Epson Printer Terminology

[RogersDA]

I was looking at Epson printers the other day. In layman's terms - what are
Colorburst, RIP, and what is the difference of the portrait edition on their printers?

[colourbox]

While the Epson site answers these, there's also a guy named Eric Chan who wrote an amazing FAQ on the Epson 38XX series, and luckily his FAQ answers your questions, if you buy a printer you should bookmark his FAQ.
http://people.csail.mit.edu/ericchan/dp/Epson3800/faq.html#editions

what are Colorburst, RIP

You probably don't care about this unless you need a PostScript Raster Image Processor (RIP). The users who need this are usually trying to get accurate color proofs of publications made with Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress, Adobe Illustrator, Acrobat, etc. that produce PostScript color output. People who make fully laid-out magazines, newspapers, etc. A pure photographer does not need this.

what is the difference of the portrait edition on their printers
See the FAQ, it comes with some software that I don't care about :) and you probably don't either.