Getting there It's a gem. I always liked Canon. People have complained so much about Epson, except for the very high end models. And I was replacing an old, slow, but actually very good HP 722c (which was 'hot' in its day). But the newer HPs were said to be just plagued with software and driver problems. And I didn't want to mess with that. I wanted a 'small footprint' on installation. And I got it. In fact, the physical footprint of the printer, itself, was that same as the small HP which it replaced.
Setting up Couldn't have been easier. Using INCTRL4 to monitor changes made to registry and directories, very little is added by the Canon software. In addition, it plugs and unplugs live, even back to Win98SE. No need to separately shut it down. Couldn't be easier. A pleasure to install.
Oddly, the only way that the printer has of being connected to the computer is via USB cable. And that's not included in the box. Very strange. But if one has purchased a number of items over the years, they probably have a few unused USB cables still in their original packaging. But this needs to be in the box, with the printer.
Noise Some have complained that it sounds like a 'freight train', and 'manhandles' the paper with hard 'carriage returns'. But there is, under Properties, a Quiet Mode setting. And I furthermore reduced that 'carriage' noise simply by wedging/resting a small piece of that firm black dielectric foam between the printer and my monitor. And that cushion renders it almost whisper quiet.
Speed It seems fast enough. I suppose that could always be improved. But compared to the almost decade old inkjet I was replacing, the iP4300 speed of course was far better.
Quality There was some streaking with the wrong setting. But surprising little. For example, I used the wrong setting to essentially flood, and I mean flood, a piece of paper with ink. And it barely smeared. It probably would have taken half a day to dry, if I hadn't thrown it out. There's also an anti-smudge features under the cleaning options, in Properties. The only slightly less than laser quality I've seen for text is where just any old paper is used, and when it has a good side and bad side. The bad side prints fine, but you can see, every now and then, up close, a little bit of fuzziness on some letters, a minority of them but some.
There is an anti-smudge feature available in the Properties, Maintenance, the 'control panel'; a setting I never use. If you do, a pop-up warning is displayed. And that's because you might actually see banding, particularly in black and white.
Color This is a question your Adobe match, or whatever you use to set up gamma and color. And I'm happy with the match between screen and print. Of course, the better comparison is a) with a transparency, placed over bright white paper, under bright illumination. But b) using the Canon Photo Paper provides almost the same. Even when dry, the darn thing still looks wet, glossy, and showing depth right into the photo.
There are some fixer sprays used for UV and outside exposure. But these are matte, at best, and take off the gloss. I do use the fixers for printing on CDs (see below). But that's because any inkjet output will smear with even a touch of water on these disks. So you either have to spray fix it, or laminate (Primera has such machines, and they're expensive), or worst case perhaps, apply a clear label (which I would prefer not to do).
Price/Ink These are almost given away. Some are selling the iP4300, specifically, on ebay for $20-25. The shipping is almost more. That's how I got mine. I was expecting a smashed open box, and a busted printer, but got clean shipping and a printer that seems to work perfectly.
But the old saying is that the inkjet manufacturers don't sell printers - they sell ink. And they do on this particularly Pixma series - a whole range of printers, not just the iP4300. There are three color cartridges. There is one small black. There is one large black. There's a chip monitoring the ink level in each, located right at the mouth/opening of the cartridge, which chip apparently can't be reset. But it's just as well. The ink is special, and not provided by discount ink refillers. Now, they do have a work around where you reuse a used cartridge 'chip'. But you won't have the proper ink. It's just as well to buy a new Canon replacement cartridge. A lot of places, say like Costco, don't carry replacement cartridges, at least yet (and they tend to have mostly HP because that's been what Costco has stocked). But since five cartridges are used, they aren't all going to go at the same time, or some hardly at all. My black ink indicators are barely moving. But after a number of full color CDs and insert cards on Canon Glossy Photo Paper, I've gone down to half on two cartridges, but just two. The printer won't print when they run out. But if you look at the cartridge at that point, you'll see that it was basically 'running on fumes'. Every last drop is used.
Fry's carries them retail for about $14 each, which isn't so bad. And there's a Fry's right nearby. In fact, most every Office supply chain, Best Buy, etc, (but not Costco) now carry these cartridges in the boxes that have what look like a 8-ball on the box, a big number "8" (except for the larger black tank, which shows a big number "5").
Paper They recommend Canon paper for a reason. Inkjets are notorious for requiring the right paper in order to match the color. If it's just text, it's perhaps not so important. But HP and Epson are no different. The best result are with the paper they sell and recommend. Some of these cartridges print with VERY tiny droplets and require a particular paper for the high quality continuous tone images - photos. The same settings can produce wildly different results on different paper. It's a very involved technique and science to produce the sort of chemicals for the paper coating for a particular sort of ink and droplet. For photo printing, the ink and the paper have to be considered a matching pair, particularly with the Canon Pixma (likely as well with their more expensive Lucia inks and printers, but basically for any quality inkjet print regardless of brand).
