Canon Pixma iP4000 InkJet Photo Printer

Before I talk about the Canon Pixma ip4000, please let me explain what drove me to buy one. Maybe other people can relate to my experience.

I have used Epson Stylus Photo printers exclusively for the last 6 years. First I used an Epson Stylus Photo 870, and then I replaced the 870 with an Epson Stylus Photo 825. They've both been good printers for the most part, with exceptional photo print quality, but there has always been one major problem with both of them, a problem that until now I have been willing to overlook. The print heads seem to clog with frightening regularity (one might expect the heads to become clogged after not using the printer for weeks on end, but that has never been the case with me). Unclogging the print head(s) requires printing and examining a nozzle check page, cleaning the heads, then printing and examining a nozzle check page again. If the page still shows clogged heads, you repeat the process until the heads are unclogged. The problem is that each time the heads are cleaned, ink is wasted. LOTS of ink is wasted. I remember once, when my color cartridge was clogged, I had to go through the cleaning process 7 times. When I started the cleaning, I had 75% remaining, but by the time the heads were finally unclogged, I had only 25% remaining! What an unbelievable waste! In addition, since these Epson printers use a single cartridge containing 4 different color inks (in addition to a separate black cartridge), when one color runs out, you must replace the entire cartridge. And when the Epson printer driver says you're out of ink, you have no choice; you MUST replace the cartridge. Until you do, the printer will cease to function (maybe there's a way to "hack" the cartridges to get around this, but I don't know). In other words, if you have a full black cartridge but your color cartridge is empty, and you want to print a simple black and white text document, it will force you to replace the color cartridge first! Yet despite this, I continued using the Epson printer and I continued putting up with its quirks. Finally, three weeks ago came the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I was printing 4 8x10 photographs in a row. The first one came out great, then the second. Then, somehow, in between printing the 2nd and 3rd photo (a span of about 3 minutes), a nozzle clogged, resulting in an 8x10 with a strange bluish-red tone to it! In other words, a page of Epson Premium Glossy Photo Paper was wasted. Time to do the head cleaning dance again. It took 3 cleanings, which wasted about 1/8th of a tank of ink. I'd finally had enough! That's when I started shopping for a new printer, and that's when I bought the Canon Pixma ip4000.

The first thing I noticed about the ip4000 was its construction. It doesn't feel very solid, at least not as solid as the Epson. On the other hand, every opening on the ip4000 can be closed when not in use, so it looks like it would be hard for any dust to get into it (I think that maybe it could be dust getting into the Epson printer which may be the cause for the constant print head clogging). With the rear paper feeder and front paper exit doors closed, the ip4000 looks more like a breadbox than a printer! Speaking of paper, the ip4000 has two paper paths. One is a paper cassette that slides in the bottom of the front of the printer (which is covered), the other is a paper tray at the back (which is exposed). This means that you can have two different types of paper loaded at the same time. You can select which tray to print from by pressing a button on the front of the printer, or through the printer's driver. In addition, the ip4000 has built-in duplexing (printing on both sides of one sheet of paper), so you'll use fewer sheets of paper when printing documents, pages from web sites, etc. While this duplexing ability works very well, it is on the slow side. It's not that the printing is slow, it's that it takes a few seconds for the ip4000 to "flip the page over" as it is duplex-printing.

The ip4000 is fast. The specifications do not say specifically that it uses USB 2.0, so I can only assume that it uses 1.1. Nonetheless, it's fast! The plain paper printing speed is on par with the Epson, but the photo printing speed is MUCH faster than the Epson. I printed an 8x10 using the maximum quality settings in about 2 minutes. The same on the Epson would have been closer to 6 minutes. The actual photo print quality of the ip4000 is excellent, as good as the Epson. The colors are (at least to my eye) a little more subdued and not quite as "deep" than the Epson, but that can be corrected for in photo editing software. I also believe that skin tones are much better on the ip4000 (the Epson's skin tones always seemed to be on the pinkish side). The ip4000 also ships with software for creating projects and the like, but I can't provide any review of it because honestly, I haven't used any of it, since I use Photoshop for all my editing and printing. The printer comes with two manuals: a printed Quick Start Guide and a very well-done HTML-based (web browser-based) manual that covers both the printer and the included software.

I think the best thing about the ip4000 is the way it handles ink. It uses 5 separate ink tanks (1 yellow, 1 cyan, 1 magenta and 2 black tanks). These tanks are clear, so you can actually SEE how much ink is physically left in the tank. I think this approach is much more honest than Epson's "If-I-say-the-cartridge-is-empty-then-it's-EMPTY" approach. In addition, where the Epson would seem to gobble ink (even through normal printing, not JUST when cleaning the heads!), the ip4000 is much more frugal with ink. So far I've printed about 5 8x10s, 2 5x7s and about a half dozen 4x6s, and the ink levels have barely dropped. Printing this many photos with the Epson would have already used nearly a quarter of a new color ink cartridge.

I think the ip4000 is a great printer for the price. It is most definitely more efficient with ink than the Epson. It's a big plus to be able to replace a single individual color tank when it's empty, rather than an entire multi-color cartridge. As an added bonus, both Canon ink and special photo paper is less expensive than Epson's ink and photo paper. It prints great photos, it's faster, it duplexes and it is incredibly quiet. With a PictBridge-compatible digital camera, you can print directly from the camera without involving the computer at all. And in one week of use, I haven't had to clean the print heads once! I also have not had any paper jams yet, but I've only been using it for one week, so time will tell. My only complaints are the "flimsy" feel of the case, the slow duplexing, and the fact that it does not come with a USB cable. For my money, it can't be beat.