Who's got an eye for detail ?

Introduction-
With the growing popularity in the digital photography market it's only right that you get an increased in the popularity of home printing solutions.With so many different manufacturers of printers and consumables(printer inks and paper)it pays to choose carefully so you get a product that delivers excellent print results at an affordable cost.
Epson-
.Epson who are probably one of the biggest and most well known of the manufacturers offer a large range of products and invest a lot of time and money in developing well made and tested printing solutions.

What makes a photo printer-
The main difference between a standard printer and photo printer is the number of colour cartridges that the printers use.
Standard printer-These printers will usually have two or three colour cartridges and a black cartridge(sometimes they don't even have a black cartridge but instead use a combination of the colour cartridges to deliver what looks like black).

Photo printer-will have six cartridges to deliver more colour tones and in turn delivering more realistic looking photographic results.
So armed with this information i shopped around and decided on the Epson photo stylus R300.

The R300-
What you have with the epson r300 is a photo printer that you can both use as a printer hooked up to your PC or as a standalone printer that you can use with your digital camera or memory card.

The Specs-
Print quality at up to 5760 optimised dpi
6 colour inks for exceptional photo results
Intellidge ink cartridges for control and economy
printing up to A4 size for photos
Print directly onto printable CDs (also in standalone mode)
Direct printing from a wide range of memory cards**
including CompactFlash® (I & II), xD-Picture Card, Smart
Media,
SD Memory Card, MultiMediaCard, MagicGate Memory Stick,
Memory Stick®, Memory Stick PRO, IBM Microdrive
PictBridge and USB DIRECT-PRINT supported
Bluetooth connectivity for wireless printing (optional)
Epson Print Image Matching II supported for photo
reproduction
Epson PhotoQuicker 3.5 software to enhance and
personalise photos

The build quality-9/10
As you would expect the built quality is good with nice curves and a sturdy outer case and it also looks good

Installation-9/10
As with most USB devices you can simply plug in the connector and windows will automatically detect the device and install the correct drivers(true plug and play which i like),epson also include a CD that contains an impressive software collection for use with the printer more about that later.
Ease of use-9/10
I found both the printer and the software that is supplied with it very easy to use,the instructions were brief and to the point which made the unit easy to learn and get familiar with,the CD also contains all the information you would need to use, maintain and configure the printer.When a cartridge runs out the installed epson software will tell you which cartridge has run out and will even show you how to change and align the replacement cartridge(believe you me i found this feature to be really useful and easy to follow).Loading different sized paper and using the cd tray to print on CD's and DVD's was also very easy to do and once again all the information was included in the epson software.

Print speed and Noise-8/10
This printer was surprisingly quick and quiet when printing,i have seen quicker and quieter printers but this model is a t the budget to mid-range printing solution so both these features have been compromised to a degree but they are at an acceptable level.
The Software-10/10
The bundled software that comes with the printer is both useful and easy to use,the photo editing package was very easy to grasp and the features where quite advanced for a free bit of software.I also liked the epson software that keeps your printer calibrated and lets you know if your print cartridges need changing and also allow you to calibrate and clean the print heads if you need to.

The Prints-10/10
I found the photo print results to be both colourful and vivid and with the right use of photo paper they were easily as good as the prints you would get from a professional mini-lab.I also found that text printing was also of a high standard with text both crisp and very clear.
The ink cartridges-10/10
Another thing i liked about this package is that epson give you full capacity cartridges when you first buy the printer so you don't have to worry about having to replace them straight away.You also have the choice of buying compatible cartridges(these are made by other companies)which can save you a lot of money and make printing large amounts of photo's affordable(having used compatibles myself i have found the results to be of a very high quality).You can buy a full set of cartridges for as little as nine pounds compared to about twenty five pounds for the epson set,quite a big saving.

Direct Printing-9/10
This printer also has slots that will allow you to print direct from you memory card meaning that you do not have to connect this printer to your PC(this is ideal if you already have a printer on your pc and only want to use this occasionally).You have an LCD screen that lets you select the print no(no picture display on this model that would cost you a bit more money should you want one)and how many copies you want.
CD and DVD printing- 9/10
This is a nifty little feature that will allow you to print on Printable disks which id done by means of a tray which loads in the front of the printer.As long as you follow and read the instructions this feature is very simple to use and once again the results are of a high quality.

Summary-
A very impressive printer with excellent print results,low running cost's and a large amount of useful software included for a low price.