Don't plan to use this when your family is sleeping -- heck, if anybody on your block is sleeping!


I have been using this printer for close to a year now, after "upgrading" from a Canon BJC-4300. I was attracted to the 3000 by its separate ink cartridges, and a price in the low $100's. Unfortunately, the 3000 never lived up to my expectations.

When I got it home, I unpacked... and unpacked... and unpacked! You'd think I was trying to get into Fort Knox or something. When it was finally hooked up and switched on, it made such a godawful noise, I was convinced I had missed some of the packing! Unfortunately, that turned out to be its normal racket. It announces itself with a horrendous buzz when I turn it on -- then does it again when I send it a document -- and again after it is done printing the document! I circumvented part of this by just leaving it on constantly; but when I send it a document, it still goes through a warm-up sequence that literally makes me cringe.

If I wanted "noisy-but-cheap", I could have gotten a dot matrix printer!

I would probably forgive its audible excesses if it produced stellar output. Alas, I've had to reprint more than one important document (including resumes, which wastes expensive paper), mostly because of misaligned passes.

I can't help but think that the misalignment is caused by the violent side-to-side motion of the print head. The movement is so vigorous, it shakes the (very heavy) file cabinet upon which the printer is perched (with a cushioned buffer in between, too!).

My printer sits on the file cabinet, rather than the desk, partly because of its large total footprint. I use legal paper, and by the time I have 14" paper sticking out the back (input; 45-degree angle) and front (output; virtually flat), I can forget about having anything else on my desk. (Not to mention having to chase the moving keyboard if I wanted to do anything while the printer was working! Although one hand would already be busy keeping the coffee cup aloft to avoid spills...)

Another annoyance is the well-intentioned low ink warning. Once the printer determines that the ink supply is getting "low" (more on that in a second), this window pops up every time you start to print a document, and stays there until your document is done. The first time it started popping up, I suffered through it for about 4 months before finally giving up and replacing the ink cartridge (which was dried out only about 1/4 of the way from the top by then -- far from being an "emergency" for all that time).

The only way I have found to stop the warning window is to remove the offending cartridge, with or without (which is not always an option) replacing it. If you minimize the window, it just reasserts itself later in the print process, once again interrupting whatever you are trying to do. The average home user will spend a lot of time looking at that pesky window! (As if the printer driver needed to generate another window -- it already spawns three, which adds to the mind-numbing amount of time it takes to get a couple of pages printed. Maybe that's what the "music" is for -- to keep you amused while you are waiting??)

It also seems to me that this ink takes inordinately long to dry. Even after a day or two, I still can't use a highlighter on it!

Lately, I've seen some well-rated, compact-footprint Panasonic and QMS laser printers for about the same price I paid for this desktop lawnmower; since my print jobs are mostly B&W, I think it's time to go shopping! (Figures -- I just found a place that sells the ink cartridges 3-for-1 every day...) Since I've already spent the money for the Canon, I guess I'll hang on to it for those occasional color jobs; but if I had it to do over again, I think I'd stick with the 4300.



Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 120