Canon PIXMA IP4000

Canon Pixma ip4000

I have recently purchased the new canon Pixma ip4000, following the demise of my Epson cx3200. I decided not to buy another Epson , because all the ones I have had have been either, noisy, unreliable and prone to paper jams. The quality of the Epson print, seems unrivalled in the home printer market, however I was no longer prepared to put up with the constant paper jamming and unreliability.

I was ...
...extent buying blind, Hurrah, for Canon because if you got their website www,canon.uk you can upload one of your very own images and they will send you a postcard size print of your chosen image. Note however that for speed and apparently the volume of samples they have to print, it does not seem to be printed at top resolution ( which seems odd because you are not getting the best possible impression of the print quality? I know this because having ... more

Canon Pixma ip4000

I have recently purchased the new canon Pixma ip4000, following the demise of my Epson cx3200. I decided not to buy another Epson , because all the ones I have had have been either, noisy, unreliable and prone to paper jams. The quality of the Epson print, seems unrivalled in the home printer market, however I was no longer prepared to put up with the constant paper jamming and unreliability.

I was immediately struck by the canon Pixma ip4000, when I saw it had a horizontal paper feed cassette, which raised my spirits and I thought , this is the answer to all those paper jam nightmares I was having with the old Epson. The Pixma ip4000 also has a conventional vertical paper feed which means you can have photo paper in one and plain paper in the other, switching between the two as you need them. I like this a lot. It also means if one of the paper feeds gives up like with the old Epson I had you still have another in reserve, which is a great advantage if you rely on your home printer for business use and it packs up half way through a print job, and you need to catch the post in half an hour. I hate having to resort to hand written, because the printer decides it doesn’t want to play.

Unfortunately these days, it is impossible to try before you buy and whatever printer you decide to buy you are to some extent buying blind, Hurrah, for Canon because if you got their website www,canon.uk you can upload one of your very own images and they will send you a postcard size print of your chosen image. Note however that for speed and apparently the volume of samples they have to print, it does not seem to be printed at top resolution ( which seems odd because you are not getting the best possible impression of the print quality? I know this because having bought the printer I have since printed the same image with some of the printers advanced features and the results are notably crisper and sharper!). well done to Canon for helping the poor consumer , in this way, instead of just trying to get you money out of you without you having any idea of what you are getting. I got my samples back in about a week.

I actually got two samples from canon one for the Pixma ip40000, and the same image from the Pixma ip5000, the later being approx. twice the price of the 4000. The ink droplet size of the 5000 (1pl), is half the size of that of the 4000 (2pl) which means you get twice as many droplets per square inch and theoretically twice as sharp and clear a picture, this is not the case however, and I found the difference imperceptible, and not worth the extra money. I have read several professional reviews and this seems to be the general consensus of opinion.

This is a four colour printer, four separate colour tanks ,which has an additional black cartridge, for black and white printing. a useful feature which means that you are not using up your photo black for text and document printing. I think that these single colour ink tanks are a great innovation in recent years for home printers, and I do not think that I would buy a printer which had an all in one tri colour cartridge again as a primary printer. I am a ‘refiller’ which makes it much easier for me to top up the cartridge which is running low than having to faff about with all three colours, the tanks are also transparent which means you can see just how much ink you are putting in.

Ink consumption is notably low, I have done a considerable amount of printing already and the ink levels on the monitor seem to have gone down very little, notably more sparing than my previous Epson, although as I have already suggested, the Epson printer do just have the ultimate edge on picture quality, perhaps because they use more ink. I am happy to sacrifice a bit of quality for considerably greater reliability.

Black Ink Life
BCI-3eBK: 330 pages at 5% coverage¹¹; BCI-6BK: 440 pages at 5% coverage²²
BCI-3eBK: 1500 pages, BCI-6BK: 2000 pages (Printing ISO/JIS-SCID N5)²²

Colour Ink Life
440 pages at 5% coverage per ink tank¹¹
Cyan: 550 pages, Magenta: 430 pages, Yellow: 360 pages (Printing ISO/JIS-SCID N5)¹¹

Noise wise the Pixma ip4000, is whisper quiet when compared with almost any Epson I have ever encountered, which I have head described as anything from a weaving loom to a washing machine, which I heartily agree with, if noise is an issue for you bear this in mind.

