproof, fade resistant, smudge resistant and scratch resistant. If you choose to use refilled/remanufactured ink cartridges or other brand photo paper, you will loose these features and may get wet, poor quality and smudged photos. Second, they are not ink guzzlers, like some like to claim. I leave my printer on. It is Energy Star compliant and goes into hibernation mode. The reason for leaving it on is to conserve ink usage. Every time you turn your printer off and then back on, it recharges the ink cartridge and that actually uses ink. Third, if you do run out of a color, you can not print at all. Epson used to allow you to print in reserve mode, but they soon gained a reputation for thr printer that has clogged printheads. So they changed this feature and now do not allow you to print unless you have ink in all cartridges. Before, people would print and not replace the empty ink cartridge for months. In this amount of time, the ink in the printhead reservior became dried out and you had a clogged printhead. A clogged printhead can require several cleanings, depending on the severity. You could literally go through a whole set of ink cartridges (depending on how long the printer sat without ink). To cure this, they just do not allow you to print anymore without all ink cartridges having ink. This printer is a true stand alone printer. You have the LCD screen to view and edit your photos. You can zoom in, rotate, crop, remove red-eye, print B&W/Sepia, directly from the printer. You can also restore faded photos directly via the scanner. This printer has a feature called auto-photo correction, that automatically corrects pictures that have dark subjects (incorrect lighting). You can also print directly onto CD/DVD's (printable) through the printer. Next to the auto-photo correction feature, my favorite thing is the index sheet. Insert your memory card, select print index sheet, fill in the bubbles on the index sheet to tell it what size photos, border/borderless, type of paper, then fill in the bubbles under the (thumbnail) picture that you want to print (can print up to three of each picture this way), place it on the scanner, walk away, when you come back they are done. You can also select different page layouts directly in the printer, so if you want to put 8 pictures on a 81/2X11 piece of paper, you can select your page layout, tell the printer which pictures you want to print and print them. This is an awesome printer and I highly recommed it.