13 out of 13 people found this review helpful.
Quick, quiet, and quality results
Date of Review: Jun 26, 2006
The Bottom Line: This is an affordable printer for quality at-home printing of photos. I am unable to detect significant difference between it and lab printed photos and this suits me well.
I purchased this printer on clearance at Staples, bundled with a camera (the Powershot A410) for $150 total, so my absolute favorite part of this printer is the price.
At 29ppm black and 20ppm color, this printer does its work quite speedily. I love not having to wait forever for my job to be done. Spooling sometimes takes a bit longer than other printers, but the end result is worth it.
This is the most silent printer I've ever owned. I appreciate that its noise is not invasive.
This printer uses 5 different ink cartridges. I appreciate this because you can replace one color at a time as you use it, rather than having to toss the entire cartridge simply because one color is out. The downside of ink is that so far, I've been unable to find generic substitutes. However, Canon ink is usually well priced anyway.
I appreciate that the paper feeds straight through (loaded from the top) rather than from the bottom where it would have to wrap around. This prevents the paper from getting warped-a must when printing photos.
I've used it to print actual photos just a few times. The photo I printed on a piece of their included sample pack of photo paper turned out phenomenally. The colors were rich and vibrant and the photo had beautiful depth, unlike the flat images produced by other photo printers. Even on close examination, the difference between it and a lab printed photo was hardly noticeable. I noticed a bit more difference on generic photo paper, but I'm sure that was the paper's fault, not the printer's. :) I've printed a few 4x6s, some 5x7s and an 8x10 and they've all turned out lovely. I love the borderless feature. This is a really wonderful option for at home photo printing but I also use it for my every day document printing and am equally satisfied.
The printer is large and heavy, like most photo printers. I would wish that it would be more compact, but I would rather deal with a bulky printer than be limited to small photos.
The control panel is not the most user friendly, and requires a few extra steps in setting the paper and margin options (that when forgotten have caused me to ruin a few sheets of paper due to incorrect settings) but they're not so complicated that a few months of habit won't cure them.
The paper feeder is not as snug as it could be so sometimes the bracket loosens and paper feeds crookedly. It's never jammed on me but the occasional adjusting of the feed is more commonplace than other printers I've used and one area I'd like to see improved, especially given that photo paper is so expensive.
I've never used the camera to printer direct mode so I cannot comment on it.
Overall, I am very pleased with this, especially given the low cost. I would recommend this for at home printing for the casual photographer.
