This is a printer. That's what is does. That's what it does well... (Canon BJC 2100)

Name: imagin8or

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Product:	Canon BJC 2100
Date:	04/07/01 (484 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap, Two tanks (or even one for reducing printing costs), high quality prints, surprising speed, Expandable with photo cartridge and scanner cartridge

Disadvantages: Only 2 tanks, Entry level

4 factors when buying a printer: Cost, speed, quality and convenience. The 2100 performs remarkably well in all these areas. Firstly, you will have probably noticed that this is one of the cheaper printers of the entry level market. There are two parts to the cost of a printer, though, and the second (and usually unforeseen) cost is for the consumables. Printer manufacturers often sell the printer for a reduced price, then hit the consumers when they want to buy some ink for their new printer. Strangely, Canon doesn't seem to have used this as much as others. The price of the printer is low, and I was initially sceptical of the long term costs as the printer showed itself to be a great performer. I was, however, pleasantly surprised when I went to buy replacements, as they were just £5 ($7) to £11 ($15) instead of about £25 ($35) for my previous printer (HP). This isn't quite the saving it sounds, as the tanks are smaller on the 2100. The 2100 uses two tanks, one for black and one for colour. If you're like me, you'll print more black than colour, so you don't have the problem of having to buy a whole new tank when either black or colour runs out. Having said that, it doesn't go as far as more expensive models which have separate tanks for cyan, magenta and yellow which are even more economical. If you only print in black and white, or are on a very low budget, the printing costs can be kept down by buying a black ink tank that sits instead of the separate black and colour tanks, and has a far greater capacity providing cheaper monochrome costs.

The next factor is the speed. Many printers are fine but for their speed, which varies hugely. Some printers' drivers take ages to spool (prepare to print), and some just spend ages printing. The Canon seems to be pretty speedy at both. When they designed the 2100, Canon seem to have just scaled down their more expensive printers. You get the same printer driver that the higher specced mo
dels use, which is quite fast and efficient, and the pages arrived quite promptly as well. Obviously its not going to be up to laser speeds, but it managed a fair old speed, compared to other printers I've used.

Thirdly, we have the quality factor. Here, again, the printer manages remarkably well. The resolution is not particularly anything to write home about, but it manages not to smear the ink everywhere, as every other inkjet I've used has, and it manages gradients well, which is often a sticking point for inkjets. When printing text, the 2100 is brilliant, producing a clear and crisp result. One of the options you have with this printer is the Photo cartridge. IF you buy this printer, then at some time in the future buy a digial camera or scanner and need high-quality colour output, you can buy a Photo colour cartridge, which will improve the colour quality of the prints. This is an expandability that really boosts your faith in the designers at Canon.

Finally, convenience. I have met many printers whose driver will inform you 'printer error' and promptly fall over if anything goes awry. The Canon's driver is very useful in informing you of the cartridge being low, or the printer not being connected. The printer also has a highly useful feature: both USB and parallel ports. This means that if you have an older computer, you can still use this when you upgrade, or if you buy a scanner. Beware, though, as mine had some problems. I don't know whether they were just due to my having installed the driver before for the parallel port and not following the (extensive) instructions properly. Another expansion you can use with the 2100 is the scanner cartridge. Here, you just replace the ink cartridges with the scanner cartridge (about £80 I think) and hey presto, you have a scanner. Not perfect, but highly workable.

So if you're after a printer that will do the job properly, quickly and without 20 calls to tech sup
port every time the cable works loose, the 2100 is ideal. If you will want to do lots of photo printing from the outset, need high speed printing or need higher quality prints, I would advise getting a higher specced model of the HP-9XX range or similar spec. But for a straight printer which pulls no punches, say hello to the 2100.

Summary: