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Articles and Reviews
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Epson
CX4600 Printer, Scanner, and Copier
I’ve always figured on buying specialized products to handle a specific purpose because I am of the belief that specialized products offer the best quality for an intended use. Take my Epson 1270 printer for example. This now elderly printer is used strictly for photo prints and not as a general purpose printer. I have used it to print some color text and graphics, but that has amounted to less than two-dozen sheets of paper over the years I’ve had the 1270. My regular text printers are the HP LaserJet 6L and 1200 units that offer faster and crisper plain paper printing.
Alas, specialized products do tend to cost a pretty penny, so I’ve compromised on a few purchases over the years. For example, I have no real macro lens in my kit yet and make do with a Canon 500D close-up lens attached to my 70-200mm lens, but I hope to remedy this deficiency in 2005. Also, I do not own a real medium format sized scanner and have to utilize a cheap Epson flatbed with a transparency adapter to get me through some low level work with my 6x6 film. So, with this admission out of the way, why would I buy an Epson CX4600 then? It is after all Epson’s most basic multipurpose printer and costs a mere US $130, but is likely available for a bit less at discount shops. Well, I didn’t exactly buy this scanner cum copier cum printer; I got it for free (almost). It’s a bit of story as to how I got the printer, but it involves a free gift for my wife from her workplace, which turned out to be a good, but not great digital camera. So we used the gift enclosure to exchange it straight for the Sony DSC-W1, which was worth the same as the original camera. As luck would have it, the Sony was a camera that qualified us to purchase the Epson CX4600 and then receive enough mail-in rebates to more or less make it a free purchase. Yes, I got a free camera and a free printer this Christmas and I wasn’t even an especially good boy J I wasn’t big on getting the printer, but my wife wouldn’t hear of passing up on something for free. My thinking was that this printer does too much to make it decent at doing anything, especially given its low cost. When we took it home, I didn’t even bother unpacking it until several hours later, such was my disdain towards it. When I finally did unpack it, I inserted all the ink cartridges, which was easy enough for one who has inserted countless Epson 1270 cartridges over the years. I first shook the cartridges, which is different from the non-shake cartridges for the 1270. As the CX4600 uses a pigment based ink, the pigments are comprised of larger particles than the dye based inks of the 1270. These pigments can settle, hence the shake, rattle and roll prior to insertion into the printer. I didn’t bother hooking up the printer to the computer, as I was going to be doing a home office move and reorganization, so the less wires and connections, the better. Besides which, I had no space to place it in the old office, such is life for one with three printers and three scanners along with too many other peripherals.
My first use of the CX4600 was as a standalone copier, to copy all the receipts for all those rebate forms. Nothing like making a new device pay for itself immediately J
If the CX4600 did nothing else but act as a standalone copier, I’d consider the $100 well worth it, but it can also scan and print, so my initial skepticism was subsiding as I considered just how capable this all-in-one unit was. The one caveat about using the CX4600 as a standalone copier is that there are no settings available to adjust the brightness of the copy. It appears that one can only do so with the CX4600 connected to a computer and using the Epson Smart Panel. One advantage to copying via the computer is that if you have multiple printers, you can scan with the CX4600, but send the print job to another device, such as my HP LaserJet. A nice option if you start to run low on ink or need a fast print, but if you want a color copy, then of course you must use the CX4600 to print, as I’d be loathed to waste my expensive Epson 1270 ink for mere photocopies. The CX4600 ink cartridges run about US $12.50 per color, or $37 for a full set of four. As with most other inkjet printers, you’ll use certain colors faster than others. As of this writing, I’ve seen a bit more magenta and yellow ink used than cyan with black appearing to still be full. I’ve only used it moderately for some copy work, as well as about a dozen 4x6 and letter sized prints for testing.
Even the cheapest flatbed scanner can resolve more dust and grime on the print than you want and the CX4600 did an excellent job in revealing how dusty my sample print was. So, the scanner mode seems as good as the older Epson 1200, up to its resolution limits. For those who do need a good flatbed, I’d highly recommend one with Digital ICE to save much time touching up all the dust. Currently, only Epson and Microtek offer ICE capable flatbeds, but I believe Canon also offers a flatbed with their similar to ICE, FARE technology. Look for the units that offer ICE for both prints and film, such as the Epson 4870 and the Microtek i700.
