An excellent Photo Printer
Written: Nov 21 '04
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Pros: It's portable, simple to use and the photo quality is excellent
Cons: Jams up when too many pages are printed.
The Bottom Line: I would definitely recommend this printer for its ease of use; excellent quality photos, and incredibly compact, space-saving size.
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| Quebecoise's Full Review: Canon I80 4-ink with micro-nozzles, advanced micro... |
Let's start with the bottom line: if what you're looking for is an excellent printer for photos; a printer for the occasional print-out (your son's science project, a great recipe from the internet, a 5-page letter to grandma); a printer for calendars, cards or envelopes, this is the one for you. If what you want is an office printer, for pages and pages of print documents, I advise you to avoid this printer and go for a larger desk model, with a larger black ink cartridge and a greater paper capacity.
Readers should note that I use this printer in combination with a Macintosh iBook G4 computer, which operates with system OSX.2. A friend who uses a Dell computer tells me that she has had great success with the Canon i-80 as well...but my first-hand experience comes only with personal computer.
That said, let me start by telling you a little bit about the physical appearance of this printer. One of the selling points of this printer is that it's portable. Now many products are called "portable" but this one truly is. When the lid is down and the plugs are pulled, it's about the size of a large, square purse...the kind you'd carry to a dinner party. (Its dimensions are 31 centimetres by 17 centimetres, and it weighs just under 3.5 pounds. THAT'S PORTABLE. Its silver in color (if that matters to you) and has a very "space age" look. The printer is therefore ideal for travels (it would be VERY easy to set up in a hotel room, a library, the back of a bus....) or for someone who is trying to conserve desk-space, since it takes up very little room.
The great thing about the printer is that it doesn't act like a portable printer. It prints all standard photo sizes (8"X10", 5"X7", 4"X6", wallet size) on matte or glossy paper, with simplicity and with great color and resolution. The quality of the photos is comparable to anything you would have printed in a photo shop (from a digital camera) and better than I've had printed at online services like Ofoto. The photos print quickly and dry quickly. They can be printed with borders, or borderless, according to the printer's preference.
Another great thing about this printer is the ease of set up. Once the printer arrives, the user simply installs the software, and follows and a fold-out guide, which takes the user through a simple step-by-step procedure, including actions like plugging the printer cable from the computer to the printer, installing the ink cartridges, and running a color test. Setting up the printer is so easy that it would be hard to not get it right, the first time, easily. The printer cable necessary to get set up, however, is NOT included (it cost me an additional $12).
The Canon i-80 is also a great printer for short documents. Among it's myriad uses here in my home office are printing directions from the internet, printing short letters, printing graphics (on regular or photo paper). I've even printed on t-shirt stencils, which came out beautifully.
What is the Canon i-80 not good for? Well....I had to print out a 300-page manuscript and in doing so went through 3 (count 'em...THREE) black ink cartridges. I also noticed in the process, that the printer became jammed fairly frequently during the process. This was incredibly frustrating. And to add to the frustration, I had trouble getting the printer to print only the portions that I had NOT already printed. So in addition to wasting what felt like gallons of ink, I was also wasting trees' worth of paper. What I learned was that this printer is not meant for big jobs. Plain and simple.
Another interesting fact/quirk to note about the Canon i-80 is that when printing documents, it prints them in reverse order. In other words, the 10th page of a 10-page document will print first, followed by the 9th page, etc. This is good to know, because every once in a while you may be tempted to print a document, for which you need only the first couple of pages. Logic would tell you that you could begin printing and simply cancel half way through. Not so on the Canon i-80. After making this mistake several times, I'm now careful to indicate which pages I want printed. This is fairly simple to do. And if you're ever unsure of how many pages your document/file is composed of, you can simply look at the print preview, which will provide that information. Fortunately, I haven't found too many other quirks.
What about speed? Well, if you're printing photos, or standard documents, it seems fairly rapid. The specs say it prints at about 10 pages per minute. This seems about right. When the pages are black and white it's a little quicker. For me, that's just fine. There are quicker printers on the market. But I don't need one. (Again, for longer documents, the speed may be inadequate).
Here are the complete specs for the i-80:
Connectivity Technology:
Infrared, USB 1.1
Max B&W Printing Speed
14 ppm
Max Colour Printing Speed:
10 ppm
Max Media Size: (Standard)
A4 (210 x 297 mm), Legal (216 x 356 mm)
Media Type:
High resolution paper, Matt photo paper, Glossy photo paper,
Semi-gloss photo paper, Photo paper, Plain paper,
Transparencies, Envelopes
Media Capacity:
30 sheets
Maximum Supported RAM:
64 KB
OS Required:
Apple MacOS 9.x, Apple MacOS 8.6 or later, Microsoft Windows
98/ME/2000/XP, Apple MacOS X 10.2.1 or later
Width:
31 cm
Depth:
17.4 cm
Height:
5.2 cm
Weight:
1.8 kg (approx. 3.3 lbs)
Service & Support:
1 year warranty
What about price? Well, the manufacturer (Canon) suggests that this product sell, retail, for about $250. I was able to get it about $50 dollars cheaper. This is a little more expensive than some comparable-quality photo printers, but those are not portable. This is one of the most effective, compact models on the market. And in my opinion, the extra $40 or so is worthwhile.
The printer also comes with a 1-year warranty. So far, I've neither needed to use the warranty, nor the customer service representatives.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 200
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
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Epinions.com ID:
Quebecoise
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Location: New England
Reviews written: 78
Trusted by: 29 members
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