Beating the Competition - Canon
Written: Feb 01 '05 (Updated Mar 18 '05)
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Pros: Great Integration for Direct Camera Printing: Excellent Photos: Okay Scans: Low Cost per Cartridge
Cons: Small Buttons - One Photo Cartridge
The Bottom Line: The MP390 has great integration and a clean interface. With very good quality photos and simple copying it will fit the bill for nearly every home or small office user!
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| Carazariah's Full Review: Canon MultiPASS MP390 All-In-One InkJet Printer |
The Intro
Canon has been a leading manufacturer of electronic devices for more than a decade now: They began in 1937 and have cemented their dependable and valuable place in computer and photographic peripherals.
The Canon MP390 is no exception: When beginning a search of multifunction devices I asked myself a few questions. 1. Which printer is Easy to Use? 2. Which is compatible with a Canon A75 digital camera? 3. Which printer has an overall cost of ownership that is in the excellent range less than 10cents per page for black and white and less than 20 cents per page for color?
This printer measured up in each of these areas but not the least being ease of use: This multi function device contains a scanner, ink jet printer, copier and fax machine. This lets you complete most any tasks that could come up in a small home office setting.
The printer itself is fairly compact approximately 18' by 14' by 10' according to the Canon site and it has a solid shelf scanning/copying glass plate. There isn't a sheet scan feeder, so this isn't ideal for a multi scan environment.
Ease of Use and Setup A
I found the setup to be fairly simple. There were clearly labeled directions in a large fold out card that made it easy to start and complete the setup in just under 10 minutes. Most of that time was spent installing software and completing the head alignment.(more on that later)
The printer comes standard with 1 color and 1 black cartridge. These aren't the starter sets that some printer manufacturers have been dropping on consumers. So these will last just as long as the cartridges you buy later. And since the Black cartridge retails for under $10 bucks it’s hard not to smile about that kind of price in an inkjet printer. The color is a bit more but you should be able to find it for under $20 and closer to the $15 dollar range with some effort. The ink cartridges aren't as numerous as some of the competitors, the multiple color cartridges, give some of these competitors a price per page advantage and a wider scale of color range for their prints, but this Canon MP390 excels none the less and handles both Photo quality and plain black text more than acceptably.
Bonus Feature A
Answering the Canon A75 Compatibility Question!
Pict Bridge Technology, allows you to plug any Canon compatible camera directly without downloading to the PC.
With most printers and digital cameras in the past this has been a time consuming but necessary process, of plugging the camera into the computer and downloading your pictures to the system. From there you needed to crop and rotate, and caress your pictures and then print them to the printer. Pict Bridge allows you to short circuit that with a Canon compatible printer and camera. Simply plug the camera into the printer and voila you can rotate edit and crop right from the camera!
(Canon isn't the only vendor that offers similar functionality - HP seems to do this well too)
Photo Printing Notes B
This Canon as most Photo printers support completely borderless prints. This wastes a lot less paper and brings glossy or matte 4x6 prints straight out of your printer. With specialized alcohol inks the prints are dry immediately and there is little wait time, though it’s still good to let them dry before framing or handling too roughly as the directions indicate. But you won't accidentally smudge them if you touch the print as was the case in the not too distant past. I found the prints to be great for my needs and the resolution support 4800 x 1200 prints for Color and 600 x 600 for Black and white there is little reason to complain.
The warmth of the prints I made was a bit off, I'm not sure exactly how to describe it but the colors were slightly warmer than normal, though this very well could have been some user adjustable setting.
Other Features B
I haven't used the other features extensively but the buttons on the top of the printer provide pretty good explanation of how to proceed. You can choose from the printer the option you need, Scan, Copy, Fax and choose how many copies you want.
Speaking of the buttons they are a little crowded, but not undesirably so. It is a pretty compact space and they arrange things pretty well.
And then there was the Alignment. Each time that you change the printer cartridge, the system takes you through an alignment process, this takes a little bit of time and sometimes if your not careful its easy to hit the wrong key and then you have to start over. But once you get the hang of it its not so bad. There are clear instructions included for this process, it makes sure the cartridge is ready to print exactly on target for all your prints.
Cost of Ownership A
This Canon has some of the most economical ink cartridges for any ink jet printer. Canon doesn't gouge you on the ink costs, and they are constantly improving their quality and accuracy. If your looking to do extensive high quality photos, you may look for there Pixma line which contains multiple color cartridge options and still maintains Pict Bridge usability for most lines
This printer definitively makes the grade in this category!
Overall A
The Canon MP390 has a lot of strengths for the price point. It meets the home office and home user needs extremely well. With great Photo printing, and nice integrated scanning and copying this printer makes the grade
Are you looking for a Small Office - Personal BW Laser Printer? Check out this Review Konica Strikes Out
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 149
Operating System: Windows and Macintosh
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Epinions.com ID:
Carazariah
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Location: Marshall, TX
Reviews written: 21
Trusted by: 5 members
About Me:
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Live in Marshall,TX
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