When looking for a photo printer, what do you look for? Speed? The amount of colors it can hold? Price? Quality? Convienence? If you answer yes to these, then the Canon i900D is definitely for you.

The Canon i900D was a photo printer that I've been eying ever since it came out and made its debut at the Best Buy I used to work at. The Canon reprehensive printed many photos - of their stock photos, and actual photos taken with many different cameras and media, and all of them were breath taking. Some of my favorites were from the 2004 Chicago Auto Show, showing engine compartments, shiny new cars, the people, and the environment as a whole (wide angle shot).

Not to be biased, we allowed the other printer representatives use the same photos on their printers. HP printers all used the same 56/57/58 cartridges, and all looked the same - all were bland. The Lexmark didn't even compare with it's washed out outputs. The only other printer manufacture that even came close was the Epson's line (all of them!). That's right - it does not seem to be a particular model for either Canon or Epson - even the lowest end printer (the Canon i560) was able to print great pictures that were equal to the i900D - and the i560 only uses 4 colors! The Epson's only downfall is that they do not print too well on glossy, but did its best with matted paper (thanks to its Durabrite inks).

The quality was there, and so was the speed. I was not able to do any formal tests when I was there on the sales floor, but it was quick, when printed out from a computer. Printing from digital media (such as an SD card) slowed things down a lot - no doubt the media was actually the bottle neck, not the printer's mechanics itself.

So I was sold
It was $249.99 when it first came out, and then it fell to $199.99 at the time I was drooling over this printer, and once I left Best Buy and had a better job, I was able to afford such a luxury. So in August (when I met this awesome and fun going girl, and my new job started), we took so many impromptu pictures, I decided to go ahead and purchase a photo printer (with the i900D in mind) for printing pictures out for her. So, yes... it all came back to Fry's Electronics again, as I always do. :) And I was glad I did, as they have the printer on sale for $169.99! It was an offer I could not refuse! Despite being a Canon, I've done some tests with the sample photo glossies that Canon included with the printer with the Epson paper I purchased (from what I was told by many, Epson makes the best paper to use no matter what printer you have). The results were staggering - the Canon paper did not represent black very well (bluish gray). Epson's paper recreated blacks with stride. This is all on the Canon i900D!

I was very happy with the 4x6 paper handler. You do not have to switch paper constantly if you print normally with plain 8.5" by 11" paper and then back to 4x6" photo glossy paper. It was one of the things I've noticed on the floor model, but never really appreciated it until I had actually used it myself.

The multimedia card reader can read all media (CF, SD, SM, and Sony MM) except for XD. You will need a CF adaptor for XD, but it can be read after which (the canon representative had to ease the feelings a Fuji camera owner). The multimedia card reader only shows up as one single drive on the PC. Consequently, if you insert a media (say, an SD Card), you could not insert another one of a different format (say, a CF card), as it feels like there is a physical tab that prevents two or more cards inserted at the same time. Oh, phooey.

The cartridges are clear, so you can see exactly how much ink you have left. Consequently, there are no chips in the cartridge (but it may be pressurized to prevent refills), and the printer actually uses an optical sensor to monitor the ink levels.

Speaking of inks, it has 6 colors, and they all last a very long time! I was able to print 60 4x6" photos, and 8 8x10" borderless photos, and the ink levels were still high! The only one that was noticeably used was the yellow (lots of skin tone). I have confident that it will last much longer than most ink jet printers I've used.

The cartridges are separated by colors, so if you run out of one color, you do not have to throw out the rest of the colors. You just buy what you need, which saves you a lot of cash in the long run. Cartridges being only $11.95 each doesn't hurt, either. :)

Installation
Installation is a breeze. You install the drivers first from the CD. It also comes with Canon's own software to handle the different media cards and that way you can print from your PC instead of thru the cards (it acts like a card reader - it shows up as a drive you can access via Explorer). It caches the photos you want to print on the PC and prints via the high speed USB 2.0 port instead.

Once installed, you are prompted to connect the printer up via a USB 2.0 cable (not included), and Windows, now with the drivers installed, can recognize, correctly identify, and install the printer. A new drive letter will appear for the card reader, and as said before, you only get one drive letter.

Media Slots
Having only one drive letter is strange to me (considering the multiple media it takes) until I tried to insert multiple media. I found out that the printer has a mechanical way of disabling other slots when a media is already inserted, effectively allowing only one media card at a time. So for example: if you have a CF card already inserted, and try to insert an SD Card as well, it won't go all the way in, and so it won't accept the SD Card. Pull out the CF card, and the SD card will slide freely into the slot.

USB 2.0 is definitely being used, as I was able to transfer data from my 1 GB ATP SD Card as fast as I could have as if I was using the QPS USB 2.0 media card reader. Because of this, printing via the computer is also much faster.

