Canon Delivers With Great Detail, Color, Speed, and Value
Written: Nov 26 '03
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Pros: Many features, great printing quality, prints photos, fast, quiet, good price.
Cons: Must use Canon brand paper for photos, won't produce exact replica of scanned pictures.
The Bottom Line: I recommend the Canon i450 printer based on the printing quality, speed, value, and ease of use it offers.
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| femmule's Full Review: Canon I450 Bubble Jet Ink-jet Printer |
The i450 Canon Printer has a lot of great options for a very reasonable price.
THINGS I LIKE
This printer quickly prints out documents and photos with great color and clarity. The quality of printing with the i450 is noticeably better than our Canon BJC-4300. I've been very pleased with how quickly it turns out the documents as well. Plus it is very easy to use and also quiet. For the $70 that we paid I consider it quite the value for all the updated technology!
The ink tanks stay in the printer until the ink is gone. Our Canon BJC-4300 printer required us to remove and store the ink tanks after use so they wouldn't dry out. What a hassle that was! Especially since I'd forget at times to remove them.
Another nice feature is that a window pops up when you print a job with an ink counter to let you know how much ink is left in both ink tanks. When an ink tank is down to about a 1/4 full, a message prompts you to get a new tank ready. You are able to continue printing documents until the ink is almost gone. Please note that when you replace an ink tank you must reset the ink counter so that it is correctly synchronized with the actual ink level.
Although we don't have a digital camera I was excited to know that this printer can also print photographs directly from a Canon "Bubble Jet Direct" compatible digital camera or digital video camcorder. Several applications are included which let you edit the digital camera photographs and print them in various ways. Some options include borderless printing, merging multiple photos to create a panoramic photo (Windows and Mac OS 9 or later), printing web pages (Windows), and printing pictures with captions in an album format.
THINGS I WASN'T THRILLED ABOUT
You have to use Canon Brand Photo Paper for your color pictures. I used some photo paper my mom gave me, and the ink never set up, it just blobbed and remained wet on the surface. Our i450 came with some samples of 4"x6" Photo Paper Plus Glossy and it does a very nice job when printing photos on this paper. Canon high resolution paper and transparencies can also be used in this printer.
I've only used this printer to print out standard camera scanned photos. Although they do turn out nicely, they still don't compare to the definition of lab-quality photos. If you're not looking at every single detail of the printed photo vs. original, you'll probably be satisfied with the results. But I suggest having extra prints made of your standard photos, instead of expecting this printer to turn out the same quality.
THE SPECS
The i450 has up to 4800x1200 color dpi. resolution with microscopic droplets as small as 2 picoliters. Black printing speed is 18 ppm for draft and 11.8 ppm for standard. Color printing speed is 12 ppm for draft and 4.9 ppm for standard. Of course the printing speed depends on the content of document and processing speed of the host computer as well. BCI-24 Black and BCI-24 Color ink tanks are used in this printer.
The i450 printer uses a USB interface. It is compatible with Windows XP (Pentium 300 MHz/128 MB RAM), Windows 2000 (Pentium 133 MHz/64 MB RAM (Pro.)/ Pentium 133 MHz/256 MB RAM (Server)), Windows Me (Pentium 150 MHz/32 MB RAM), and Windows 98 (486 Processor/16MB RAM). You need 50MB of available hard-disk space if using Windows XP/2000 and 15MB for Windows Me/98/95.
To be Macintosh compatible it should be equipped with USB interface on which Mac OS 8.6-9.x or Mac OS X v.10.2.1 or later can operate. Macintosh RAM requirements are 20 MB RAM (128 MB available RAM for OS X). For Mac OS 8.6-9.x you need to have 30MB of available hard-disk space and 110MB for Mac OS X v.10.2.1 or later. Canon indicates that duplex printing and Photo Optimizer Pro are not supported when using Mac OS X v.10.2.1 or later.
Dimensions of the printer are 15.47"(W)x10.16"(D)x7.95"(H). It can hold up to 100 sheets of plain paper. There is a 1-year warranty against defects in materials and workmanship under normal use and service.
IN THE BOX
Hardware with the i450 printer includes the power cord, i450 print head, one BCI-24 black ink tank, one BCI-24 color ink tank, and a sample pack of 4"x6" Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy. Please note that you'll have to purchase a USB cable for this printer.
Also included, Setup Software & User's Guide CD-ROM with Printer Driver, Easy Photo-Print (PC/Mac), PhotoRecord (PC), ZoomBrowser EX (PC), ImageBrowser (Mac), PhotoStitch (PC/Mac), Easy-WebPrint (PC).
The features, value, and quality make the i450 a great printer to own!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 70
Operating System: Windows
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femmule
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Reviews written: 14
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About Me:
A sense of humor is essential to living a life worthwhile.
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