As someone who came from the retail side of the computer business, it’s easy to forget that Epson isn’t just dot-matrix printers and entry-level inkjets. Truly, Epson is one of the most visible brands in our DIY-enamored local PC market, and its most popular products are the entry-level and the utilitarian imaging products. The launch held on January 30, ’09 at the Robinson’s Crowne Plaza Hotel was centered on something very much unlike those printers available for a few thousand bucks at Greenhills. The Epson Stylus Pro 7900 and 9900 were the stars of the show, and they display a totally different side of Epson we rarely get to see.

Large format for the large business - the majority of the attendees were from large companies.

The Epson Stylus Pro 7900 and 9900 (24-inch and 44-inch printouts respectively) are Epson’s first 10-color printers able to print all 10 colors simultaneously. In addition to the 10 colors, Epson also went and improved the Micro Piezo print head technology – Epson’s proprietary print head technology is able to print up to 2880 dots in a square inch using 360 nozzles per inch. This results in an increased printing speed – Epson quotes a 40 square meter number, a number that I frankly can’t comment on, as I am far more used to seeing “pages per minute” when it comes to these print-speed descriptions.

Epson executives posing with their latest professional printer, the Stylus 7900, after its unveiling.                              

Regardless, what I can understand is another quoted figure from Epson: less than 5 minutes to print to a single 720 x 720 dpi A1 size piece of paper. That’s half a square meter, or 16 A4 sheets, usually in full color and covering a large percentage of the paper area, in less than 5 minutes – a remarkable speed especially for a large printer.

HDR, while reminiscent of display appliances with their incessant race for pushing pixels, refer here to the ink qualities of Epson's new UltraChrome ink.                      

As important, or perhaps even more important, is the ink technology that makes up the blood of the Epson Stylus body. In this area, Epson did not neglect to continue developing its technology and improve on previous efforts – Epson’s confidence with their newly developed ink technology enables them to name it UltraChrome HDR – with emphasis on the last three letters. So now it’s not only with display devices and multimedia appliances where this moniker can be applied, now inks are joining in too.

Printing materials also displayed during the launch.                                        

With good reason – this high-density resin-coated pigment ink delivers excellent tonal gradation from shadows to highlights, plus highly accurate color control. These inks are manufactured under stringent consistency requirements, and Epson takes pains in ensuring the precision and consistency of its inks, providing items such as the “Look Up Table” (LUT) and an optional spectrophotometer. Epson also takes into account the versatility of printing with their increased-capacity cartridges – 350 and 700ml cartridges are available).

The 7900's predecessor displays some work samples - already excellent as far as the untrained eye can discern.                                  

Witnessing the unveiling of this technologically dazzling Epson printer were representatives from large packaging, pre-press and advertising companies, all of whom put up interesting questions regarding consumables availability, service and support, and print-quality comparability to the exacting standards of many printing clients. The participants, not to mention the press, came away suitably impressed with the answers. Epson’s reputation works well for the acceptance of this printer – the reasonable prices of P270k and P400k for the 7900 and 9900 respectively doesn’t hurt either.

Five displays, one of them mounted on the surface of the "table", looks more impressive than many gaming machines.

The venue also showed off equipment usually required for ensuring proper print quality and color, including stuff that looked like they came direct from an artist’s or animator’s workbench, ala Pixar. Jars of inks, cleaners, printing supplies, rolls of paper, reference color flash cards – all the paraphernalia surrounding professional color printing were present during the event, seemingly welcoming the newest overlord of quality to come from Epson’s research labs.

Epson’s image as providers of affordable, consumer-centered products just took a break – the professional printing equipment are obviously the wellspring from which many of the “trickle-down technology we see at the retail level comes from – this is another side of Epson that only further underlines Epson’s commitment to the customer, whether that customer be the mom-and-pop store printing out the daughter’s 3rd-grade art project, or the large printing press requiring an accurate pre-press imager for the utmost quality preview of their work. With the Epson Stylus 7900 and 9900, we are reminded that Epson’s breadth doesn’t just extend to Greenhills and Gilmore. More pictures to follow.

The most important quality aspects were improved by Epson, using the previous generation as an excellent base.

This slide shows us the evolution of Epson's printing technology.

Epson has reason to be proud of their "HDR" ink.

This optional attachment is a further check for color consistency.     

The Epson Stylus 7900's target market, of which the assembled guests were representative.

Parting shot.