Photo EX vs Stylus 740
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Let me start with this comparison first: When first viewing the printouts from both these printers, it is not immediately apparent which printer is better. Looking at certain areas of a printout, the 740 appeared to be better, offering colour and detail which looks almost too good for words. After all, it is only a 4 colour printer as opposed to the EX. However, in the final analysis, the Photo EX still showed that it deserved to be crowned the title of Epson's best photo-realistic printer. The EX shined in reproducing colour tones and areas of light colour. Have a look at the following comparison of:-

Can you see that the light colour of the sky has a more noticeable dithering pattern in the 740 print. The EX print handles the light coloured sky with aplomb. The EX however, looked slightly grainier (see the colour of the sea and the road. The smaller dot size of the 740 does have its advantages after all.

Photo EX, 740, Old Stylus Photo: Reproduction of light colours
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To expand on the above comparison, I now add the old Photo and HP Photosmart to the fray with particular emphasis on the printers ability to reproduce light colours.

You should be able to see that both the old Photo and 740 render the light sky area with noticeable dot patterns. The Photo EX can't be beaten in this aspect as the dither pattern used is very even and dots are not so noticeable. Detail is about the same on all (even the old Photo which is only a 720 dpi printer). Although the HP Photosmart is only a 300 dpi printer, it uses 6 inks and does a good job of rendering the sky. Almost no visible dots. This is attributed to the way it uses the 6 inks, apparently the Photosmart lays down 6 dots in one location unlike the Epsons which represent the various hues of colour by laying out dots in a grid (ie side by side) to give the impression of different colours. 

However, the HP Photosmart does exhibit a 'grid-like' dithering pattern which shows up here and there. Have a look at the sample which shows this effect somewhat. The effect can be seen more clearly in the actual printout as compared to the scan.

Despite the 'grid' pattern, the HP Photosmart does perform awesomely for a 300dpi resolution printer. In fact, other than the grid pattern seen above, you will find that the Photosmart prints are very photo-like and that dots are hard to see even when staring closely at the printout. As mentioned above, this has to do with the way it represents colour (laying multiple dots of colour on one spot) which is different from the method used by Epson (using a notional grid wherein dots of different colours are laid out in a pattern using error diffusion). Check out also Michael Greer's comparison* of the Photosmart and the Old Stylus Photo and his postings on this topic (do a search in Dejanews). Goes to show that photo realism is not merely a matter of resolution.
 

Colour
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I noticed that the colour of the 740 was much too blue. In comparison, the EX managed to give more accurate colours despite appearing slightly grainer in the scan samples above. Have a look at the following comparison of the 740 and the Photo EX as well, this time testing the capability of the printers to reproduce flesh tones.

First, let's look at the 740 pitting against the EX/700:-

Now, let's look at the HP Photosmart, the Stylus Photo and finally the Stylus 640:-

 

The 740, 640 and the old Stylus Photo exhibit the 5 o'clock shadow effect (explained below). Neither the EX nor the HP Photosmart showed the 5 o'clock shadow effect at all. For those really particular about their colour, the fact that the 740 displays the 5 o'clock shadow (it's very slight) may be enough to put it out of contention as a photo-printer. Personally,  I found the printout from the 740 quite crisp and contrasty (maybe artificially so, ie boosted) whilst that of the EX was less so. Whether this is good or bad would depend on whether you are into accurate colours or colours which just look nice.  The flesh tones in  the EX printout was also slightly more 'pink' (ie less warm).

Another intesesting observation is that the EX printout looks grainy when examined at this enlargement (300%) compared to the 740. The 740 did however, display the  '5 o-clock shadow' effect. Despite lacking the refinement of the EX when it comes to reproducing light tones, the 740 is very impressive. Variable dot size inkjet printing is certainly the way to go! At first I thought there was something wrong with my scanner when the EX looked grainier so I did rescans. After 3-4 rescans, I decided that the scans were infact reflective of how the prints looked. When not viewed at high enlargements, the graininess is less an issue so bear that in mind.

If you can't get enough of scan samples, here are some which you can look at. Just click on the scans of your choice:-

1. Comparison of Stylus Photo, EX, 740 and HP Photosmart;
2. More 740 vs EX;
 

The 5 o'clock shadow effect
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The '5 o'clock shadow' effect basically refers to the presence of dark coloured dots in light areas of the printout. When you see it appearing in skin tones, it looks like the subject has not shaved! The 640 exhibits this effect quite prominently. The EX on the other hand is completely free of this effect despite the fact that it looks grainer in some areas in the above scan comparison. The grainer appearance could be a scanner problem, as looking at the printouts doesn't immediately give one the impression that the EX printout is grainer. As mentioned, in the light areas of the print, the 740 is clearly grainer with the 5 o'clock shadow effect fairly obvious. In the light sky areas above, you can see that the 740 has a dithering pattern which is obvious to the naked eye (2-3 inches from the printout). "Overall, the colour depth of the 740 looks somewhat lacking compared to the EX but it is likely to please most people given that it appears more contrasty and crisper as a result.

