Epson Stylus C88+ Printer: In-Depth Review and User Opinions

The Epson Stylus C88+ is an all-in-one color inkjet printer designed for home and small office use. First released in 2006, it's an older model but still a reliable performer for basic printing needs.

The C88+ is compact and lightweight, measuring just 17.2 x 11.7 x 7.5 inches and weighing only 11.5 lbs. It has a sleek black casing with silver accents. The control panel consists of several buttons and a small LCD display screen.

This is an affordable printer, typically selling for around $100. It's intended for users who want to print high quality photos, homework assignments, letters and other everyday document types at home. The C88+ handles basic print jobs well but lacks advanced features found on newer or more expensive models.

Overall the Epson Stylus C88+ is a budget-friendly printer capable of producing good looking documents and photos, albeit a bit slowly compared to faster models. It's easy to set up and operate in a home environment. While not loaded with bells and whistles, it provides core functionality at a reasonable price point.

Design

The Epson Stylus C88+ has a sleek and compact design, making it a great choice for tight office spaces or desks. It measures 17.2 x 13.5 x 7.5 inches (WxDxH) and weighs just 15 pounds, so it has a small footprint without sacrificing performance.

Despite its compact size, the C88+ has a stylish two-tone gray plastic case with silver accents that give it an elegant look. The control panel is straightforward with easy to press buttons and a simple LCD screen. There are no fancy touchscreens here, just simple and intuitive controls.

The C88+ is available in three colors: gray/silver (the most common), red/silver, and blue/silver. So you have some options to choose a model that best matches your office decor. But most users won't be displaying this understated printer front and center, so the color likely won't be a major deciding factor.

Overall, the C88+ has a design focused on efficient use of space and simple operation. It lacks the flashy features of some competing models, but not everyone needs that in a workhorse home office printer.

Print Quality

The C88+ produces high quality prints with a maximum resolution of 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi. Its ink technology utilizes Micro Piezo printhead technology and 6 color Claria Photo HD Inks. This ink system provides prints with vivid colors and deep blacks.

The printer has decent print speeds, able to print a 4" x 6" photo in as fast as 13 seconds. For document printing, it can print 15 pages per minute in black and 7.3 pages per minute in color. While not the fastest printer, the print speeds are adequate for home use.

One downside is that photo printing can be a bit slow compared to laser printers. So if you primarily print documents and need fast print speeds, a laser printer may be a better choice. But for home photo printing and occasional document printing, the print speeds of the C88+ are reasonable.

Overall, the C88+ produces excellent print quality with crisp detail and vibrant color reproduction ideal for photo printing. The resolution and ink set allow it to print sharp and accurate images. Just don't expect blazing fast speeds, as it prioritizes print quality over speed.

Connectivity

The Epson Stylus C88+ printer offers both wired and wireless connectivity options for convenient printing.

For wired connectivity, it has a USB 2.0 port that allows you to connect directly to your computer. The USB connection provides fast and reliable data transfer speeds for printing.

Wireless printing is enabled through Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n. Setting up the wireless connection is straightforward - you just need to connect the printer to your WiFi network during the installation process. This gives you the flexibility to place the printer anywhere in your home or office and print from laptops, tablets or smartphones on the same network.

The Epson Stylus C88+ also supports Wi-Fi Direct, allowing you to connect your mobile devices directly to the printer without a wireless router. This is useful when you want to print from your phone or tablet but don't have access to a WiFi network.

In addition, the printer is compatible with Epson Connect services. This includes Email Print, which lets you print attachments by sending them to the printer's email address from your computer or mobile device. Remote Print allows you to send print jobs directly from your tablet or smartphone. And Scan-to-Cloud services let you scan and save your documents to cloud accounts like Dropbox or Google Drive.

Overall, the wired and wireless capabilities of the Epson Stylus C88+ provide versatility and convenience for home and office use. It can integrate into an existing wired or WiFi setup and gives users multiple options for printing from various devices.

Paper Handling

The Epson Stylus C88+ printer can print on plain, photo, and matte paper. It has a 100-sheet main tray and a rear specialty paper feed for envelopes, thicker media, and other paper types.

The main tray holds up to 100 sheets of letter or A4 plain paper. For photo printing, Epson recommends using their premium photo papers loaded in the rear specialty paper feed, which has an adjustable slider to accommodate different paper thicknesses. The rear feed holds up to 20 sheets of specialty paper.

The C88+ does not support automatic duplex (double-sided) printing. Pages must be manually flipped and reloaded to print on both sides. While less convenient than auto duplexing, this can be useful for printing photos, envelopes, and other media types that need to be fed manually anyway.

Overall, the paper handling capabilities are decent for a low-cost consumer printer. The separate rear specialty feed adds flexibility for photo printing and envelopes. Lack of auto duplexing is probably the biggest limitation for standard document printing. But the C88+ still accommodates a reasonable range of media types despite some manual work required.

