This is a refurbished item. The BJC-4300 delivers rich true photo-quality color and crisp black text because of its 720x360dpi resolution. You can simply turn the BJC-4300 into a... more
This review already contains more than 120 words. As a Ciao member you could earn up to £5 with this review.
office machines into each of its copiers, printers, and networked office systems. The same superiority of design and manufacture goes into all of the Canon-branded con
A review by Galloway on Canon BJC 4300 June 15th, 2001
Author's product rating:
Picture quality
Satisfactory
Printing speed
Slow
Colour sensitivity
Satisfactory
Ease of use
Very easy
Value For Money
Very poor
Advantages:
Compact
Disadvantages:
Huge Running Costs, Only Average Print Quality, Questionable Reliability
Recommend to potential buyers:
no
Full review
The Canon BJC 4300 printer was my first inkjet. It was purchased around the time of the 1998 World Cup and came as a special pack with a World Cup print studio etc. It cost around £130. This was at the time a lower end printer, but above the budget grouping.
The printer itself was quite compact in design, taking up minimal desk space as the receiving paper tray pushed neatly into the body of the printer completely out of the way.
The drivers came on floppy disk and installed reasonably easily, as did the 20 True type fonts also supplied. Two ink cartridges came with it, black and tri-colour. Both of these fitted into a separate print head and then placed complete into the printer cradle.
The print resolution is 720x360 dpi and should have given decent performance. However, print speed was not particularly fast and print quality was not great either. Black text was generally reasonable but some lines on a page could be distorted and smudging could also occur. This was not all the time, but enough to make the print of final copy unreliable. Photographic print suffered from banding, but colouring was fairly good. The purchase of a photo print head complete with built in ink tanks is required for photo quality print.
Although the cost of the ink cartridges was quite reasonable, partially because of there low capacity compared to other brands, the printer stopped printing after about 18 months. It turned out that the print head degrades over a period of 12 – 18 months, regardless of use and has to be replaced at a cost of about £45.
Even though two new ink cartridges come with the print head, replacing it at these intervals makes it very expensive to run, especially as print quality is no more than average.
These days you can buy a complete printer for £45, which should give at least equal print quality, and definitely lower running costs and greater reliability than this model.
Advantages: err.... Disadvantages: Expensive to run, repair, prone to failure
...*seperate* print head on many Canon printers is very prone to failure, and at a cost of around £30 a time to replace this item (I believe it was called a BC21e), having to buy that and the replacement inks far outweighed the running cost of an equivalent printer from another manufacturer.
Part of the problem seems to be the ink "transport" method to the print head itself - it works on a capilliary system where ink is drawn towards the print head ... ...for a couple of weeks in some of the complaints I read), the ink dries in the system and buggers the print head. Bear in mind that any of the ink cartridges drying out could cause this problem, making it a very weak link in what otherwide might have been a decent printer.
Considering I have never seen a proper print from one of these printers, my marking will be below average for every category - except for manufacturer support - I emailed them ...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Amazing results for a budget price printer. Disadvantages: Not quite as quiet as rivals.
...Over Christmas I decided to upgrade my CanonBJC4300 to a newer printer mainly because I had it for a number of years and it started to print lines where it shouldn’t. I decided to choose another Canon version BJC 250. BIG MISTAKE. I had major problems with the paper input feeding, the printing speed and the quality. I swiftly took it back and decided to try a HP as a friend of mine had recommended the performance.
I have now had the HP 3325 for 5 months and so far I have been very impressed, especially when the added advantage is it cost only £49.99, (If interested I saw the same model in staples a few months back for only £38).
Compared to Canon the quality was far supreme, for not just the dpi (1200 x 1200) but also the colours were a lot more true to life, even on the standard setting. I do a lot of printing and have...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
Advantages: Outstanding Value for Money, Free USB Key Offer Disadvantages: Entry level model, lack of USB cable
...My purchase of the Samsung ML-1510 laser printer was, as indeed all my purchases of computer equipment are, a matter of necessity rather than decadent want. My hand was forced as I was faced a long summer of job application and dissertation writing; and my vintage CanonBJC4300 ink-jet printer became:
1. Financially unsustainable – The amount of material I am printing would have forced me to spend literally hundreds of pounds on cartridges.
2. Frustratingly unreliable – I would spend critical minutes trying to coax the machine into printing that would often culminate in me walking to the kitchen in despair to seek a cup of tea.
3. Totally unsuitable – In this modern day and age CV gurus advocate that to use anything but a laser printer when applying for a job is unacceptable, and in alliance with these gurus my trusty Canon would...
Read review
Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful
This is a refurbished item. The BJC-4300 delivers rich true photo-quality color and crisp black text because of its 720x360dpi resolution. You can simply turn the BJC-4300 into a 360dpi color sheet-fed scanner with the optional IS-22 color image scanner cartridge! This printer features 100-sheet paper feeder with 8.5"x14" max paper size.
This product has not yet been reviewed. 
17.05.2003
04.07.2004