Printing
Using several SD and CF cards (the only ones I have and use for my cameras); a 4x6 photo in the best quality setting took 3 minutes to print. The same photo printed via a PC (USB 2.0) only took 1 minute. Lesson? If you're not lazy, use your PC to print! If speed is not a concern, the convienence of printing directly from a card is great. And setting up a batch print job on the printer is easy - all without booting into Windows.

Even easier is printing from the PC, but you do need to boot it up and get into Windows. But you will be rewarded with Canon's 1 minute per photo claim (which really does live up to its reputation). Either way you choose, the photos came out dry enough to handle without smudging (unless you have oily fingers).

Text printing is equally as fast - it only took 6 seconds for one page to print a simple letter created in Microsoft Word (page full of text in 10 point).

Equally impressive is the ink consumption. After 60 4x6 photos, and 15 normal printouts (web, text, and other non-photo uses), most of the ink tanks only dropped about 1 cm from the top. Yellow and magenta being the only exceptions (being about 2 cm from the top). I guess we could contribute this to printing human subjects (skin tones). Even the black ink cartridge is unfazed.

I have absolutely no qualms about large printing projects with this printer. Even when I run out, all of the cartridges are only $12 each! Not stinkin' bad! Not stinkin' bad at all!

As for using every last drop of ink (per what the representative said) - it is true! I've personally seen the cartridges (they are clear so you can see the ink - no more wondering if there is more you can squeeze out!) completely empty before the printer calls it quit! There is no electronics on the cartridges themseleves (all plastic). The way the printer can tell if the cartridge is empty is by using optical sensors to detect the ink levels. Very innovative. So when the driver says the ink is low, it's not guessing or lying. In fact, Canon has the bawls to include completely clear plastic cartridges so you can see for yourselves. And when it's completely empty, there is not a single drop of ink in the cartridge! A small amount may still be there enough for a print out or two in the sponge area, though.

Quality
The print quality of text was near laser sharp. A little fuzziness around smaller text could be detected, but not annoying at all.

Photos are what most will want to know about, and it's near picture perfect. Compared to all other brands of printers, Canon and Epson tie. Canon does print better on glossy paper, and Epson prints better on matted. However, when printed with Canon's own paper, blacks look a bit washed out (kind of gray). This would definitely ding my perception of the printer; except that I followed a tip by several customers I talked to who had more experience with printing photos - Epson paper!

Yes... it's strange, but I followed their advice and bought Epson 4x6 photo glossy paper and compared them with the Canon. The blacks now show their true colors - um... black! Colors seem much richer as well. Strange, no?

And what about the resolution? I could not see any misplaced pixels, dots, or other evidence that it was printed from a printer except for the "EPSON PAPER" or "CANON" logos on the back. The HP PSC 1350 and the HP PSC 1210 I reviewed months earlier could not replicate what the Canon i900D did. Photos on the HPs had stray pixels. On glossy paper, they have an odd shimmer compared to the Canon. Worse yet, are the colors - they seem much more washed out than either the Canon or Epson (the Epson also have this shimmer look on glossy, but not on matted).

I personally could not tell a print out from a Canon versus a photo that was developed in a photo lab.

Concerns
Although I have yet to have any problems with this printer, the only concern I have is the fact that the print heads are semi-permanent. It can be taken out to be cleaned, serviced, or replaced, but it's generally not a part you can purchase at a store. This worries me because past printers I've owned, such as it's older brother the Canon BJC 7000 series, have had this problem. Although the print heads were replaceable (and can be purchased at a local store), they discontinued the item and its supplies, making this perfectly good printer useless (still in my room collecting dust - who wants it?). Epson is another notorious one, except that their print heads are permanently on the printer's carriage - not a replaceable part. This includes the C62, Stylus Color 700, and the Stylus Color 880.

Every one of the printers mentioned above became useless when their print heads clogged up. The software driver program that usually have a "clean print head" option do not help the situation. So will the Canon i900D have this problem in the future? The Canon representative says no - the past ones clogged up because they were thermal-based - meaning that the print heads heat up the ink to force it thru the nozzles. This can dry the ink up and clog the heads. He claimed this was the case, and the reason why the i900D will not do that (as well as any of the newer printers based on the 3 and 6 series of cartridges - the i900D being based on the 6 series) is because they use pressure to force the ink through using piezo electric conductors (such as the ones used in those annoying greeting cards that play music).

Only time will tell.

Overall
This is an awesome printer dedicated for photos. It's text print out is not shabby, and can also function as your only printer in a pinch. I have yet to find an all-in-one that can do photos as well as this can, and I have tried! Canon (as far as I know) haven't made an all-in-one model that uses the 6 series of ink cartridges (which has the responsibility of color quality). Even if they did, they must not skimp on the print heads, as they are responsible for putting that nice ink down on paper!

If you are looking for a photo printer today, this is it!

PS: It took a while for me to finish this review, since I have been busy lately. The printer is now only $179 at Fry's Electronics, and probably on it's way in the discontinued rack!

SD Cards used:
PNY 256 MB SD Card
ATP 512 MB SD Card 60x
ATP 1 GB SD Card 60x

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 169.99
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh

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