Stunning photos for less than £100! (Canon S 520)

Member Name: blueparrot

Product:	Canon S 520
Date:	31/01/03 (664 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Stunning phto quality, Crisp text, Cheap ink

Disadvantages: None so far

Having just replaced my mechanical camera equipment with a new Canon G2 digital camera, I was very disappointed by the photo output from my Lexmark Z32. For letters and graphics it was adequate, though quite expensive on ink.

So I started looking for a replacement and spent many hours on the net, searching various websites, studying reviews and prices of every make and current model.

My selection criteria were:
1. I could only afford to spend £100
2. I wanted the best photo quality for the money
3. the best ink costs
4. the cleanest text
5. reasonably fastest print-out of photos
6. and USB 1.1 connectivity (I never did find out if a USB 2 printer could be connected to my USB 1.1 equipped PC)

During my searches I kept returning time and again to the Canon S520. Although it was really well outside my price range I found that all the sub-£100 machines had serious short-comings.

Then I found e-buyer.com!

They had the Canon S520 for sale at £73 + VAT, plus next day delivery! Total £99.44!

I ordered it yesterday afternoon and despite coming from Sheffield, 230 miles away, with snow storms, blizzards and many roads and motorways blocked, it arrived here first thing this morning.

I unpacked it, followed the Getting Started booklet to the letter. Fitted the printhead and ink cartridges, installed the software and carried out the printhead alignment. All very simple and straight forward, and within 20 minutes I had printed off my first page of text.

Let?s dispense with specifications and hype. You can find and read that on a hundred different websites. And what does it really matter if a machine prints 9.3 or 10.5 pages per minute? I don?t have a stopwatch anyway! So what do I really think of my £100 investment on day one?

The speed is supremely faster than my Lexmark Z32. Text is much, much cleaner and crisper, the cost of ink is certainly going to be far less becaus
e of the four large individual ink tanks and their very low cost. But it is the photo quality that has left me shocked.

During my search for a digital camera I came across and downloaded a couple of pics that struck me as exceptional. I printed these off using fairly cheap photo-glossy paper and the results are truly, truly stunning!

One reviewer commented that the S520 results can vary greatly depending on the quality and make of photo paper used, so I look forward to trying it out on good quality photo paper.

Overall I am ?over the moon? with my purchase and I would urge anyone searching for economical photo quality to go out and buy one while stocks last. You will not regret it. I promise you.

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