Canon Pixma iP6000D InkJet Photo Printer

I purchased this printer to replace my old trusty i850, that was also a canon product--it was quite expensive at the time I purchased it but several years later I'm just plain tired of cleaning problems, quality issues, lack of dual paper trays, no duplex capability and the quality of a three color system that simply can't match what's available in the newer pixma line--quite simply it was just time to replace the old girl.

First of all the pixma comes in several flavors, which one you get depends very much on your budget I'm sure. The Pixma offers individual ink tanks and replaceable print heads on all models but some models have more colors, and thus better quality, than other models. The 6000D uses the same print head and number of colors as the earlier and still great i9900 printer. I really wanted the 8500 which offers two more ink colors than the 6000 but I just couldn't justify the extra 200 dollars for the way I print. For most of us, the 5000 is plenty of printer but I wanted the photocyan and photomagenta ink tanks and the duplex and dual paper trays offered on the 6000, so that was the main selling point for me. I doubt I'll ever use the screen on this printer very much, but the built in compact flash memory reader may be something that comes in handy (now I can take the other usb reader off the desk and save some space). This printer also offers directprint technology allowing you to print directly off compatible cameras--such as the EOS Rebel (see my review).

What's in the box:
Printer
Manual
software cd
power cord
ink tanks
print head in its own wrapper
5 pack of canon photo paper

what else do you need?
You'll need a USB cable long enough to reach the back of your computer or a hub on your desktop.
Obviously you should have some white letter sized paper.
If you want to print some photos, have some photo paper. The machine comes with a package of 5 sheets of canon paper. I find cheapie Staples brand papers work great in this printer.

Setup: Do this with power to the printer but the computer turned off.
1. Just like my i850 there was a ton of tape and plastic to pull off the outside of the printer.
2. For whatever reason the print head will not come out until you have paper loaded in the printer (???) some kind of idiot proofing measure I'm sure.

After loading paper in the top tray open the access panel on the top front of the printer and the cartridge/head carriage will slide into view. Remove the piece of tape on the carriage. Install the print head.

On my old i850 they had the printer cartridge locations marked on the bottom front of the carriage, the 6000 has them marked on the top of the carriage (which makes it a pain if you've got it on a shelf that's higher than your eye level (one tick off for bad design here). Open up the print cartridges and install them in the marked locations--do this carefully the photo magenta (PM) and photo cyan (PC) look almost identical to the regular magenta and cyan cartridges that are also present.

3. After installing the head and the printer cartridges turn the printer off and boot your computer.

4. Install the software on the CD. During the installation you'll be asked to turn on the printer, do so when prompted.

Finishing up:
The canon installer for this printer is pretty intelligent, it does a couple of steps that were done manually on the i850, including automatically aligning the print head. (I love it!). Be aware that the canon installers don't ask you whether you want the new printer to be default, they just go ahead and set it as default (another tick for bad design if you ask me).

Printing preferences:
I turn on photo optimizer pro and leave it on. There are a large variety of options in the driver for this printer. I say lots of options but the driver still lacks an option to "flip" the output--even my ancient HP1000 has this basic function.

Dual paper trays:
The top feed is what you'll use most of the time, labels have to be put in the top feeder. Paper in the top feed is loaded print side up.

The lower paper-tray looks like it was made primarily for photo paper. The lower tray will handle down to credit card size and up to letter size or A4 (which I don't think you even see in the US). Paper in the lower tray is loaded print side down. They warn you in the book that some photo papers may yellow if left in the tray (probably to do with heat from the printer I'm sure).

Printing photos:
The easy photo print utility that comes with this printer is wonderful and very easy to use (there's a newer version on Canon's web site--I'd suggest getting the latest version 3.2 and not load the one on the cd). It easily lets you select the prints you want and offers some very powerful and easy to use basic adjustments without leaving the software. There is an automatic and manual mode and the capability to save the adjusted print(s). The cropping capabilities are also very easy to use and powerful. From inside the software you can select the papertray you want without hitting the switch on the printer itself (gets a tick for good design).

