High Quality Photos Right at Home
Written: Feb 29 '04
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Pros: Extremely fast, very high quality photo printing
Cons: Not a good all-purpose printer
The Bottom Line: If you are serious about printing high quality photos at home, you can't go wrong with the Canon i960.
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| bwestman's Full Review: Canon I-960 Photo Printer Ink-jet Printer |
When my husband and I got a Fuji S5000 camera for ourselves for Christmas, I came to the stark realization that my HP895 printer (a great little workhorse in it’s own right) just isn’t a photo printer. It sort of made no sense to bother taking wonderful pictures if I couldn’t print them with any real quality. So I started looking for a photo printer. I will say, right off, that I made my choice knowing that I was going to keep my HP-895 for everyday work and that the printer I chose would be selected strictly for its photo printing ability.
After much research, I decided on the Canon i960. The first factor in my choice was the print resolution. The Canon i960 prints at maximum resolution of 4800 x 2400. Canon achieves this remarkable resolution by using 3,072 print nozzles (512 per head x 6 heads) with 2 picoliter drops for the ultimate in fine detail. The second factor in my choice is that I absolutely abhor throwing away an ink cartridge when I know that 2/3 of it is still useful. I wanted a printer with individual color ink tanks so that I can replace only what I need and not throw out half a tank of magenta and yellow just because my cyan is empty.
Speed wasn’t a prime factor in making my decision, but the blazing speed of this machine is extremely pleasant. I’m using a fairly up-to-date computer with Windows XP and 2.0 USB ports so I am able to take full advantage of this printer’s quickest capabilities. Average print time for a borderless 4x6 print is just over half a minute. 8x10 photos print in about a minute. For those of you without USB 2.0, the printer also has a plug for USB 1.1 connection as well.
Out of the Box
Aside from the obvious, you get the power cord, 6 ink tanks (Black, Cyan, Photo Cyan, Magenta, Photo Magenta, and Yellow), a sample pack of Canon 4x6 Photo Paper, and a CD containing the drivers and lots of software to get you started. The ink tanks for this printer don’t contain the print heads like HP cartridges do, so the print head is a separate piece you will need to install. It is included in the box as well. You will also receive your user’s manual and a poster-size Start-up Guide. If you follow the Start-up Guide exactly, you should have no problems at all. I went from box to printing in about 20 minutes.
Set-up was quick and easy. The most time-consuming part was removing all that blasted packing tape from the printer! I have never seen so much orange tape in all my life. On the plus side, my printer came out of the box in perfect shape. Once you get that all squared away, you will install print head (it just drops into place) and the ink cartridges. Next, plug in the power cord (which, thankfully isn’t one of those big, bulky, boxy things), the USB cable and you’re off! That’s it! As I said, you will want to be sure to follow the Start-Up guide and you should have no trouble at all. The instructions include step-by-step directions for both Windows and MAC setup.
The Experience
As I said, the only other printer I’ve owned for the past 5 years has been the HP-895, which is NOT a photo printer. I can’t speak first-hand to how the i960 compares to other printers in its category, but I can tell you about the quality I’ve seen.
Printing on glossy paper produces results that rival photo lab photos. I’ve printed 4x6’s on the Canon paper included with the printer and the same pictures using Kodak Premium paper. I can’t tell the difference. I’ve also printed several 8x10 photos using Kodak Premium paper and Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy paper. Again, no noticeable difference. The photos that come out of this printer are nothing short of superb. The colors are brilliant and skin tones are excellent. I am just blown away by the detail on these prints. I carry some of my favorite 4x6’s with me all the time just to show them off.
So far, I’ve printed about 25 8x10’s and 30 4x6’s using the highest quality settings on the printer and the only cartridge showing any use at all is the Photo Magenta. The rest of the tanks are still nearly completely full. I suppose I haven’t really printed enough to make any comments on ink consumption. From what I’ve seen, though, it doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.
I haven’t printed but a few pages of text, mostly just for the sake of curiosity and this review. The speed is about equal to my HP-895 and the quality is really very good. I still intend to keep my HP-895 for general use, though. For most light duty home users, this printer would probably suffice for general use. If you need a speedy workhorse for text and graphic use, you will probably want something more geared toward that purpose. The true calling of the i960 is photos.
Finally, this is the quietest printer I’ve ever been around. I’m old enough to remember when people used to buy special housing containers to dampen the noise of their printer. No such thing needed here. This printer is stationed right next to me at my desk and I don’t hear it at all. I tend to forget I printed something unless I'm specifically watching for it. You almost have to look at the printer to be sure it’s running.
Another nice feature I like is the stand-by mode. Using a setting in the driver software, you can program the printer for auto-on and stand-by mode. If you haven't used it in the designated time frame (user defined), the power light will shut off and the printer will appear off, but is really in sleep mode. Sending a file to the printer will wake it up and set it into action.
The Software
The included CD contains the printer drivers and some basic software to get you started. The print driver offers many user customized settings that will allow you to get the optimum print each time. You can set the defaults for your most common preferences and then set up individual profiles for other common option settings.
EASY-WEB PRINT is a program I never knew existed but always wish I had. This little program installs itself into your browser and then formats web pages so you can print them without those annoying blank pages and chopped off edges. Pretty neat!
EASY PHOTO PRINT is a quick and easy way to print out your pictures using a variety of predefined formats. It doesn’t allow for any editing of the picture other than rotation or cropping (trimming). But it is a great way to get high quality prints right out of the gate. This is the program I’ve used the most, so far.
PHOTO STITCH is a handy little program for making panoramic view photos. I haven’t played with it much because that just isn’t my thing. I used it for one panorama photo and it is fairly simple to use. I personally just don’t have much use for it.
PHOTO RECORD is a terrific program in my opinion. I have literally thousands of photos on my computer, in dozens of directories. This program lets you create photo albums, index sheets, and mosaics using your photos and other little add-on graphics and tools.
ZOOM BROWSER EX is sort of the program that ties the rest of the programs together. I’m not sure I understand the purpose of this program, but you open it, browse your photos, then it launches one of the other programs based on what you want to do with your pics. It does offer some rudimentary editing tools to change contrast, brightness, color, etc.
Other Stuff
The i960 can print photos from any camera that is Pictbridge enabled. Mine isn’t so I can’t tell you anything about this feature. That wasn’t particularly important to me since I use my computer to store, edit, manipulate and organize my photos.
Target Market
This is a top-notch photo printer and anyone who is serious about their digital prints would be pleased with this printer. Basically, I was torn at first between the i960 and the i860. The 860 has slightly lower stats for photo printing, but adds speed and quality to everyday printing. I made my final decision once I decided not to try to have one printer for everything. I use the i960 strictly for photos and my HP-895 for everything else.
If you print photos from the PC or have one of the new Pictbridge compatible cameras, you will be exceptionally pleased with the quality from this printer. And for photo printing speed, I believe this is one of the fastest printers out there. If you’re looking for a speedy general purpose printer, this might not be the right choice.
All in all, I’m positive I made the right decision for high quality photo printing. The printer is the perfect compliment to my Fuji S5000 camera. For everything else, there’s HP.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 199.00
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
bwestman
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Location: Maine
Reviews written: 240
Trusted by: 45 members
About Me:
I am hopelessly impulsive. I admit it.
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