Never a poor output, even when refilled with 3rd party inks or cartridges (though Canon would like you to think that only their "genuine" inks work properly and will even invalidate a warranty if they know they've not been used).A now modified design problem with their "genuine cartridges allowed ink to overflow onto the printhead flexible wiring and corrode it to death, but all was repaired by a very couteous engineer in my own home (and he arrived at the arranged time).
The separate ink tanks for each colour saves a lot of money, and the oversized black tank which quickly became the standard was a major boon. When it eventually packs up, I'll definately go for a multiple tank printer!
The printer driver updates just seemed to take more disk space but did nothing to the print quality, which although only 360dpi has been good enough for CV's, letters, T shirt printing and OHP slides. I don't think I'll ever be in awe of "photoreal" output until the consumables are on a par with real photos, so 360 dpi is about my limit for the moment. Printing on almost any paper media is of similar quality, and it is a waste of money to pay for "super optimised" papers in my situation. I've seen the outputs of its successors (the 600e, 610 and 620) and they all seem much the same to my eyes.
by (50%):