This printer can also print directly (direct print) from compatible cameras. The G4-G6 and the EOS Rebel offer this capability and I know there are others as well. There's a port for a camera cable on the front of the printer. The lcd screen lets you view the image and perform some cropping and adjusting inside the camera or from the printer control panel. Personally I can't see myself ever using this but if you were away from your desktop and wanted to print then I can see this coming in handy (awfully big to be lugged along on vacation).

I've printed about 4 8x10's on it so far, they were absolutely stunning--even on cheapie staples paper. At first I didn't think they looked so good, but after drying overnight they're fantastic now. Those two extra colors have really made a big difference in the print quality, these are wonderful; I'll bet the 8500 prints are unbelievable.

Ink:
The individual nature of the tanks makes it easy to replace just what you need. Genuine canon tanks are about 10 dollars each. You can go on the net or ebay and get much better prices (down around 1.50 each if you buy in bulk). I always refilled my own tanks on the i850 (and the pixma uses the same inks--I'd only have to buy a bottle of photocyan and photomagenta) but recently problems with leaking black ink has kind of turned me off on refilling my own cartridges. Getting inside a printer to clean up an ink mess is awful and generally will affect your printing adversely for a long time. I notice the pixma has some kind of "bottom tray" cleaning mode that is probably designed to clean up ink spills but I'd still rather not have the problem to deal with in the first place.

At 1.50 per tank it's just not worth the hassle and the mess to refill myself. On the i850 I used a lot of yellow ink and less of the other colors, I need to see what will happen here. My only real complaint from experience with the i850 is it doesn't think you're out of ink until there's no liquid ink left in the reservoir at all, so you really need to look at your tanks before a large print job (yes the printer will stop if you run out of a color however that doesn't help you if you get caught without a spare of the one you need!).

Other minor annoyances:
The i850 had a selection in the driver that automatically turned the printer on when a job was sent to it. The Pixma seems to lack this capability--if it's there I haven't found it yet. I use a power director (switches) to turn my toys off when I'm not using them to save on wear and tear--so far with the Pixma I have to get up every time to turn it on because of the lack of the auto power on setting that the i850 had.

This printer is quite tall physically but no wider than my old i850 was. The height is probably due mostly to the extra paper tray and the duplexer. The top feeder seems to feed nicely but when I had photo paper in the bottom tray I was having feed problems, the paper guides have to be adjusted just so. Hopefully as I use it more this issue will lessen.

Tiny black cartridge. The i850 had a bigger black cartridge. The pixma 6000 has a black cartridge the same size as the other color cartridges. This isn't too bad since I will rarely print text on this printer, I still have my old HP hooked up for text.

Weight, this bugger is hefty, if you're putting it on an upper shelf be sure it can handle the weight so it doesn't come crashing down on your head.

Good things:
Nice software, card reader, direct print capability with front connector port, lcd screen, infrared port compatible with certain camera cell phones, the whole printer closes up completely to keep the dust out.

What I think of it overall:
I just set it up last night, made about 4 8x10's on it, they are gorgeous. I'll post more as I use it more.

update 2-7-05:
The printer is still great just a couple of comments. Avoid the Jetprint brand paper sold at walmart in this printer, for whatever reason it just doesn't get along well with the canon inks. The Royal Brights brand paper sold at sam's club works great as does Office Depot brand paper and as I said previously Staples brand photo paper.

The usb card reader on the printer, which is supposedly usb 2, is slower than a snail so it's back to my other external reader. Haven't printed enough to kill even one ink cartridge yet but so far I'm using photocyan, photomagenta and yellow the most.

I really like that the whole printer closes up like my 850 does, really helps keep the dust out of it, now if they'd only release an autopower-on enabled driver I'd be happy--I really hate having to get up and turn the printer on every time. The feed issues with the lower tray seem to be gone, haven't had any more problems beyond the first day (getting the paper guides adjusted properly is important to proper feeding from the bottom tray).

