Driver and Software installation

The printer has been moved up from the studio to our test bench. The thing that really hits home is the Pro 3800 printers small footprint, I moved the HP B9180 (A3) out and the 3800 occupies exactly the same space a remarkable achievement.

Following the "Start Here" setup guide, you are instructed to turn on the printer and wait for approx 7.5 minutes whilst the ink circulates and primes the heads. Actually this process took nearly 12 minutes. When the priming routine has been completed then turn the printer off and connect the USB or Ethernet cable - Note: do not connect both cables at the same time.

Turn the printer on again and the Found New Hardware Wizard screen will appear, ignore this and click the Cancel button. Put the installer CD in your drive and select Easy or Custom Install, there is also an option to Install the Network Utility. For this review I will be using a USB 2.0 connection and will select the Easy Install option. All other applications should be closed during the installation.

Hit the Cancel button with this screen	We will select Easy Install
Custom Install lets you select the bits you want	Printer will be used on a Local connection
We're off	3 minutes later and we're ready to print

The quick start guide terminates here, so if you selected a Custom install and chose not to install the User guide, then now is the time to go back and select this option. It will be installed automatically with the Easy Install option. Now it may make economic sense to publish an electronic manual, but when a customer spends £1000+ on a hardware item, then the least they should expect is a printed user guide. Having said that, the 198 page PDF manual is excellent, although there is no reason why EPSON couldn't have included colour throughout.

PDF user guide is well written but lacks colour

Having now installed the manual, I will have to wade through the PDF pages to see if the printer needs to be setup, head alignment etc. and as far as I can make out the printer doesn't need to be setup - as long as there isn't a problem. So I will continue with our first prints page.