This is an awesome developement in inkjet printers, and should hopefully start to bring ink costs down significantly (I know this was possible before, but it was unsupported). On the other hand, first generation technology is always expensive, and it looks like this only becomes cheaper than the popular Brother HL2280DW laser printer at 8000 prints or so, which is a lot for a home user (assuming the Brother costs $130, has toner and wear and tear costs of $.024 per page, and the Epson costs $285, and has per page costs of $.0047). I know inkjets and lasers aren’t the same, but I just wanted to do some sort of comparison. Hopefully, second generation refillable reservoir inkjets will come down in price.
Of course they can be approximated: You find the color in your gamut which is closest to the out-of-gamut color, and use that instead. Maybe it’s not as good an approximation as you’d like, but it is an approximation.
Yeah, it’s called a “continuous ink system” and has been around for years, as you say, as an aftermarket modification. I haven’t tried one myself, yet, as I am very particular about the inks I use, but it seems some of these systems do come with inks that are comparable to the Ultrachrome inks I’m accustomed to in terms of color gamut and archivability.
Hi Mr. Chronos. Yes, anything can be an approximation of anything else, depending on how loose your standards are. My saying there were no good approximations meant (approximately): There are dozens of distinct colors that most people would consider purer and more vibrant than the nearest color that can be produced in a common 3- or 4-color subtractive printing process.
The meaning of many of those words can be questioned – distinct, purer, vibrant, common – but I’ll let things stand there.