First of all, let’s take a few things as a given. One. You have a lot of money lying around. Two. You are a prolific photographer/designer. And finally, Three. You hate going to the lab to get photos printed. Well, if you fit into those requirements then you’re looking at the printer of your dreams.
This is a multi-function device, meaning it can do everything from cooking and cleaning to washing your dog... well maybe not that much, but there are a lot of features. It is a Printer/Scanner/Standalone Copier device which boasts a class leading 9600x4800 dpi print resolution. Now if dpi values don’t make sense to you, just listen to my personal experience. The very first photo I printed on it had my eyeballs popping out in a matter of seconds. I’d expected a lot, but what I got was quality exceeding my imagination. This printer using a 5 colour (Dye Black, Cyan, Magenta, Yellow + Pigment Black) system, which while not as comprehensive as a 7 colour system, delivers print better than what I’ve seen in outputs from professional labs. Now, you must remember that I printed the photo on Canon’s Photo Paper Pro which came free (5 4x6 sheets) with the printer. The same image printed at same quality on normal A4 paper lacks some of the brilliance, detail, and entirety of the glossiness.
I went ahead and scanned my printed image at 600 dpi (it took approx 10 seconds, and 600 dpi is overkill) and resized it to 20% and checked for differences. You can check for differences on YOUR OWN!
Click the link below to see the original image. https://deviantart.com/view/14378146/
And click the link below to see what I scanned! https://img304.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cloudninescanned7jm.jpg
As you’ll notice if you compare carefully, the colour of the blues is different and that’s probably because I’d enabled a ’Vivid Colours’ option before which alters the blues and the greens to bring them out more in the print. Other than a little loss of detail during the whole process, which is in fact, inevitable, I have to say that in my books, it performed astoundingly.
Copying is an easy affair for which you needn’t even have the computer turned on. Just press the ’Black’ or ’Colour’ Start Buttons on the keypad and you’re all set. Print speeds are amazing. The rated print and copy speeds for the printer is a whopping 30 pages per minute. Though I’ve yet to extract such a speed from this printer, a figure of 15 ppm is an excellent proposition (and a reality, at standard quality), when you consider that LASER printers are sometimes not as fast. The printer also lives up to it’s rated photo print speed of 36 seconds per 4x6 (at ’Fine’ Quality Setting) in my tests. This too is a new top benchmark for other printers in its class.
On top of it all, it boasts a large LCD screen capably of displaying 65k+ colours and shows comprehensive status of the printer, allows edit of the truckload of functions that the printer offers and previewing, selection, and editing of photos when printing directly from a Pictbridge compatible camera. The LCD screen swivels and so can be placed at a convenient angle for viewing. The printer though huge (for an inkjet) is one hell of a looker. Paper can be loaded in the bottom tray and then closed. In this manner the printer looks as though it has absolutely no openings when it isn’t functioning. When a print job is assigned, the paper output tray automatically opens out. Pretty impressive!
Some other features it offers are film and slide scanning, direct photo print from films, Two Way Paper Feed, Auto Duplexing, Infrared Connectivity and Optional Bluetooth Connectivity for direct print from mobile phones, Pictbridge compliancy, Memory Card slots for every imaginable card, Printing on a CD/DVD or direct copy of label of a CD/DVD and a 100 year album life for photos printed from it. There are a LOT more. Download the brochure from Canon India’s site and look through it.
Now as to why MUA spent a king’s ransom to buy this printer... well, it’s like this. A printer is a long time investment. I’m not gonna buy another printer for at least 4 years (probably much more), and it only makes sense that I buy top-of-the-line now so that I’ll be satisfied with it even when newer products have come and gone. So this is what I have to say. If YOU have the money and YOU are in the market for a multifunction, LOOK NO FURTHER. I bought this printer only after a LOT of research, so spare yourself the bother, and just go and buy it!
P.S Buy only from authorized Canon dealers. Check Canon India’s site for more information. I was disappointed with the service from people who were otherwise.