My biggest curiosity was for the CX4600’s printing capabilities. Is this modestly priced printer capable of backing up my Epson 1270? This isn’t idle speculation either, as I have been wondering just how much longer my 1270 was going to last for earlier this year when it seemed like every print session required multiple cleaning cycles to clear up troublesome clogs. I read somewhere that increased cleaning cycles was one of the signs that an inkjet printer would soon die. However, after passing by that annoying period in the summer and after some cartridge changes, the 1270 seems to have regained a new lease on life and I’ve not had to do any cleaning cycles, but I still do a nozzle check before any major printing job, just to play it safe. The other curiosity about the CX4600 is the use of DURABrite inks, a variant of Epson’s Ultrachrome pigment ink used in the company’s best printers. Epson has offered pigment inks in entry-level printers for several years, going back to the original C80 printer. The fly in the ointment though is the use of only four inks of CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and blacK). Photo quality inkjet printers really came into their own when six inks were used instead of four. Epson added a light magenta and light cyan to the four original colors to provide superior color rendition and tonality. Since the use of six inks, Epson and Canon have upped the ante to eight colors, with red, green, light yellow, and light black thrown in for various combinations, based on the brand and printer. Additionally, the picolitre has dropped from four to as low as one in some printers. The picolitre specification defines how small the droplets of ink the printer can spray on the paper. The smaller the picolitre the superior the tonality and apparent “photo-like” quality of the prints. Some printer reviewers like to use a loupe to check out how good the continuous tone quality is, but I think that’s getting a wee bit too anal for prints that are supposed to be viewed from a comfortable distance. The CX4600 has a variable picolitre with a low of 3 picolitres, which is nothing tremendous in this day and age, but still pretty decent for a low cost printer. I used a few different images to test the printer out, from a landscape with a good spread of continuous tones, to an outdoor still life of pumpkins and squash, to some people shots. I printed the pumpkin image first and straight off, I was thinking, this is good, this is very good except for a pronounced saturation that isn’t what I see on the monitor.
All the other images followed the same pattern of looking fairly good for resolution and detail, but with a boost in color saturation. Kind of like going from Fuji Astia to Fuji Velvia film and in some cases, resembling a cross processed look. I used Epson Photo Glossy Paper for most of my tests, since it is one of the handful of papers offered in the Epson printer settings for the CX4600. I also have a custom 1270 printer profile for this paper, for easy comparison. My monitor is calibrated with the ColorVision Spyder 2 and SpyderPro software. Based on my system configuration and profiling, I’d say the canned profiles offered by Epson for the CX4600 are not very accurate. The boosted color saturation is possibly Epson’s way of catering to the “unwashed” masses that are most likely to buy this all-in-one device, as opposed to photographers who desire accurate colors. That last point is just idle speculation on my part, but my first thoughts were that with some good custom profiles, the CX4600 might just sing instead of warble.
The CX4600 came with 20 sheets of 4x6 Epson paper. 10 sheets were Photo Glossy Paper specially formulated for the DURABrite inks and 10 sheets of regular Photo Glossy Paper. If you look at the two papers closely, you can see that the regular Photo Glossy Paper has a more pronounced texture to it than the one for the DURABrite ink. The smoother finish of the DURABrite paper definitely helped to reduce the grain seen in the regular Photo Glossy Paper, but still a touch off the finer tonality offered by the 1270. With regular Photo Glossy Paper, the 1270 prints offered greater shadow detail and where the image goes totally black, the 1270 prints offered a deeper and richer black. Keep in mind that the 1270 profile used to print the images was created with a $2000 GretagMacbeth Eye-One Photo profiling package (sadly, not owned by me). The CX4600 prints had less reflection than the prints from the 1270. It’s as if the DURABrite ink was a coating on top of the paper whereas the 1270 dye ink soaked into the paper and becomes one with it. No Zen BS offered here, just reporting what I see. I won’t be getting into different paper types such as swellable papers, porcelain finish, matte and how they interact with different ink types; however, I will mention another aspect of what I saw from the CX4600 prints. Pigment inks are known to bronze with glossy papers. Bronzing is a reflective sheen seen in certain parts of the print when viewed at an oblique angle to a light source and I did see some on the Photo Glossy Paper. When I did this check I also noticed scuff marks on the prints, which was curious as I was certainly not rough in handling the prints. I stacked them, moved them around on my desk, viewed one after another, in other words, just normal handling, as I’ve done countless times with prints from the 1270, but I’ve never noticed such marks on the 1270 prints. This gives me some concern that the DURABrite ink is not very robust and requires the white glove treatment and separator tissue sheets between prints if stacking. This kind of print quality with glossy paper might be okay with the consumer off the street, but it isn’t acceptable to me as a serious photographer. But, before condemning the CX4600 outright as a photo quality printer, I remembered that few people have reported any sort of satisfaction with pigment inks and glossy papers. The Epson pigment printers are generally considered excellent with matte papers, so I took another look at the matte paper prints, but to my dismay, I notice some scuffing on them too, albeit much less than on the Photo Glossy Paper prints. I ran a fingernail lightly across the CX4600 and 1270 matte prints and saw that the CX4600 was much more pronounced for the mark. By this point I’m beginning to be less impressed by the CX4600 as a photo printer and no longer see it as viable backup solution for the 1270, but I’m also having doubts about any pigment based printer. Now, one experience with a low cost pigment printer cannot provide me with the true performance aspects of Epson’s best printers, but I’m not encouraged at the prospects of spending two-grand or more for my once dreamed of Epson 4000.
