As most EX owners would know, pixellation is evident in lighter areas. The pixels that are visible on the Photo EX printout are, in comparison to those of the Photo 750 and the Stylus 900, noticeably larger.

• near continous tone. renders light areas with aplomb. Truly Amazing!
• virtually no dots are visible: not even after staring really close at the printout

• Pizza tracks still there. Yup, they are there.

Settings Used
Quality Slider : Maximum
Photo 1440 dpi
Microweave : On
High Speed : Off
Color Adjustment : All at "+0"
Half Toning : Error Diffusion.
Printable Area : Standard
Driver Version : 4.50

1Detail and Visibility of ink dots
Tried as I might, I could not detect any ink dots whatsover in 98% (approximately) of the printout. Only in a small portion of the printout (the remaining 2%) was there some very slight evidence of visible dots and even then, the ink dots are barely noticeable. If you are out to find faults with the printout from the Photo 750 on Glossy Film, you will be very dissappointed. Detail is superb with the printout looking very sharp. If you thought ink dots can't be seen on the  Photo EX output, out put from the Photo 750 and 900 will make you rexamine your appraisal of the EX.

2Smoothness of coverage
Superb. No 5 o’clock shadow effect whatsoever, even in light areas. The output on Glossy Film has virtually continous tone. The Photo 750 is a touch better than the  900 in this respect. In short, both the Photo 750 and 900 are in a league of their own in this respect. In fact, if someone were to describe the output from the Photo 750 or even the Stylus 900 (on the Glossy Film) as 'continous tone', I would not really argue with such a description. 

The Metallic parts of the watch are rendered very well. The shine of the metal has been reproduced effortlessly.

Well until Sutjahjo's reprint and for what it's worth,here's my preliminary view on the 900 printout (ie at 720dpi and High Speed on):-

• excellent detail
• no banding or microbanding at all. The error diffusion used is remarkable in the way it simulates the different shades/tones of color without resulting in any obvious dithering pattern.
• The printout looks grainer than the Photo 750 but the sort of graininess is not the same as what you could see of say the Stylus 640 or even the 740. I could not see individual dots of CYMK though I would still say that the term "grainy" describes the 900 printout. It short, the graininess detected is of dots of different shades/tones and not of CYMK dots like that seen on older inkjets like the 640. I can't really explain it any other way than to say that the graininess on the 900 is 'photographic', ie say that the Photo 750 printout looks like photos developed from ASA 100 film, then in comparison, the 900 printout looks like photos developed from ASA 200 film. David Chien's description (see below) is that there is an appearance of "fine powder".

With the older Styluses (eg the Stylus 640), you get the 5 O'clock shadow effect. (See my previous Shoot-out article which has some further comments on this effect) The 900 does not have this problem as it manages to give very smooth coverage, even in light areas. 

Settings Used
Quality Slider : Maximum
Photo - 720dpi (!)
Microweave : On
High Speed : On (!)
Half Toning : Error Diffusion.
Finest Detail : On (*)
Half Toning : Error Diffusion
Printable Area : Standard
Driver Version : 4.51

• Pizza tracks still there.

Impression: the ‘fine dust’ effect of the grain of the output at 720dpi is no longer evident in the printout on both the  Glossy Film and New Epson Photo Paper ("Photo Paper") at 1440 dpi. I would say that the printout was superb and certainly looked better than what the Photo EX is capable of. Here are my detailed comments on the 1440dpi output on Glossy Film:-

1440 dpi on Glossy Film

1Detail and Visibility of Ink dots
Dots can hardly be seen. Detail is superb. If you stare real hard, some very-very fine dots can be seen in some the lighter shades. However, the dots are very minute and are only visible upon staring closely.  Where the Photo 750 had pixelation (ie a reference to visible ink dots)  in approximately 2% of the printout, the 900 had perhaps 8% pixelation (as an approximation). Overall, it was superb and to the uninformed consumer, I doubt if they can pick out which is which. In fact, the only tell-tale signs were that the 900’s printout had slightly different colours (less saturated) from the Photo 750.

Dots are evident only in areas of light colors. In this respect, the Photo 750 is slightly better as it is able to give very smooth coverage even in light areas. The difference however between the Photo 750 and Stylus 900 is not that of night and day. In fact, so slight is the difference that it would probably be lost on most users. The dots that are visible are themselves very very fine so even if detectable at all, the overal visual effect is not that of a defect, rather one can even mistake the visible dots (whihc are very fine) as a feature or artefact of the source image itself.

However, without more testing, I can't really comment on whether the Photo 750 has better detail than the 900. I guess more testing will have to be done later.

2Smoothness of coverage
The Stylus 900 output is superior to the output of the Photo EX in this respect. There is definitely an impression of virtually continous tone with the Stylus 900 at 1440dpi. In comparison to the Stylus 900 output at 720 dpi, 1440 dpi is quite a step up in terms of it's ability to render continous tone. Given that pixelation is less evident, coverage is smoother as well giving the effect of virtually continous tone. The Photo 750 is a touch better than the  900 in this respect. 

1440 dpi on Photo Paper
The above comments are still valid in respect of the 1440dpi output on Photo Paper though it is clear that output on Glossy Film is superior than that on the Photo Paper. The image has a 'tighter' look (ie the grain, when it is visible, appears to be finer) on Glossy Film.

Plain paper output.
The improvements in plain paper printing are fantastic!I managed to see some plain paper printing done by the 900 and it is superb: very sharp with some negligible bleeding (usually text). What is remarkable is the coverage of large areas with color, eg a colored backdrop, is so smooth it is truly a sight to behold. Web pages never looked so good.  The finese exhibited by this printer on plain paper is a feat in itself.  Sutjahjo has more to say on the plain paper out put (see below). 
 

