Hands-On Review: Epson’s SureColor P600 Printer

The photographer John Sexton once said that for him, the “printing process is part of the magic of photography.” Sexton was referring to the darkroom, of course, but with the right tools, we think it’s still possible to rekindle some of the magic from prints in the digital era.

We teamed up with New Jersey photographer David Patiño to see if Epson could pull a rabbit out of its hat with its new SureColor P600 inkjet printer. 

The SureColor P600 boasts a new ink formulation that can produce super long-lasting prints, including monochrome prints that last for up to 400 years.

With the P600, Epson is christening a new eight-color UltraChrome HD ink formulation and a more elegant industrial design. You’ll enjoy a maximum print resolution of 5670 x 1440 with variable droplet sizes as small as 2 picoliters for finely detailed prints. The P600 supports papers up to 13 x 19 inches in size, but using roll media you can crank out a panoramic print that’s up to 10 feet long and 13 inches wide (roll paper holders are included). For fine-art media lovers, the P600 supports papers up to 1.3mm thick through a front-loading sheet feeder. 

The P600 uses nine 25.9ml ink cartridges with automatic switching between Matte and Photo Black. There’s Wi-Fi as well as support for Apple AirPrint and Google Cloud Print wireless printing standards. The P600 retails for $800 and the ink costs $32 per cartridge.

Shortly after our time with the printer, Epson launched the P800, which is identical to the P600 in every respect but the printable width and price. The P800 bumps the width to 17 inches and the price to $1,295. It doesn’t include a roll paper handler—that’s an extra $200. The higher capacity, 80ml ink cartridges for the P800 sell for $60 a pop. 

Image Quality

When announcing the P600, Epson claimed to have made further improvements to black density over previous ink formulations, achieving an L* value of 2 (the lower the number, the deeper the black). We asked Patiño to scour his archive for an image that would really put the P600’s black-printing bona fides to the test. He had just the thing: a woman clad in a black blouse against a black background. On his Apple monitor, the subject’s blouse is just faintly visible against the jet-black background. On paper, it was much the same. The P600 faithfully recreated the image, saturating the background in a deep black while preserving the distinguishing details of the black blouse. 

Monochrome prints were similarly impressive. The printer uses three different black inks (black, light black and light, light black) to deliver excellent contrast across a range of tones. You can choose from one of four black-and-white preset modes (neutral, warm, cool and sepia) to help fine-tune your monochrome prints.

We also ran a series of side-by-sides with Patiño’s Epson Stylus R2880, a precursor to the P600, to see whether Epson had truly delivered upgrade-worthy performance. The difference between the two printers, while subtle, was still noticeable. What stood out for Patiño were the skin tones. In isolation, the R2880’s prints looked perfectly acceptable. Placed next to the P600, however, skin tones from the R2880 took on a slight-but-noticeable magenta cast. The skin tones off the P600 struck us as more natural, while bright colors positively popped off the page. 

A new, 3.5-inch tilt-up display gives you easy access to the P600’s settings. We do wish that 2.7-inch touch screen was a bit bigger, though.

Design

Epson managed to shave a few centimeters from the R2880’s dimensions, making the P600 slightly more compact. The printer interface, however, is dramatically overhauled, with a 3.5-inch tilting control panel on the front replacing the minimalistic row of buttons found on the R2880. The new design is more functional and, esthetically, more attractive.

What We Liked

The print quality exceeded our expectations, but there’s another reason to like the P600: it produces amazingly long-lasting photos. At WPPI, Epson announced that prints produced from the UltraChrome HD ink set on its Premium Luster, Exhibition Fiber and Ultra Smooth Fine Art papers would last for over 200 years if properly stored, citing longevity testing by Wilhelm Imaging Research, an independent research center headed by print permanence expert Henry Wilhelm. 

Shortly after WPPI, Wilhelm had more good news: black-and-white prints created with the UltraChrome HD ink using the SureColor’s advanced black-and-white print mode could hit the 400-year mark if properly stored. While Wilhelm’s torture tests are still ongoing, Epson has said the preliminary results indicate that the new UltraChrome HD inkset is delivering twice the longevity ratings as the previous generation ink, which was no piker in the longevity department to begin with. Bottom line: your Epson prints are going to last for several generations or more. Talk about a keepsake. 

What We Didn’t Like

Paper handling, especially thicker fine-art media through the front-loading tray, could occasionally be a hassle. For 8.5 x 11-inch papers, Patiño said the printer would shift the paper about 20 percent of the time during intake, causing an error message. Larger papers with equal thickness didn’t suffer this fate. 

The 2.7-inch touch-screen display that’s embedded in the 3.5-inch control panel is a bit too small to be useful. While the printer is simple enough to operate, Patiño also felt the driver was a bit convoluted when it came to selecting paper options. Some of the more advanced black-and-white printing options are relegated to another software download, making the workflow more convoluted.

How it Compares

About the only serious competitor to the P600 is Canon’s $700 Pixma Pro-10. The Pro-10 was introduced in 2012, so it’s getting on in years, but it offers a higher resolution print (4800 x 2400 dpi vs. the P600’s 5670 x 1440). The standard ink cartridge for the Pro-10 is 14ml, so it’s smaller than Epson’s, which will mean more frequent swaps. But at $15 per cartridge, you’re getting a better price per milliliter with Canon. A big plus in Epson’s favor is its ability to handle thicker media—it can print on papers up to 1.3mm thick versus just .6mm for the Pro-10—not to mention its longer panoramas and sleeker industrial design.

The bottom line? We don’t think you’d be disappointed with either choice, but suffice it to say we were thoroughly impressed with the print quality of the P600 and think you will be, too.