A wonderful inkjet printer that is hard to fault (Canon i850)

Member Name: HassledDad

Product:	Canon i850
Date:	02/01/04 (475 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great quality photo and standard printing, Cheap to run, Edge-to-edge printing

Disadvantages: Slow to first page, but then fast, No proper output tray

This is a great ink-jet printer that I find hard to fault. The quality of the print is excellent, both on text and photographs. I especially like its capability to print from edge-to-edge. The only downside to this is persuading software packages like MS PowerPoint to take advantage of the edge-to-edge capability.

Cannon?s system of individual tanks for each ink make the i850 far more economic than the Lexmark and HP inkjets I?ve previously owned. I bought a complete set of replacement tanks for less than the cost of a single Lexmark cartridge. However, in five months of fairly light usage but a handful of lengthy document prints I haven?t yet needed to change any of the tanks that the printer came with, though the driver software says that the black ink is getting low. No one seems to have told Canon that the way to make money with ink jet printers is to sell printers cheap and then rip customers off with overpriced cartridges?

I chose this particular model because it has both Centronics and USB connections so that I could attach two computers attached simultaneously without the palaver of networking them. In the end, I haven?t needed to use this capability, but it may be useful to you.

Niggles with this printer are minor. It takes a comparatively long time to start a print. I haven?t timed it but it is noticeably slower than other inkjets I have used. It seems to chatter away to itself for itself, before getting going. Once it gets going the print speed is quite fast, so no more half-hour waits for photo quality prints. Another point is that there it does not have a proper exit paper tray, so you have to stand it directly on a flat surface that is wide enough to hold the output. This could be an inconvenience in a cramped home office, and aren?t they all cramped?

In summary, I strongly recommend this and would buy it again without hesitation.

PS There is only one Canon i850, not a ?standard? i850 and a ?Photo Printer?
i850, not two as you might think fomr the presence of separate reviews in dooyoo. You might be forgiven for that the i850 is schizophrenic, it does both jobs so well.

The photo paper I use if Kodak?s Inkjet Photo paper, and this gives excellent results ? not problems with long drying times another reviewer has reported with other photo paper. However, you always treat inkjet photo prints with care for the first hour or so, whatever paper you use.

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