Features
The 1400 offers 5,760x1,440dpi, with a minimum ink droplet size of 1.5 picolitres. As usual, Epson offers a wide array of photo papers for use with the 1400, and even has some strange options, such as its Iron-on Cool Peel Transfer paper and Photo Quality Self Adhesive Sheets.
One thing that hasn't changed is the expense incorporated with buying ink. Each of the six ink cartridges will set you back about £10. So, expect to lay out some cash if you print a lot. Of course, if you were looking for cheap prints, you'd just order your 6x4s from some online processor anyway.
Some Apple users may be disappointed to see that the 1400 doesn't include a FireWire connection. Of course, since it includes a high-speed USB 2.0 jack, there should be no real loss of speed as long as you have a compatible port on your computer.
Performance
We were impressed with the prints we got from the 1400. Colours were generally accurate and the printer did a fine job of preserving detail in both very bright and very dark areas of our images. Of course, the brightness of the whites and the depth of black will vary based on the paper you choose.
Epson seems to be paying quite a lot of attention lately to how it lays its ink down on paper. The 1400 yielded impressively smooth transitions through all but the most difficult colour transitions offered up by the out-of-focus areas of some of our test photos.
Also, since these Claria inks don't offer the same level of metameric regularity as Epson's UltraChromeK3 inks, we weren't surprised to see a mild amount of colour shift when viewing the photos under different light sources. However, the shifts were very minor, and if you plan to display your images in a space that's illuminated by a single light source, this shouldn't pose a problem.
Our biggest issue with the 1400 is its black and white performance. Since it doesn't include the light-black and light-light-black cartridges that the R2400 and some other Epson printers do, the 1400 creates some shades of grey by creating composites of the five other colours. As a result, it can be difficult to achieve a true neutral black and white print. We typically saw a slight cyan cast when we printed black and white images we knew were neutral to begin with.
Since it's not meant to be an office printer, it should come as no surprise that it doesn't hold a candle to the print speeds you'd get from a laser printer and can't match the crispness of fonts that you'd get from a document printer. In its photo-printing speed, it ranks squarely average. We were able to print a bordered 10x8-inch photo on A4 paper in about 1 minute 55 seconds.
Conclusion
As we've come to expect, Epson's service and support is top-notch. It's available to buy for around £260.
Additional editing by Jon Squire
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