update 5-2005: Just a word here, this may be a "7 color" printer but it doesn't seem to use all 7 colors when printing photos or at least not all the time. Since I bought the printer I've printed maybe two pages on it that weren't photos, thus the only colors that are being exhausted are the photocyan, photomagenta, and yellow. So, really and truly Canon would seem to be engaged in a little bit of false advertising here--it really is only using the three photo colors to print photos--most of the time. I suppose if you print a lot of color stuff then there are advantages to this ink tank arrangement, I have been known to do that on occasion but haven't recently been doing that. Still love the printer, even used the double-sided capability the other day and it worked great but if I had to do it over again I probably would have waited and gotten the next one up the 8000 series that actually does use 5 colors for printing photos.

update: 7-2005, I'm done with tiny cartridges that don't hold a lot of ink. Since I'm so in to the karate now this printer has been getting a good workout printing 4X6 prints from the demos and tests. Lately when I print it's been marathon 80-90 print runs. I have found that you should stop and perform a cleaning cycle about every 40 to 50 prints or you might see some quality issues.

The ink tanks I bought off ebay have been having what I call a high failure rate lately, the sellers are good about replacing them but it doesn't help when they're failing only enough to screw up some prints--i.e. sometimes the ink isn't coming out of the cartridges properly--if I mess around with cleaning I can sometimes bring it back to life but generally at the cost of a few sheets of expensive paper.

Inkproducts.com carries a "auto fill" system for this printer that uses bottles of ink instead of tiny cartridges. I believe this system is their own invention since I haven't seen anything like it anyplace else.....they carry the system for several popular brands of printer. At nearly $180.00 for this bugger it was not cheap, however, I believe the ink cost savings and the elimination of headaches at tank change time will be more than worth it--especially for the way I've been printing lately. It is a little bit of an operation to install this thing but I got it done in under an hour even taking my time and watching the install video a time or two. The difference in the inks from this inkproducts.com versus what I got off ebay is noticeable--in fairness it might have been a lot to do with the cheapo cartridges they were using on the ebay stuff but the letter size prints are noticeably better with the inkproducts ink. Now instead of screwing around with cartridges and fighting with them when they don't prime properly all I do is clip off the hose with the hose clip pull the bottle and refill it through the hole in the top--way too easy. Bulk ink at this place is reasonable and the left over ink I've got from my i850 is still useable, all I have to do is buy a bottle of photocyan and photomagenta.

update: I got the bottle ink upgrade the end of July 2005, here were are in October and there's a problem with it. I've printed "a lot" of prints with this system at least a few 200 sheet boxes of 4X6 have been put through it since I got the bottle system. The way they setup this gadget the hoses are required to "fold" under the lip of the case at each pass on the left/right side. I'm not sure exactly what happened, I didn't change anything but suddenly the hoses don't "fold" anymore they ram into the leftside of the printer case which makes for a pretty horriffic sound of tortured plastic gears.

Sigh....well it was good while it lasted, the folks that sold it to me are good people, I'm not worried that they'll make good but I'm probably going to have to take my dremel tool to the printer cabinet and open up some space for the hoses to pass under the case lip on the left side of the printer. Now I just have to hope that nothing inside has been stripped in this madness--the printer senses when the head's been interfered with and stops it from moving but in the process of all of this one of the hoses was ripped off the cartridge and the one right next to it was also apparently damaged and has lost its vacuum seal. The two problem hoses are on the left side of the cartridge, cyan and photo cyan.

update: Just wanted to mention that Canon has XP64 bit drivers for this printer and they work great. They've also provided a 64 native version of zoombrowser and easy photo print.

Update: well it's been nearly two years, suddenly having problems with black ink infiltrating the yellow ink, probably on the head someplace, I've cleaned and cleaned, get one good print and then it's back again. Have contacted inkproducts.com to see if they have any ideas but I suspect I'll end up trying a new head. One big annoyance with this printer as there are parts inside the paperpath that get ink all over them and there's no easy way to clean it. I'll be digging out my long forcepts to see if I can get some cotton balls soaked in ink remover down in there to clean some of that out(which could be where the ink problem is coming from, don't know). On 4X6 prints I have no issues but lately most of my 8X10's are coming out with black ink on the corners--very annoying. This is just poor design, there's no reason they could not have made the paperpath more accessible for cleaning; I suppose it's a planned obsolescence issue, they don't want you to clean it, they want you to buy a new one.