13 out of 13 people found this review helpful.
Decent Printer for small volume photo printing. Great for standard printing use!
Date of Review: May 12, 2007
The Bottom Line: Good sturdy printer! Excellent color and black and white print quality.
This is a well made printer. It is easy to set up. The print quality is excellent in all modes. It operates smoothly and prints standard black ink copies and proofs quickly. The dye-based ink cartridges for the Canon Pixma's tend to be a bit messy, so you have to be careful handling them. The flashing red lights when they are getting low etc. is nice, but may contribute to the high price - I could do without this so-called feature.
This Canon ink jet printer similar to others in its class consumes ink cartridges fast. Consider your use before purchasing! With the low price of having high volume color photos printed at Walgreens, CVS or photo imaging labs, I rarely use this printer for large numbers of photos. The cost of paper and ink just make printing photos in great numbers too high. However, for cranking out a couple of photos or color proofs short notice, the photo print quality is excellent.
For the day-to-day printing needs (correspondences, invoices, resumes, letter and envelopes etc) the Canon PIXMA iP4200 is a good and sturdy printer. The angle of the intake paper tray is sturdy and at a good angle preventing paper from falling forward as I often experience with my Epson C88. This printer handles envelop printing very well! The paper exit tray is ample with an extra extension tab to prevent paper for falling off as it prints. This is a somewhat boxy printer compared to other printers, but the ample trays and speed make up for the Canons larger size. The diagnostics and ink check tools are very effective and useful.
Watch out for nozzle clogging problems etc. Other reviews have noted this as a problem. I experienced clogging of entire blue ink delivery system (beyond nozzle clogging) on my initial Canon PIXMA iP4200 and was advised by Canon to purchase another one as it was too costly to repair it. Canon greatly adjusted price of replacement unit and offered free shipping in this particular case.