skyth's Full Review: Canon PIXMA iP4600 InkJet Photo Printer
My most recent printers have all been nightmares -- with uneven print quality and ridiculously expensive toner cartridges. Needless to say, I was printer-jaded for a couple of years, until I finally decided to start scouting the market for a reasonably priced, decent printer. Laser was out the question since I wanted something cheap, and I hardly print large documents (I have my work printer for that). I spent quite sometime researching the market, and finally found a decent deal on this printer. I've been using it for a few months now, and am glad to say that I am satisfied.
Looks and Portability (*** )
The canon printer is a rectangular box. That is about it. When I close all externals, it reminds me of a coffin. The grey cover is actually shiny plastic, almost as transparent as glass. The black is just vinyl. With all externals shut, this printer can fit nearly anywhere. I have it sitting on top of my book shelf, and its snug nicely against the wall. Although its rather ugly looking, I really like this level of portability with a printer, as it was one of my concerns since I bought it with a scanner as well. People will probably not realize it’s a printer until you open up the top paper feeder, as well as the front cover for the output. Unless you have the feeder and the output open all the time, it will look like you have a non-descript object sitting near your computer desk.
Setting Up (*****)
The printer comes out of the box with everything needed to hook-it up in 5 minutes and start pumping prints. About the manual, well, I thought it was really complicated, so I put it in the waste-basket. This thing was so easy to hookup that I ditched the manual after 2 months of owning the printer. There was actually a 1 through 5 setup instructions for installing the ink-cartridges, which is as easy as playing a 5 year old block-puzzle IQ game. Just pull out the reddish metallic rubber, and click it in place.
The printer hooks up to the PC with a USB (like everything else these days) and XP will pick up the drivers automatically. There is a bunch of original software that comes with it, as well maintenance tools for deep-cleaning the cartridges, doing color-testing, and monitoring your ink-level. Overall, Canon is a breeze to hookup, setup and enjoy. I haven 't done the wireless setup yet, but thats also one of the coolest features of this printer. Yes, you can hook it up to your network with no wires, nice eh.
Additionally, the software for printing your existing digital images can be learnt in a matter of minutes. Its simple select photo, choose paper size, and print. It also allows you to edit the image to a very small extend, which is good for light-printers like yours truly.
Actual Print Quality (*****)
With professional glossy or matte photo paper, you won’t be able to tell the difference between developed films and your digital prints. Yes, its that good, and truly amazing for such little click-and-print effort. I used to work at a media lab back in college, where people paid $10 dollars per print on a Kodak Photo printer. We spent 30 minutes configuring and converting the image before sending it to the output queue. Ease of printing and quality has definitely improved in the last 8 years. I use a 7.1 pixel digital camera, and all my images have come out professional quality. I print a variety of sizes, from 4x6 to 5x7 and even some 8x10 photos. I must mention, though, the large size print (8x10) is not that great. For this price though, I can’t really complain. Additionally, I have used this printer for duplicating photos that I scanned. Although not as good as a print from a digital-camera, these duplications have also been very good.
Additionally, printing web-pages or documents has proven to be very accurate, same quality as laser. Speed-wise, Canon delivers. It takes under 30 seconds to produce a high-definition photo, and a couple of seconds to output a document.
Ink Usage and Maintenance (****)
Unfortunately, Canon relies on all colors even when printing black and white documents. I tried to configure the printer just for black-and-white for a couple of weeks, during which I was printing some applications. The printer ran-out of Magenta and Yellow after week 2. I had done no color or photo printing during this time. This is truly strange that other colors ran out of ink while printing black and white.
Nevertheless, one of the reasons I bought the Canon was because of the good reviews I had seen on the ink-usage, and the low price of replacing the cartridges. You only need to buy the color that ran out, and it costs about $9 off of Amazon. Your computer will start to warn you, and let you know which color is running out when it’s less than 10%. At this point you have about a week to replace the cartridge. I ran nearly 200 photos and 50 pages of documents before I had this happen, and I think this is pretty good.
Conclusion (*****)
Overall, I think the Canon is the printer you can buy in its price range. Its portability, simplicity, quality of print; and, most of all, low-cost maintenance, more than make up for its drawbacks and make it deserve 5 stars from me. I highly recommend this printer.
Premium Photo Printer with Individual Ink Tanks and Built-In Auto Duplex. Photo lab-quality 4 x 6 borderless prints in 20 seconds? Yes, you can do tha...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
9600 x 2400 dpi color/ 600 x 600 dpi black resolution, up to 26 ppm (black) / up 21 ppm (color), 150 Pages output tray capacity, USB Interface, Pictbr...More at eCOST.com
Photo lab quality borderless 4 by 5 inch photo in approximately 20 seconds ChromaLife100 system delivers vibrant photos that last up to 300 years Maxi...More at Amazon Marketplace
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.