Priced as a high-end ink jet printer, the Canon BJC 7004 Photo costed $499 at time of my purchase (cira 2000). With a resolution of 1200x600, one would hope for photo-quality printouts. And it did not dissapoint!

For those who will be using this printer for everyday printing, it may be too much for your needs. Web pages, Word documents, and Excel documents whiz thru relatively quick. However, fire up Photoshop, and the BJC-7004 will shreek. Having the parallel port as its' only form of communication, printouts are long, and takes up lots of CPU resources, slowing your PC down as well. This is very appearent, as you choose the highest quality settings in Canon's user friendly Windows driver. However, as life proves, patience pays off, as photo printouts comes out almost undistinguishable from the real thing (as long as you use photo paper).

Print quality, obviously, are top notch. Printing on trapnsparences, you will notice that the printouts look darker. It concerned me when I first saw it, but once it is placed under the overhead, the dark colors shows up richly, as if the presentation was off a laptop's external monitor out port. This is indeed impressive, as most inkjets I have used print them relatively light (and you can tell it's a transparency once on an overhead projector). But, alas, this does indicate the thirsty nature of the beast, as it chugs down ink mercilessly.

To add insult to injury, the cartridges are expensive! One would think they would get their money's worth... after all, the cartridges are HUGE! But, alas, they last as much as any other inkjet printers I've used, when used liberally.

The BJC-7004 Photo cartridge system is interesting, and may be confusing to some. You can buy "ink tanks" which comes with both the ink cartdrige and the printhead for around $40-50 each (regarless of color), or the ink cartridge itself (no printhead), for about $10 less. To makes your head spin even more, Canon gives you a printer version of "which gas should I use... Regular or Premium?" with a choice of the standard 3-color carts or the Photo quality 6-color carts. Price difference between the two are insignificant if you shop around. Usually, if you can find both under one store, they are priced $10 apart.

And before you say to yourself "hey! I can save some cash by getting those refill kits", let me tell you something.... the "aftermarket" refills are in on the scam, too! A kit I bought good for 4-5 refills for all carts (black and the photo (6 color) carts) took me for $100. I still bought it because at the time, that would come to about $25 for each refill...and that's for BOTH carts. Still messy, and quality of the inks are questionable, since they are not OEM.

Let's not even talk about the print speed (fast documents, slow photos)... lets talk about it's "boot" time. Once you turn on this printer, it takes a good 5 minutes before it is ready to accept data and print. Worse yet, even if you LEAVE THE PRINTER ON TO AVOID THIS, it would take 5 minutes for the printer to print if you haven't printed anything for a while. My guess is that the printer probably has a sleep mode. In either case, during this time, the printer self-tests and diagnose itself. However, once the beast is awaken, it is up for any further jobs you may have for it, as long as you don't let it fall asleep! And, no, there is NO WAY to tell if the printer nods off to neverneverland.

So where does this printer play in our lives? Hmm... lets see... too expensive for consumer use... quality is excellent... but they don't last long... and the cartridges themselves cost a fortune...

I give up. I think this printer is only for those who see past the value of a quality color laser printer from HP because of the inital cost. However, if you calculate your way out of it, the Canon BJC-7004 costs more than a color laser printer in the long run. And the funny thing? Color lasers can use copier paper to produce photo-quality...well... PHOTOS.

Do I recomened it? Well, I did bought it, but if I had the choice, I would have gone wth a cheaper, more well rounded printer.

Recommended: No

Amount Paid (US$): 499
Operating System: Windows