Dave

The 1280/1290(UK) can produce very nice prints. Not sure if there'll be much difference in print quality from the 880 you had (not used one and international model number differences confuse the issue - in UK 890 was an A4 version of 1290 I think, so is the 880 a US version of 1280?)

My first Epson 1290 worked well but slowly for a few months, then awful clogging problems. I tried to clean the head (out of warranty) and broke it a few weeks ago. Bought a 1290S as replacement cause I had lots of 1290 ink/paper left to use up. I hope I was just unlucky with all the clogging first time round.

The 1280/1290 are very slow printing IMO. I got a Canon S900 a year ago. Almost 10x faster! The print quality is nearly identical, but I slightly prefer the Epson output on some things - subjectively blacker blacks and a less noticeable dithering pattern (Epson 1440dpi). On the other hand, I feel the Canon handles subtle gradations of brown far better than the Epson. Using profile prism on several papers last w/e, some test prints were almost identical from both printers in terms of colour.

Banding.....

Canon - probably in part due to the dithering pattern on the Canon but up close in solid areas of sky etc, a faint but to me perceptible banding is sometimes seen. You've got to look hard - some admittedly wouldn't notice - but I can see it with the naked eye. In practice you're not going to strain/squint to look at a print unless you're scutinising the output rather than the image. The second contributory factor I think is bidirectional printing. I'll elaborate further in a minute.

I often saw banding on the Epson at 720dpi despite aligning head and good nozzle checks. I usually print at 1440 dpi as a consequence. It is however essential that you turn off high-speed printing to get best results. This disables bidirectional printing. Now when I was profiling some papers on both the Epson and Canon, I saw some faint banding on Ilford Smooth Pearl in 'solid' green areas (it's more obvious on certain papers). When the Epson print came out I noticed the same thing - I then realised that I had printed with high-speed printing selected at 1440dpi. Reprinting with this off the banding disappeared.

I'm not sure this is all helping you with the 1280 decision. On a good day it can give superb output. 2100/2200 may be better but you've already decided against it on cost grounds (I did the same when I got the 1290S replacement).

I think the only direct competitor currently (I have no knowledge oh wide HP offerings) is the Canon S9000 - speed difference is huge but i don't think this is an issue for you. My comments about the S900 would apply equally to this model.

As you say the 1280 is getting on a bit. Will there be a new model soon? Who knows? I'd almost certainly expect one within 6-12 months though - this just seems to be par for the course for inkjets! The new Canon i950 supposedly has better quality than S900, now a wide version of that to replace the S9000 would be very interesting. Only problems are the questions: if and when?

RW