Epson Printer L805

The Epson L805 occupies a specific spot in Epson’s lineup: a single-function printer built almost entirely around photo print quality rather than document throughput. Its 6-colour ink system — adding light cyan and light magenta to the standard four colours — produces smoother gradients and more accurate skin tones than a standard 4-colour printer manages, which is the main reason photographers and small print shops keep choosing this model over cheaper general-purpose alternatives.

It’s also one of the few consumer-level Epson printers that prints directly onto specially coated CDs and DVDs, a feature that’s become a small niche of its own for event photographers and small businesses producing branded disc copies. Combined with built-in Wi-Fi for printing straight from a phone or tablet, the L805 is built for people whose main printing need is photos, not documents — it doesn’t do document printing badly, but that’s not what it’s optimized for.

Like Epson’s other ink tank printers, running costs stay low compared to cartridge-based photo printers, since each ink bottle refill yields a high number of prints relative to its cost. For anyone printing photos regularly rather than occasionally, that running-cost advantage compounds significantly over the printer’s lifetime.