Originally Posted by PTravel

It's been a while since I've looked at the market, but a year or two ago, the choice for a serious photo printer came down to Canon (the i9100\9900 series) or Epson (2200, or whatever it's latest iteration might be). Both could do up to a borderless (full-bleed) 13 x 19 print, featuring photographically-accurate color. The latter is an important point -- many of the "consumer" color printers tweak the saturation, which can give a flat, over-exposed picture (typical of consumer point-and-shoot cameras) a more pleasing appearance.

The Canon is faster -- it can produce a full 13 x 19 print in about 4 minutes. The Epson takes far longer -- up to 15 minutes or more. The Canon uses dye-based inks, and the Epson uses pigment based inks, giving the Epson a significant edge on print longevity. A major downside of the Epson for the casual user is that its print heads tend to clog up if the printer isn't used on a regular basis.

I wound up going with the Canon i9100 (now the 9900) which, literally, replaced my chemical color darkroom -- after I got it, I sold my enlarger, color computer, etc. We've bought an Epson 2200 for the office. I can't see any significant difference in the output of the two and, because of speed and clogging issues, I'm glad I got my Canon.

I'd recommend that you go to a store that has the printers you're interested on display, bring a test photograph with which you are very familiar (you can also download test photos from the various camera manufacturers) and ask the salespeople to make a print on each printer in which you're interested. I believe it was Best Buy that did this for though, of course, they were only 4 x 6 prints. Also, make sure that the correct photo paper is used for each printer, and that the printer is correctly set for that paper.

It was on the basis of this kind of comparison that I made my selection of the Canon (and also ruled out an HP wide-carriage printer, which produced an inferior picture).