12 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
HUGE DESIGN FLAW: READ BEFORE BUYING
Date of Review: Mar 28, 2008
The Bottom Line: Not recommended: a small color ink problem makes the machine useless for scanning, faxing, black&white printing
I was happy with my machine until a small problem revealed a catastrophic design flaw. Had I known, I would never have bought it. Please consider this before buying! Canon should be embarrassed about putting out a product with this flaw.
I had an ink cartridge error for one of the color cartridges. It was not "out of ink," it simply stopped working for some reason, although at least 60% of the ink remains.
The machine has two black and three color cartridges. When any of them stops working, the machine becomes completely unusable for printing (if a color cartridge fails, you cannot even print in black and white). Even worse, you cannot scan or fax until you replace the cartridge.
Let me repeat that so it sinks in: when any ink cartridges fails for any reason, you cannot scan or fax until you replace the ink cartridge.
That is such bad engineering that it makes my head spin. It took me several hours of reading the printed and online manuals and working with the machine to realize this. The cartridge error leads to an error message on the machine's control panel. The error message freezes the control panel. You cannot manually switch to scan or fax mode on the control panel. You cannot use the scanning software to work around this; when you try to scan, it tells you the scanner is not connected. You also cannot access the Menu on the control panel to work around this; all buttons become non-responsive because of the ink cartridge error.
I happen to live overseas and it takes more than two weeks for US mail to reach me, so I won't have the new cartridge until then. I can't believe my machine is useless until then. Even if I were in the US and could receive the cartridge quickly, it makes no sense that the machine can't be used for scanning and faxing because of an ink cartridge problem. It's also a huge flaw that you can't print in black and white when a color cartridge breaks.
Given that the cartridge malfunctioned while still 60% full of ink, it seems possible that other cartridges will fail at any time. Whenever that happens, my machine will be useless for scanning and faxing until I replace it (and that assumes the replacement will work properly, but since the current cartridge failed while still 60% full, who knows if the problem is elsewhere in the machine).
To show I'm not exaggerating, here is an email from Canon confirming the flaw:
Re: Response from Canon - SWSS Web Escalation (KMM8505119V64844L0KM)
Canon Support CareCenter@cits.canon.com
AddSaturday, March 29, 2008 9:57:50 AM
Dear X:
Thank you for contacting Canon product support. We value you as a Canon
customer and appreciate the opportunity to assist you. We regret that
one or more of the ink tanks is not recognized by the MP530.
We will be glad to replace the malfunctioning tank for you and send it
to the address provided as we cannot ship overseas.
It is correct that the MP530 will not scan not fax until the faulty ink
tank has bee replaced.
Please let us know if we can be of any further assistance with your
PIXMA MP530.
Thank you for choosing Canon.
Sincerely,
David
Technical Support Representative