Ink & Toner

The Epson Stylus C88+ comes with individual ink cartridges for each color. Cartridge yields vary depending on the print mode - with the included standard cartridges you get about 200 pages in black and 165-264 pages per color cartridge in normal mode, or 400 pages in black and 330-528 pages in color when printing in economy mode.

Replacement cartridges are affordably priced. Standard capacity cartridges cost around $13 for black and $15 for color, while high capacity cartridges are around $17 for black and $18 for color. Using the high capacity cartridges boosts yields to approximately 500 pages in black and 660 pages per color.

Overall, ink costs are quite reasonable with the Epson Stylus C88+. The individual cartridges are convenient as you only need to replace the color that runs out. And having the choice between standard and high capacity gives flexibility depending on your printing needs.

Special Features

The Epson Stylus C88+ is equipped with some useful special features that enhance its functionality beyond basic printing.

Scanning

The printer has a built-in scanner with a 1200 dpi optical resolution. This allows you to scan documents and photos directly to your computer without needing a separate scanner. The scans are surprisingly good quality for a printer in this price range.

Copying

You can use the C88+ as a standalone copier thanks to the built-in scanner. It can produce decent quality mono or color copies up to 600 x 1200 dpi. The copy speed is acceptable but not the fastest. Still, having copying functionality in an inexpensive inkjet printer is a nice bonus.

Memory Card Slots

The printer features slots for common media memory cards like SD and CompactFlash. This gives you a quick and easy way to print photos directly from your camera's memory card without needing to transfer them to your computer first.

Red-Eye Removal

When printing photos from a memory card, the printer can detect and remove red-eye automatically without any extra steps. This helps improve portrait photos with flash.

Photo Enhancement

There are built-in photo enhancement features to improve the look of your printed photos. This includes adjustments for brightness, contrast, sharpness, and more. The printer does a decent job at enhancing photos automatically.

Borderless Printing

You can print borderless photos in popular sizes like 4 x 6, 5 x 7, and 8 x 10 inches. This gives photos a clean, professional look when framing or displaying them. Borderless printing works fairly well but can sometimes result in small margins on certain paper types.

CD/DVD Printing

A unique feature is the ability to print directly onto inkjet-printable CDs and DVDs. This allows you to create customized discs with printed text, graphics, and photos. A separate tray is included specifically for printable media discs.

Overall, the extra functions like scanning, red-eye removal, and CD printing help make the Epson Stylus C88+ a versatile printer for home and office use. The special features provide value beyond just document printing.

Software

The Epson Stylus C88+ comes with basic printer software to help you get set up and printing right away.

It includes Epson printer drivers for Windows and Mac that allow you to print from your computer. The drivers have basic options for print quality, paper size, orientation, etc. There's no advanced color management controls, but the drivers work well for basic home printing needs.

For printing on the go, Epson offers the Epson iPrint mobile app for iOS and Android devices. You can print photos, webpages, documents and more directly from your phone or tablet. It makes it easy to print wirelessly without having to connect your mobile device directly to the printer.

The printer does not come with any editing or scanning software. However, you can still scan using the Epson iPrint app or your operating system's built-in scanning software.

Overall, the software options are minimal but provide the essentials for connecting the printer to your home and mobile devices. More advanced users may want to look at Epson's higher-end models if they need expanded software features.

Pros & Cons

Pros

• Compact and lightweight design makes it easy to place almost anywhere
• Produces lab-quality photos and laser-sharp text
• Fast print speeds - up to 34 ppm black, 28 ppm color
• Built-in WiFi for wireless printing from mobile devices
• Compatible with AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Mopria Print Service
• Supports borderless printing up to 8.5" x 11"
• Ink subscription service available for low cost ink replenishment
• Comes with 6 Claria ink cartridges for brilliant results
• Includes CD with printer drivers and utilities for Windows and Mac

Cons

• No touchscreen interface
• Manual duplexing only
• Small 100-sheet main paper tray capacity
• Lacks niche features like CD/DVD printing
• Ink costs can add up over time without subscription
• No Ethernet port for wired network connectivity

Conclusion: A High Performance Printer At A Budget Price

Overall, the Epson Stylus C88+ is a high quality color inkjet printer that delivers impressive print results at an affordable price point. It produces vivid images and sharp text, even on plain paper, thanks to Epson's patented Micro Piezo inkjet technology. Though not the fastest printer, print speeds are decent for home use.

The C88+ has a compact, space-saving design with a clean, minimalist aesthetic that will look good in any home or small office. Connectivity options like WiFi and WiFi Direct provide convenient wireless printing capabilities. The front-loading paper tray, rear feed slot, and CD/DVD printing support give you flexibility in the media you can print on.

If you're looking for an inexpensive home printer capable of producing lab-quality photos and graphics, the Epson Stylus C88+ is an excellent choice. It delivers professional results without breaking the bank. The only downsides are relatively high ink costs over time and lack of an automatic document feeder. But for personal printing needs, it's tough to beat the price-to-performance ratio offered by this value-packed Epson model.