Canon i860 Photo Printer
Written: Nov 23 '03
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Pros: Excellent Photo's and borderless prints, direct from your camera printing
Cons: none
The Bottom Line: I would recommend this Canon printer if you are looking for an alternative to your old Epson inkjet.
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| opinionated3's Full Review: Canon i860 Photo Bubble Jet Printer 23/16ppm Print... |
Last month I needed to find a good photo printer for my daughter and son to use for their school work instead of having to bug their mom. We have a HP Photosmart 7350 and I considered getting one of the newer HP Photosmart printers, but I was at the store and I found a really good deal on a Canon and I decided to give it a shot. After buying nothing but Epson inkjet printers for so long I have been experimenting with HP and Canon. I decided on the Canon i860 Photo Printer and we have been very happy with it.
One of the features of the Canon i860 Photo Printer that I really like is the five separate ink cartridges, instead of having to toss out a whole cartridge that contains 3 or 4 colors in it just because one of the colors ran out. I also liked the larger size black ink cartridge this larger capacity has allowed my kids to print out more text only reports as well as the high quality color images.
The ink cartridges that go into the Canon i860 are cheaper than HP and Lexmark cartridges and this is because the print head is not built in to the cartridge like Lexmark and HP. Canon and Epson decided to go with separate printhead design to keep the cost of the cartridges lower, but the downside is if you start seeing missing print you must go through a cleaning cycle or two that uses ink to force clean the nozzles. The major difference between Canon and Epson is with the Canon you can replace the print head assembly and Epson you cannot. With the HP or Lexmark printers if you start seeing the missing print you just pop in a new cartridge and continue printing.
Another great feature of this Canon printer is the edge to edge printing otherwise known as borderless printing. Some printers claim to print borderless images, but in fact they can only print these borderless prints on 4x6 paper. That is not the case with this printer, it is capable of printing borderless on all three of the most common paper sizes (4x6, 5x7 and 8.5x11).
A popular feature of most of the Photo Inkjet printers on the market today is the ability to print photo images from a digital cameras and camcorders. This will allow you to print pictures without having to download them to your computer and send them to your printer. This is accomplished one of two ways; built in memory card readers or USB port that is usually located in the front of the printer. Some printer manufacturers include both card readers and the USB port that way you connect the cable directly from your camera to the printer. Canon decided to put camera port on the front of the Canon i860 Photo printer and if we needed this specific feature I am sure it would come in handy. The only downside of the camera port is it has a limitation to which digital cameras will work with it. I am not going to include the list of the compatible cameras, but I will include the web address to where you may find the list; www.usa.canon.com/consumer/directprint .
I wish I could add a little personal experience with this direct print feature, but unfortunately our digital camera is older. We have to use the memory card reader on our computer or the one that is on the HP Photosmart 7350 printer.
When I purchased this Canon printer I hoping that it would give me a decent print versus the Epson printers that I used to buy. I was not disappointed, with a maximum print resolution of 4800 x1200 dpi and correct drivers installed this Canon i860 just blew me away. All the colors in the photo I printed were very vivid and clear. I didn't detect any banding and the colors matched what was on my monitor. As I have said in other reviews I have written on inkjet printers, I don't worry so much how fast the printer prints only how the print looks when it is finished. So to evaluate whether the claims of the manufacturer are correct is not as important, but I will say that a 4x6 photo was finished in about a minute or so. Now as far the 8.5 x11 print goes it was several minutes before it was finished. The 4800x1200 dpi (dots per inch) setting is on the maximum setting on high gloss paper and it will print plain black at 600x600 dpi. Fortunately Canon included a really nice utility that allows you to customize the settings to fit your print job. Canon claims up to 23 pages per minute in black and 16 pages per minute in color. As I am sure you guessed that that color speed doesn't count when printing photo's and the 23 pages per minute would only be in a lowest quality draft mode.
This software utility also keeps track of the ink levels in your cartridges and it will let you know when one or more are low. This will allow you to replace only the empty ones, instead of having to replace all of them. Ink cartridges are available in most office supply stores as well as in most discount stores like Walmart.
I want to touch on a couple of points about this printer that might steer you away from purchasing it, but it wasn't an issue for me. The first point is regarding the size of the Canon i860 and the second is the noise this printer makes. If you are limited on the amount of space you have to place this printer you might want to consider a different model. This printer feeds the paper from a tray that sticks out of top of the printer that is angled backwards. That means you have to have enough room in back for this tray. It also has the paper exit tray sticking out the front of the printer and it extends out away from the printer nearly twelve inches. So as you can imagine this is not a space saver printer and you would need to take that into consideration.
If you are looking for a quiet printer that won't disturb you while it is printing then this isn't the printer for you. This is because the paper is fed from the top of the printer and it is drawn inside by the paper puller mechanism. Every time a piece of paper is pulled into the printer you will hear the familiar clunking sound and then paper is fed into printer and then pushed out of the printer.
If you are looking for a printer that is very easy to setup and operate you have selected the right printer. The Canon i860 Photo printer gives you the option of three different interfaces for you to choose from. You can select from USB and IEEE 1284 parallel ports on the back and a Direct Print Port. If you select the Direct Print Port you will not need to use your computer, just connect the cable from your Direct Printer Port compatible camera to the port in the front of your printer. If you decide to hook it up to your computer you need to load the software and driver that are contained on the included CD. Canon has included a great step by step installation poster that takes you through the very easy installation process. The drivers that are included on the CD are designed to work Windows 95 (parallel only) Windows 98/ME/2000/ NT and Windows XP. It also contains the drivers for Mac OS (8.6 - 9.x) and Mac OS X (10.2.1 - 10.2.x). Once you have the printer setup you are ready to see for yourself what kind of great things you will be printing if you select this printer.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 130.00
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
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