20 out of 20 people found this review helpful.
cutting edge budget price
Date of Review: Oct 4, 2005
The Bottom Line: If your printing needs are minimal but steady, this is a solid budget model that will turn out many pages and attractive photos.
Keep in mind what I started with: a 1999 HP Deskjet 610 that was, while still functional, way past its prime. I had also worsened it's performance using cheap no-brand inks, because I was so tired of paying the exorbitant HP ink prices. Text came out with some blurriness, and it was useless for photos.
So I swore I would replace it if I could find a printer for cheaper than two new brand-name cartridges, ie under $65.
This no-frills Canon was the answer. It came with two start-up cartridges (one black and one color) in the box. There are about 6 levels of Pixma Photo models from Canon. Two are compact sized and portable (but have the limitations of such features, too). Two are big and bulky, and have many features I would probably never use.
This one is the cheapest of the big ones. It only needs a USB port (and luckily I already had a cable, as one wasn't supplied). It prints black and white with some speed (though it is a bit noisy), and color photos on ANY type of paper look professional. You can even (apparently) do t-shirt printing, as you can adjust for thickness of media with a lever on the bottom.
What's missing are some of the features of the higher-level Canons: no monitor. No paper tray. Paper loads from the back, and shoots out the front onto your table or desk. I coped with this by putting a big piece of clean cardboard under the printer; you still have to watch that pages don't go flying around the room! The paper feed is adjustable to any size down from regular paper.
The onscreen toolbox/manual that comes with the software installation disc is very easy to use, and has many features that will help you monitor your printer performance and make adjustments for special projects. Though this printer doesn't do double-sided automatically, for example, you can easily figure out how to do so by sending your pages through again in the right way. Ink level is monitored, and there are many choices one can make to alter the default settings to preference.
The ink is not as cheap as the Canon single color modules, but it's in bigger units than the compact version of this model. The ink is about 30% cheaper than similar HP items.
At c. 6" x 16" x 7" (when closed) it's pretty much exactly the same size as a breadbox. But this roominess gives you easy access to the roller and ink trays, if needed. It opens from the front, and has a few clear buttons to reboot in case of a paper jam.
All in all, since I already had the cable and the first ink was free, I met my goal as I bought it for $49 and had it up and running in half an hour. My computer output is now once again up to current standards of quality.
Update from December 2005: I've been using it regularly since I bought it. It's now the networked printer for our house. Other users have found it easy to make photos; I mostly use it for black text, and it's very speedy at that, especially if you choose fast/draft/low ink modes. I've only had one problem: I recycle paper, printing on the other side. And if that paper is in any way not flat, sometimes it catches on the roller. It still shoots through, but the ink distribution is sometimes severely compromised.
And, at full quality, the thing uses so much ink that it sometimes take a considerable time for dark areas to dry. It works much better for me on econo-mode.
Update from the Fall of 2008:
Well, so it had three good years. The photos still print well with color ink, but the black and white text has become unreliable; sometimes faint, sometimes streaky, even after cleaning sessions. So I put it out to pasture, and upgraded to a Pixma iP4000, an undeniably superior machine. But, of course, also much more pricey.