The absence of the 5 o'clock shadow effect was one of the reasons I decided to go with the EX when I bought it since reproduction of good flesh tones is obviously one area a photo-realistic printer has to shine in. I have to add that the EX/700 has a slight tendency towards a subtle banding which I have written about in some of my earlier postings to the newsgroups. This subtle banding is best described as 'micro-banding' which can be eliminated or reduced with some tweaking. More on this micro-banding in another article when time permits. For those who may be worried about the microbanding on EX/700, let me stress that it is very very slight and if you have not noticed it in any EX samples you have seen so far, then you need not be too bothered. It did not stop me from buying the EX even though I noticed it before i bought the EX (ie when I was testing the EX). The 740 does not appear to have this tendency towards micro-banding although I can't be sure with just the few printouts I have.

Speed
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As I did not do any benchmarking of the relative speeds of the printers, can't really comment on this point. However, here's Peter Chen's posting in the newsgroups (date -29 Sep 1998):-

"I owned both, 740 is slower than 700 when printing photo at 1440dpi, here are the numbers:

Test System:
Intel PII 300MHz
64MB SDRAM
Adaptec AHA-2940UW SCSI controller
4.5GB Seagate ST34572N 7200rpm ultra SCSI disk
LPT1 set to EPP
10 feet IEEE 1284 cable
6 feet USB cable
Windows 98

TEXT

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Text, 1 page document under Word 97 SR-1, Plain paper, Fine - 720dpi, No
halftoning and High speed off

Epson Stylus Color 740 (USB): 1:22
Epson Stylus Color 740 (Parallel): 1:21
Epson Stylus Photo 700 (Parallel): 2:40

PHOTOS

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Photo, 6.4in (W)x5.12in (H) @ 200ppi, 24-bit color under PaintShop Pro 5.01,
Printer setting: Photo paper,
Superfine - 1440dpi, Microwave on , Error diffusion on and High speed off

Epson Stylus Color 740 (USB): 5:06 (spool file size ~25MB)
Epson Stylus Color 740 (Parallel): 11:08 (spool file size ~25MB)
Epson Stylus Photo 700 (Parallel): 4:58 (spool file size ~16MB)."

USB on the 740 looks like a pretty fast alternative when printing photos! Times for printing were  halfed on the 740!

Conclusion
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As mentioned in my first paragraph, your choice of printer is dependant principally on your intended purpose and budget. With that in mind, here are some of my conclusions:-
 

Purpose/Intended Use	Recommendations	Comments	Price (S$)
The best photo-realistic printer	Photo 700/EX	The Photo 700/Ex is still the best out there with the 740 very closely at its heel.	$440 (700) $860 (EX)
A3 Photo-realistic printing	Epson Photo EX	For this size, this is the only game in town at the moment. So no difficulty recommending this. Even the HP Photosmart is limited to A4 size.	$860
General printing needs  with occasional photo-realistic printing	740	With larger black ink cart and the very impressive variable dot technology, this printer is likely to be a definite crowd pleaser. Check out whether the 740's speed is acceptable to you.	$530
Budget photo-realisting printing	Stylus Photo	You can still find the now out of production Stylus Photo on the cheap (online shopping mostly). It uses the same ink carts as the Photo 700/EX so no worries about consumable running out of production.	(n/a)

note: Those of you who are bothered by the pizza wheel tracks (see PrintTips section) should know that the 740 uses the the starwheel roller wheels as well. Hence the dreaded tracks are still there.

740 wins hands down in terms of print quality. I did not evaluate print speeds. See the following comparison:-

The 640 has the dreaded 5 o'clock shadow effect in the flesh tones. Looks as if the girl in the picture did not shave. The 740 exhibited the effect less prominently but it was still there (although the scan above may not show it). This is where obtaining a test printout yourself is very helpful so that you can evaluate for yourself whether this effect is acceptable to you for your purposes. Comparison to the 740 aside, the 640 is no push-over. With it's low price, the 640 is excellently positioned as a home printer. Text was sharp and photo-realistic printing was quite good actually.