However, in large areas of smooth color gradiants, the new 900 printer beats even the 700/EX & 740 models in smoothness of coverage and minimized visible dots. You must look very close and even then, the dots look like a coating of fine dust rather than the 'clearly' visible and distinguishable dots of all printer past. The dot sizes have dropped to the level where they are not 'harsh' nor 'irritating' as with larger dots from other printers. 

Gray and silver color scales and color renditions are very accurate and near high-quality magazine prints in terms of  quality resolution.  Overall impression at almost all standard viewing distances (beyond the 4.5" I started to see dots) is one of high quality and immediate awe, and that of the viewing seeing a photo or press proof and not an inkjet print.  This 4-color printer would work well in printing photos of static still lifes, architecture and such.  At up-close viewing distances, the 'fine dust' effect appears however as mentioned above in certain areas, though  without prior knowledge, you may well think it's part of the orignal image itself. >>>>>

This is not to say there can be no further improvment.  Direct comparision to high-quality magazine cover prints show that the minimum dot sizes on magazines are on the order of at least 4x-6x smaller than the 3pl. dots of the Epson 900 under 30x magnification.  Also, on the other end, maximum dot sizes of magazine prints exceed the 900 by several times, allowing for full coverage of colored areas without any white paper show through from underneath and more even coverage of single colored areas.  Finally, the gamut of tradition print inks far exceeds that of inkjet printer inks, and they're waterproof (color inkjet inks are not). 

Output on standard plain paper remains equal to other Epson printers -- thus, you'll see bleeding across different brands of plain papers, more so than the better plain text HP inkjet printers.  Once on inkjet or better paper, all output is sharp, well-defined, and vividly colorful- David Chien

Read David's
Updated Inkjet Printer Review 

After lunch that day with Sutjahjo, I asked 2 secretaries from my office which printout they thought was the best. One secretary could not for the life of her tell the difference between the various printouts. My secretary on the other hand (a proud owner of the Stylus 640 herself) was getting quite adept at 'staring' at printouts due to my influence (!) and took barely 5 seconds to pronounce the 750 the best, the 900 2nd best and the Photo EX last (due greatly to the microbanding). Reason she gave:- the Photo 750 had "no dots at all" whilst the 900 had "some very-very fine dots" and the Photo EX "has lots of lines running across it". 

Finally, just one comment on color reproduction:- all three printouts had slightly different color which is hardly unexpected given that different drivers are involved. Some tweaking will be necessary.

FINAL RANKING
Here's my ranking (purely subjective) of the 3 printers based on scores (out of 100) I would give to each printer just on detail and ability to render continous tone (I have excluded color accuracy since I can't really tell have accurate the respective printers are with the printouts I have):-
 

Printer	Score
1Photo 750	83
2Stylus 900	78
3Photo EX	70

"An alternate viewpoint: As a layman who is keen on this subject, I would like to add my 2 cents worth to Kok Leong's very well observed write-up. There is no doubt that 750 prints the best photograph, with 900 amazingly close in the test. and despite a microbanding EX problem that was judged by Kok Leong to be atypical (I believe him), I think there is no doubt that both new printers are an obvious improvements over the 700/EX. both in terms of photo quality and colour saturation.

I couldn't believe that the realism of the shine reflected by the gold watch in the ultimate Photo 750 and the fantastic Stylus 900, was way better than the already great EX. While Kok Leong feels that he could improve the color saturation by tweaking the EX driver. the layman in me is won over immediately by the more realistic and saturated colour of the 750 and 900, both with color adjustment set to "automatic" mode and without any other colour adjustment in the printer drivers and PhotoPaint 8. Perhaps the only consistent negative point remaining in 750 and 900 is the 'Pizza Wheel'.

A visit to a local Computer Superstore over the weekend made it obvious that with a good media, Epson is obviously superior to any other inkjet competitors. I visited "Challenger Superstore" where there are booths for Lexmark, Epson & HP printers. There are many printers and sample demo prints in various media on display and I walked through each booth, talked, inspected, asked questions and tested one or two models, pretending to be very interested to buy one of the printers. I paid very close attention with the printout quality of various media and it surprises me that I could detect much lower photographic quality that the competitors to Epson were producing, are compared to even the 700/EX. Grain and colour saturation were the obvious problems with them.

After playing and using the 750 & 900 for a full week from 22nd. March 1999, strangely, the 750 that printed the almost perfect quality photo wasn't the one that excited me a lot. I noticed that I am spending more and more time with the incredible 900. Almost as good as the 750 in terms of photo printing, 900 really shines in its speed and the quality of plain paper printouts. Pages and pages of webpages being printed continuously in full glory of its colours, with sharp text and in highest speed you will see in any inkjets (rated 12ppm, although I'll give it much less in real webpages printouts). Using 80gsm generic Indonesian Photo copy papers, the ink bleeding in text is obvious (worse than lasers) but slightly better than its major competitors in this aspect (my weekend Challenger visit confirms that). What is amazing is the continuous colour tone of background with no small white dots, banding...Gradient etc.yellow will print as smooth yellow, light blue background will print as a continuous big areas of light blues. Truly a new breakthrough in terms of plain paper inkjet printing. While 750 is still the best photo printers, 900 makes you want to get out and buy another 900 right now, even if I have no use for another 900. And it feels great!"- Sutjahjo