A quick review of a fact sheet on DURABrite inks from Epson revealed what I had thought, that the pigment ink does indeed sit on top of the paper rather than soak in as dye inks do. Epson claims that this pigment layer allows the prints to be resistant to smudges, moisture, and light. Unfortunately, I could not find a lifespan figure for the DURABrite inks, but I think Epson's claims are more marketing BS based on my limited experience with the CX4600. Print times for the CX4600 printing a 40 MB TIFF file from Photoshop took 14 minutes from the time I clicked on the Print button in the Epson preview screen to the time the print fell onto the pull out tray. By comparison, the Epson 1270 took just over 11 minutes for the same image. The CX4600 offers borderless printing and a 4x6 print took 3.5 minutes to produce. Not exactly blistering speed and nowhere near threatening the speeds offered by Canon printers, even from their entry-level models. I produced all prints in Best Photo mode with ICM turned on. I could certainly tweak the settings to produce a more neutral looking print, but the days of me tweaking and printing many samples are over. It’s not worth my time and money, especially for the CX4600 output. So, I guess I’ve more or less condemned the CX4600 as a photo printer, but I don’t want to make too much of the faults that I see in the print quality because most of it only applies to the Photo Glossy Paper. While I suspect other glossy papers to be of similar quality, or lack thereof, pigment inks do better with matte papers anyway and I have less quibbles with such prints. I would also highly recommend that users only print with the DURABrite Photo Glossy Paper if they want some glossy prints. Many serious photographers choose to print on matte paper anyway, so the bronzing and scuffing seen in the glossy papers is of no concern, but amateur and consumer photographers are likely to be less taken by matte paper prints. Consumers would want what represents the closest match to what they get back from the one-hour mini-lab and rightly or wrongly, that means glossy prints. If someone were to ask me my opinion on the efficacy of these all-in-one printers, I’d suggest that they get sample prints with some of their own photos on the type of paper they would use most often to ensure that the quality met their standards. As for me, I no longer see the CX4600 as a photo printer, but as a decent scanner, copier and general purpose color printer. In that regard, I still think it offers great value for the money given its low price and it’s an especially great deal for me because of all the rebates I get back for it. Update - I forgot to mention one little caveat for those that have multiple Epson printers in their system, don't try printing two jobs at once. I had a job printing on the CX4600 and then I thought what the heck, I'd try sending the same print to the 1270. Way bad. Something happened that I had never seen happen before with Windows XP or its predecessor Windows 2000, it crashed. It wasn't even a blue screen of death kind of crash, but a total system reboot on its own kind of crash. I had to reinstall the 1270 drivers in an attempt to get it recognized again and meanwhile my printer ports got messed up and I spent about 30 minutes trying to figure things out. I regained functionality in all three connected printers, but my 1270 is not 100 percent with a missing Status Monitor and a lingering communications error window whenever a print job is happening. |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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To
be honest, this was not a printer I had any intention of owning
and using. It’s an entry-level, multipurpose printer that is close
to being a hydra, but not quite there due to the lack of ability
to act as a standalone fax machine. It offers scanning and standalone
copying capabilities as well as basic color printing. The CX4600
can also act as a memory card reader and facilitates printing
directly from all of the most common cards such as compact flash,
SD and Memory Stick.
The
CX4600 below my HP LaserJet 6L >>
As
I began copying, I warmed up to the CX4600 thanks to the ability
to do some pretty good quality copies in B&W or color. I’ve
never enjoyed the ability to do copies at home so quickly and
easily, despite already having a flatbed scanner and several printers
in house. The CX4600 makes it child’s play with just a single
button copy function. No, it’s not as fast as a full blown office
copier, but would you really expect something that costs just
over $100 and is at least two-dozen times smaller than those multi
$10,000 behemoths to do so? Of course not.
I
don’t have much to say about the scanner itself, as I generally
do not use my flatbed much at all since getting a couple of dedicated
35mm film scanners. It offers an optical resolution of 600 ppi,
which is quite plenty for flat art or print scanning. A photo
print is not likely to have anymore than about 300 ppi of real
data to scan, so anything more is just increasing the file size
and end print size capability, not resolving anymore detail.
As
briefly mentioned, the CX4600 offers direct printing capabilities
from its memory card slots, or it can act as a memory card reader
for the computer. I tried out the direct printing feature by copying
an existing file to a Memory Stick, but the quality was not very
good compared to printing the image via Photoshop and a color
managed environment, even if it is the inadequate Epson ICM profiles.
Then
I compared the CX4600 prints to ones made with the 1270 and other
than the saturation difference, I again thought the low cost printer
was holding up well. However, when I came to a print of yours
truly holding a 