There are some extra features with Pixma ip4000, which you don’t get as standard on most home printer in this price range. Firstly Duplex printing comes as standard, which means you can save paper when printing lengthy documents off the Internet for example, by printing on both sides of the paper, which is a good thing for anyone interested in green issues, like saving paper, and trees and stuff, and ‘Ebeneezers’ concerned with saving money, which I am on both counts. It also looks a bit flashy if your sending out information or letters to some one as not many people have this, on their home printers, it can look a bit more professional in certain circumstances.

Another nice feature is the CD printer which prints directly on to printable CD ROMS with a printable white top, which can look VERY flashy, as opposed to those stickery things you print on to a label and then have to line up just so, with the special applicator thingy and then arrrgh, ....not again, you spend half an hour putting a CD together and then you stick the flippin stcker on and its half over here and half over there, and I can’‘t get it off and it won’t budge and .......aarrrgh! I like the CD printer a lot, and if you want one you’ll have to buy one of the Pixma printers because they are the only ones on the market which have it. Also if you have a hundred CDs to do you will be close to insanity by the time you have lined a hundred stickers, half of which will be in the bin, by the time you have finished, handy if you are using the printer as part of a home business, and you need a load of flashy CD ROMS to send out for example.

The type of media you can use, is standard, Plain Paper, Photo paper, Transparencies, etc with the main difference being the direct CD printing. It seems a lot more paper friendly than my old Epson which took a lot of trial and error before you could establish the correct paper type, without it spiting it out and rejecting it, or taking a handful through at once. This is a problem I have long since forgotten about, having got the Pixma ip4000.

Plain Paper, Envelopes, Photo Paper Pro (PR-101), Photo Paper Plus Glossy (PP-101), Photo Paper Plus Double Sided (PP-101D), Photo Paper Plus Semi-gloss (SG-101), Glossy Photo Paper (GP-401), Matte Photo Paper (MP-101), High Resolution Paper (HR-101N), Transparency (CF-102), T-shirt Transfer (TR-301), Photo Stickers (PS-101)

Sheet feeder: A4, B5, A5, Letter, Legal, Envelopes (DL size or Commercial 10), 4 x 6", 5 x 7", Credit Card (54 x 86 mm)
Cassette: A4, B5, A5, Letter, Envelopes (DL size or Commercial 10), 4 x 6", 5 x 7"

Media Input
Sheet feeder: 150 sheets; Cassette: 150 sheets; CD-R / DVD tray: 1 printable CD-R or DVD

This printer can be used to print pictures directly from your digital camera, without using your computer, however, bear in mind that the printer does not have a lcd display of its own so you can not edit. the pictures on the printer. If you want to print your images from your camera, you will have to take perfect pictures in the first place, or use the somewhat limited editing features on your digital camera. This would not put me off buying this printer, as I think it’s advantages outweigh any minor niggles, especially for the price. I tend to use photoshop a lot on my images so this is not a great advantage to me, but handy if you just want to bang off a snaps for the relatives, in a hurry.

The only one thing which concerns me about this printer is that it retails at around £89, which is about the same price as many multifunctional machines which include a scanner and a stand alone printer facility for the same money, for example the Epson cx3200. It’s a question of paying your money and taking your choice.

Features
4800x1200dpi with FINE technology & 2pl Micro-Nozzles
Unique ContrastPLUS quality
New design with dual paper trays, duplex unit & CDR/DVD printing
PictBridge-ready
Up to 25ppm mono & 17ppm colour
Efficient Single Ink system
Windows & Mac compatible

System requirements

Windows: PC with Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, Windows Me, Windows 98 or Windows 95, USB interface¹¹, CD-ROM Drive. Free hard disk space: 50 MB for Windows XP/2000/NT 4.0, 15 MB for Windows Me/98/95.
Mac: Macintosh computer with Mac OS 9.x or Mac OS X v10.2.1 or later, USB interface. Free hard disk space: 30 MB for Mac OS 9.x, 100 MB for Mac OS X v10.2.1 or later.

I have to recommend this printer to any one who is looking for value for money, reliability, feature packed, printer at under £100. Particularly good for home business user who need to print letters, brochures, envelopes and CDs, with excellent print quality and economical ink consumption, at speed and with reliability. Also environmentally friendly by printing both sides of the paper and using less Ink than many comparable printers. 

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