Chip on the shoulder (Canon Pixma iP4200)

Member Name: hillcrestsan

Product:	Canon Pixma iP4200
Date:	06/01/08 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Prints well

Disadvantages: Chipped cartridges a nightmare .

Ok. This is another thing I don't actually own. It's the main computer I work on at school and I sort of know what I'm talking about because I'm in charge of IT. So I err....bought it.

This'll be a brief one.
It's good. It prints well, has an easy set-up and came with functional, if not spectacularly exciting software. It has NASTY chipped cartridges which make cheap running a pain! It's quite chunky - you could almost have put a scanner on it.

First the print quality. 9600 x 2400 colour and 600x600 black. The prints are crisp, clean and colour matching was good. Possibly the best of the 6 or so models I am familiar with.
Set-up is a straight forward affair but I would expect no different from a printer manufacturer today. If they complicate a simple enough process then they're serious fools. This one's fine. Connecting it to the netwok as a network printer has also been problem free.

The ports are standard USB and a fairly short power cable sticks out the back.
The printer copes with a range of media including cd's.

Anyway, so far so normal really. It's real downside is the stupid chipped cartridegs. Fairstly it takes 4 altogether - one a specialised phot black cartridge. Can I get any ink out of it? No. No matter what, it uses the other black cartridge and I can't find out how to force it to use the other one. I must be missing something but then I think it's the manufacturers job to make sure I don't by being clear and explicit in the instructions.
The main cartridge problem is getting them replaced - it won't take any cheapo ones, just the own brand. Cartridge world told me they can fill them now but I have been having to prise the chip off the cartridge to stick on the replacements. Who the hell can be bothered with that? get it wrong and the printer won't recognise it!!!!!!!!!! Stupid evil thing.

Because of this I wouldn't recommend it, which is a shame because it prints really well. It just makes it so expensive (it's fairly ink greedy anyway) that you're always losing money with it.
I paid about £84 for it, or rather work did. I think you'll get it from dabs or amazon or similar for more around £60. I think there are better £60 printers around though.

originally posted by myself on Ciao - dhillcrest

Summary: Good - but why try to make it more expensive for us all?

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