I'm in the market for a 17" printer. I've been going back and forth over the pro's and cons of Epson's 4880 and 4900. I've spent the last few years working with both an Epson 9880 and a 9900 in a lab. I've had successes with both, but overall,I find that the 9900 is a little inconsistent. I've noticed that the humidity has to be just right to avoid uneven drying, and the platen gap has to be constantly adjusted to avoid streaks. (these two things only occur with larger prints regularly.) When these factors are just right, the 9900 makes great prints, fast. These problems don't seem to affect our 9880 as much. Although its a little slower, the results are a lot more consistent. I can see some difference in how the surface of the ink appears between the two, but they're very, very similar. I'm not sure the orange and green in the 9900 really add more to the prints either visually or actually as they almost never need to be replaced.

In short, I'm sure that either of these would be fine for my purposes, but I'm really looking to see if anyone out there has had hands on experience with the 4900 under normal use. I've used 4880's before, and liked them very much. I'm curious if these issues I mentioned above with the 9900, occur with the 4900. Any advice is much appreciated.

Thanks,

Al Harding