ExSimGuy has a point, when looking at buying a printer you need to look at the running costs as well. The Epsons are good for photographic work but get through ink cartridges a lot quicker than the HP. Although the epson ink cartridges are cheaper than the HP you get through twice as many. The HP for me came out on top due to it's versatility in that it too produces excellent photo quality print outs but it also produces very good text docs as well and was cheaper to run. I looked at a few websites, that did reviews and running costs etc, so for my needs the HP came out better.
The hardest thing was to try and get somebody to do a demo of the prints from printers. Pcworld used to have little booklets with (alledged) printouts but don't seem to do those anymore. When I asked for a demo, oh no Sir we can't do that, can't remember the lame excuse they gave. I said to the bloke here's the keys to my car you can have it for £10,000. I'm not buying anything without seeing it first he retorts, exactly I said and went off elsewhere where they did show me printouts, and it was cheaper as well. Oh and by the way my cars only worth about £1500 at the most.