Epson Stylus Color 500 Inkjet Printer 
Printer Review by Vade Forrester

 I knew I would succumb to the lure of printing color someday, so I did some research just in case. I found a remarkable unanimity of opinion. Publication after publication rated the Epson Stylus Color 500 color inkjet printer one of the best. And its price is relatively modest. 

 Breaking tradition, I actually took my own advice before deciding to take the plunge. I compared actual printed output with that of several other printers, which all cost more than the Epson ($279, less with your Alamo PC discount). I judged the Epson's 720 x 720 dots per inch output superior to most, although its best quality output prints rather slowly. On Epson's special paper (which sells for about 10 cents per page), print quality was spectacular, with vivid, non-banding color that looked almost photographic. Epson is very proud of its ink technology, and it's easy to see why. The only quibble I could voice about the color output is that reds look a bit orange. 

 Color is fun, but most of our serious printing work is still text. I'm pleased to report that the Epson Stylus Color 500 produces sharp, very dark black text. Of all the inkjet printers I have seen, this is one of a very few that passed the rèsumé test, which means I would entrust it to print my resume for an important job -- at the 720 dpi setting. I had to use a magnifying glass to distinguish the text from a laser's. For noncritical print jobs, a 360 dpi setting produces good, but somewhat more ragged text than the 720 dpi setting, and is much faster. Faster yet is an Economy setting that uses less ink, and produces text that, although gray instead of black, is still quite legible. 

You can print addresses on envelopes as well as bond paper, although loading the envelopes in the feed tray seems a little strange, since you must shove the envelopes deeply into the printer. When I first printed a sample page, I detected slight banding, but soon discovered and checked a setting in the very nice Windows 95 printer driver that said MicroWeave, which completely eliminated banding. 

 One feature that attracted me to the Epson Stylus Color 500 was its logical controls. Lots of attention to usability obviously went into its design. There are three clearly labeled buttons on top of the printer, along with four status lights. The interior of the printer is easily accessible by simply raising the front cover. There are several levers and switches around the printer, and next to each one is a descriptive label telling you clearly what that switch does. 

 Like all good color printers, the Epson Stylus Color 500 has a separate black cartridge and color cartridge. That means if you do a lot of text printing, you can replace the black cartridge without having to change out the color cartridge. Both cartridges are in place at the same time, so you don't have to manually switch between the color and black cartridges. Installing ink cartridges could hardly be easier. Just press the Load/Eject button for five seconds and the cartridge holder moves into the install position. Peel off the protective film on a new cartridge, drop it into the holder, and flip down the retaining cover. The excellent Windows 95 printer driver even tells you how much ink is in your cartridges, so you won't run out at an inopportune moment. A label underneath the cover shows you the entire installation process, complete with pictures. 

 Like most inkjet printers The Epson Stylus Color 500 is constructed largely of plastic. When I unpacked the printer, I discovered all the parts held in place by strapping tape to be sure they didn't become misaligned during shipping. The unpacking instructions clearly identified each piece of tape I had to remove. The only defect I discovered was a slightly misaligned panel inside the tray that folds out from the front to catch paper after it passes through the printer, and it was easy to push the panel into correct alignment. 

 Not content just to offer a fine printer, Epson adds value by including two programs on CD-ROM with the Epson Stylus Color 500. One is Sierra's Print Artist, Version 3.0, which resembles Print Shop (although Print Shop is more capable). Print Artist lets you use one of the unusual features of the printer, namely to print banners. You can use continuous paper, such as pin-feed dot matrix paper, to print long banners. Hewlett-Packard touts this feature for their 600- series printers, but for some reason, Epson almost ignores it. 

 The other program on the CD-ROM is Adobe's PhotoDeluxe, a Windows 95 program that lets you modify and touch up photographic images. PhotoDeluxe will even drive a scanner to scan in photographs. It's not PhotoShop, but is a good low-end program. It can be used to make iron-on transfers for T-shirts, using special paper. Several T-shirt backgrounds are included in the CD-ROM, or you can make your own. Just print onto the transfer paper, then iron the image onto the 100% cotton shirt. Of course, you can iron the image onto any cotton material, not just a T-shirt. 

 Epson almost overwhelms you with the volume of printed material it includes with the printer. The vividly colored flyers tell you how to do basic but entertaining projects like print banners, make refrigerator magnets, and print T-shirts. A real user's guide covers all the functions of the printer, using lots of drawings to illustrate its points. 

 The Epson Stylus Color 500 comes with Macintosh drivers for Apple users. Epson adds even more value to the Epson Stylus Color 500 by providing a two-year warranty. 

 In my judgement, the only other color inkjet printers that compare to the Epson are those from Hewlett-Packard. Their 800-series printers have received good reviews, and are faster. But they also cost considerably more, and their output is no better (maybe not as good). I regard the Epson Stylus Color 500 printer as one of the best buys in color inkjet printers.