I've tried the heavy matte, and same heavy stock in one-side glossy. And results of full color on even the matte were surprisingly good. It was very good, photo print quality, on the Glossy Photo paper.
Duplex The printer does have a two-sided feature. But if you're used to the new photocopiers at Kinko's, don't expect that kind of speed. It grabs the paper, after printing on one side, the slowly rolls it back, and finally gets the other side going. The advantage, of course, is registration/alignment. It'll be pretty close. So if you have a cutout, and maybe you have the cutout line on one side, and the text on the other, everything will look good. If you instead print out a bunch on one side, and put the stack in the paper tray and print out on the other, the alignment might be slightly off, and the print slightly tilted. The duplex operation is slow, though. So, again, don't expect expensive photocopier 2-sided performance.
CDs In this era of mp3 downloads, people aren't supposed to buy CDs, anymore. But mp3 quality, particularly at 128, is not what you'll hear from the original 'wav' burned onto CD. So some are still going want a good track, and will get the CDs. And CDs can be used for data, reports, and so on. And since they are so much smaller than DVDs, it's a only a few minutes to burn one, and quicker to run external copies (I use
e3works Disc Clone II).
You can get CDs, particularly cheaply in bulk on ebay and elsewhere, which have a white surface (others are silver) onto which an inkjet can print directly. No labels to tear off. Presumeably no worry about contaminating the substrate with the glue on the label - though how it will fare with the water based ink, I don't know. One would think they've allowed for that. In fact, like many 'wax' thermal full color prints found on commercial CDs, you can get this inkjet printables that go right up to the hub. Full coverage.
Now, the iP4300, shipped to the US, for some reason, has this feature disabled, and the opening for the CD blocked off. But enabling it is very easy. One prys off the little plastic bar, and buys a "Tray F" from ebay, again, or even more cheaply from certain websites. One changes one Windows Registry setting. And then one goes through a quick sequence of pressing the buttons on the printer to put in in 'european' mode. And you're ready to go. This should all be explained when you buy your Tray F from a vendor. They might also point to a free CD print app from Canon's website, called CD-LabelPrint, which you can download. It won't immediately print to the hub. But you can create a new profile in this little app, so that it will. And then all one does is put the CD on the Tray F, insert horizontally into the slot at the end of the inner fold-down tray, where one removed the plastic bar, and the printer takes control, feeding the CD in and out and just prints right on it. Even at the best print resolution, it goes quickly, once the sliding is done with, and it's got registration on the CD.
The registration/alignment is not always perfect. Sometimes, the image is slid maybe less than a 1/32nd up to the left. But I'm fine with it. Most of the time, it's perfectly centered. With printing on CDs, with this water-based ink, as noted, above, someone with wet hands will cause the ink to come off. Again, with the thermal prints CDs you get commercially, that's like a hard wax surface, which won't come off with water. So with these CDs, you have to fix them. I've had success spraying on either PressIt's SprayFix or the stuff from cddvdguard.com . I did rig up a wrap, a soft strap, which I could wrap around two CDs, facing away, so as not to risk spraying the recording surface. But you can probably just lay the CDs out on a flat surface, like glass and not worry either. It takes a few light coats. After a few minutes, when those are dry, you then have to sort of lay it on, just sort of slowly go around two times about maybe just 15-18" away from the surface of the CD. Maybe a day later, there might be some slight ink runoff, if you place the CD under a tap. But it should be slight. The waterproofing will never be like the full-color thermal print though. But that requires a set up fee, and other expenses, and you can go
that route when you know your CD is in demand, and you can't afford to wait for each disk to print on an inkjet, when you have hundreds to deliver.
And just btw, while not really necessary, and while I'd be reluctant to use it on a Canon Glossy Photo print, one might look at the Matte Preserve-It spray from Krylon, for whatever is printed on paper. Just something to consider.
Update 14 JUN 2007:
Taiyo Yuden has introduced a new water-resistant (no need for those 'fixer' sprays!), glossy, inkjet hub-writable CD. It's more expensive that the hub-writable suggested, above. But that above can sometimes yield obvious dithering in darker areas of the image when viewed up close; when printed using the Dark setting in CD-Labelprint. This new disk, with the same settings in CD-Labelprint, produces a disk that looks almost as if it were coated with Canon Photo paper, it's that good - 'better than professional'. No obvious dithering. Same setting. Some, though, have said that they've had trouble writing reliable disks with early batches. Others have said that they write to CD first, and then print afterward. So, fair warning.
