Brendan

Both the Epson 1290 and S9000 will give very good prints.

I bought a 1290 over a year ago and got a Canon S900 (impulsive buy because I was fed up with the 1290 clogging all the time, and they didn't have an S9000 in the shop).

Pro and cons:
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Epson over Canon:

Epson inks and media are generally more readily available in shops in UK than Canon consumables (apart from cheaper papers/budget printer inks). Not so much an issue if you buy online which is recommended for cost.

The Canon will do 6x4", A4 and A3 borderless prints but not Super A3 borderless - the 1290 will. No official Canon driver support for other borderless sizes <A3 but you can get around this as discussed in numerous threads.

Epson can use roll media whereas the Canon isn't designed for this specifically. Potentially if you want to do long panorama prints on large papers the Epson would be better for this. (The 4" wide roll paper is a waste of time because of the curl which is present in your prints - much easier to use 6x4 paper).

USB/parallel cf Canon USB only. May or may not be relevant to you.

Canon over Epson:

Speed - Canon will blow the Epson out of the water when it comes to speed - 2 to 3 mins max for highest quality A4 borderless compared to 15-20 on the Epson.

Single inks which aren't chipped. I feel the Canon is cheaper to run in terms of ink costs personally. I dislike 5 colour carts because you waste lots of the non-photo colours usually - the 2 photo colours will be running low, the others may be 50-80% full but you have to ditch the cartridge.

Reliability - the Canon S900 has worked with no problems for 6 months. The Epson often ejects unfinished prints wasting ink and paper (USB drtiver issue? Many people say no problems after going back to parallel) and I have often had problems with smearing at the end of prints (sometimes paper isn't flat at the end). The Epson always clogs - I only use genuine Epson/Canon inks. This is the worst problem with the 1290 for me beacuse you cannot rely on it to print a decent photo. It really seems like luck - when it works it's great but it often doesn't work!

Pizza wheel tracks - fine indentations on print surface caused by cogged rollers. Barely perceptible on the Canon but more obvious on the Epson (not as bad as my older 750). This problem is media dependent quite often.

Conclusion:
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Print quality - very similar. I think the Epson might just have the edge on one of its good days. At normal viewing distances there's very little in it, but held up very close I think the Epson dithering/halftoning pattern is less noticeable. If you showed the prints to a friend/colleague they probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference unless they are very knowledgable about inkjet printers or have looked into it a lot to make their own purchases.

If I was buying a new A3 printer I'd probably get the S9000 simply based on speed and reliability (in my experience of Epson/Canon products). However, the 1290 is a little bit more versatile and if you need borderless Super A3 the Canon won't do it.

The Epson versatility is fine but if the printer is unreliable and prone to frequent clogs it becomes nearly useless.

I'm trying to be fairly objective here but these comments are based on my experience so are ultimately subjective.

Many people have no problems with Epsons clogging but both my Epson printers were prone to it and it puts me off buying another personally. The new 2100 does look very appealing however with single inks and good print longevity, faster than the 1290 but not as fast as the Canon. More expensive than your budget but there may be some good online prices if anyone's got them in stock! Might be worth considering.

Many people have described printhead problems with their Canons recently in terms of banding on prints, clogging is a less common complaint.

At the end of the day there's an element of luck with buying a printer because if 99% of users are happy and you buy a problematic one, you tend to blame the brand/printer rather than the fact that you might just be unlucky with that particular machine.

Good luck.

RW