Canon PIXMA MP 600

...a snifter under £100 the Canon Pixma MP600 packs a lot of quality into an attractively designed package. Ignoring any pointless fax functionality it concentrates on the main duties of printing and scanning that you need from a domestic machine.

Out of the box ~
Canon supplies everything you need to get you up and running so with the printer you get power cables, ink cartridges, CD/DVD tray and set up disc. You'll need your own ...
...one or two but the Canon has a built in alarm to warn you of this. I say alarm but it's more of an angry grinding noise but it gets your attention. The set up disc does everything it needs to do in a couple of minutes and then you're ready to go. There were a couple of extra questions from my Vista OS but once these were cleared there have been no compatibility issues.

Look and feel ~
The MP600 looks very good and I don't mind ... more

It's a funny thing with domestic inkjet printers but they seem to be just a vehicle for selling over-priced replacement cartridges. There are options to buy unbranded or recycled cartridges but I've had mixed results with these so tend to stick with the manufacturers products.

My venerable HP Officejet 6100 was approaching four years old (and that is venerable in PC terms) and all three ink cartridges were running out at the same time. To replace them all would have cost in excess of £60 so I thought for a few extra quid I might as well get a new printer.

My old HP was a three way multi-function device that printed, scanned and faxed. It also copied but that is just a variant on the above. It was a bulky machine that looked like a cut down office copier with a flimsy feeder tray on top and a heavily buttoned control panel. It was ugly in an industrial way but that was a popular style a few years back. It produced pretty good document and photo prints and the scanner was adequate for documents but not of a standard to copy photos. When coming to choose a new printer these were the characteristics I was interested in. It had to print to a high standard, the scanner needed to be better and I didn't want it to look like an ugly lump of corporate kit with attachments falling off all the time. Despite painfully setting up the fax functionality first time round I have never received or sent a fax using the HP, in fact I don't think I've faxed anything this century so that functionality was dispensable.

At a snifter under £100 the Canon Pixma MP600 packs a lot of quality into an attractively designed package. Ignoring any pointless fax functionality it concentrates on the main duties of printing and scanning that you need from a domestic machine.

Out of the box ~
Canon supplies everything you need to get you up and running so with the printer you get power cables, ink cartridges, CD/DVD tray and set up disc. You'll need your own printer cable but this is standard USB connection so you should have one.

Set up is straightforward and is just a matter of plugging everything in and turning on. To keep everything in one piece in transit you will find there are lots of sticky tape holding everything down and these will all need to be removed before use. Inevitably you will miss one or two but the Canon has a built in alarm to warn you of this. I say alarm but it's more of an angry grinding noise but it gets your attention. The set up disc does everything it needs to do in a couple of minutes and then you're ready to go. There were a couple of extra questions from my Vista OS but once these were cleared there have been no compatibility issues.

Look and feel ~
The MP600 looks very good and I don't mind admitting that this played no small part in my decision to buy. With flaps closed it looks quite stylish with a matt silver plastic body and glossy black panels. When not in use it is fairly discrete but it doesn't take much to bring it online. A section of the cover lifts to reveal the LCD screen and control panel and the front folds down to collect the paper.

The control panel has refreshingly few buttons and most of the functionality is accessed via on-screen menus using the impressively bright and clear 2.5 inch LCD screen. These menus are navigated by an iPod like wheel and are clearly laid out and easy to follow.

Paper is stored in a cassette that slides into the bottom of the unit, closing flush with the front panel. This is a very good system as paper is stored flat and therefore doesn't warp if left for a few days. Paper can also be fed from an extendable feeder on the top, this also allows duplex printing. This feeder folds out of sight into the body when not in use.

A second, smaller, panel on the front opens to reveal a multi card reader if you want to bypass the PC when printing.

Performance ~
As you'd expect these days text printing is excellent and virtually laser quality, colour printing of graphics is equally impressive with strong, accurate colour reproduction. Photo printing is good, better than my old HP, but still not as good as from Boots or Jessops. Given that Canon themselves quote a cost per print of 10p for 6x4 photos it's not as if it's any cheaper either.

Start up is quick and from pressing the on button you are ready to go straight away, the old HP would spend 30 seconds whirring away doing lord only knows what before you could print anything. There is a fairly lengthy cleaning cycle which probably wastes a lot of ink but I've never known a printer that wasn't guilty of this.

Print speeds are acceptable for most domestic use but obviously no match for a laser. A page of text takes about 10 seconds, a graphics heavy page will be nearer 30 seconds and a 6x4 photo on best quality can take the best part of a minute. I don't print in great volumes at home so these times have little relevance but if you regularly print larger documents you could find yourselves off making a cup of tea while it finishes. At normal quality a document of 50 pages will keep you waiting for up to 10 minutes.

This will print on CD/DVD, using the special tray, but as I use a Lightscribe DVD writer I haven't needed to use the feature.

The scanner is quick and acceptably accurate for documents and you will have a preview on the PC in about 10 seconds in draft quality mode, this is fine for backing up old paper records but for copying photos you need a better resolution. The MP600 can scan up to a resolution of 1200 dpi and this can take over two minutes for a 6x4 picture. The quality is good but not great and while it is good enough for publishing on a web site or one off use it isn't good enough for providing pictures you'd put in an album or in a frame.

Conclusion ~
This is a very good machine that meets and exceeds everything I could ask of it. It looks good, prints well and is very quiet in use. With a new model in the pipeline (if it isn't already out) the prices should drift down soon as well. I'm happy to recommend this machine.

Some people like specs, some people don't. Either way I've added some below if you want that extra detail.

Device Type: Copier / printer / scanner
Copier Type: Digital
Dimensions (WxDxH): 45 cm x 38.9 cm x 19.4 cm
Weight: 10.3 kg
Inkjet Technology: Canon FINE (Full-lithography inkjet Nozzle Engineering) - 5-ink
Max Copying Speed: Up to 30 ppm (mono) / up to 24 ppm (colour)
Max Printing Speed : Up to 30 ppm (mono) / up to 24 ppm (colour)
Max Printing Resolution: Up to 600 x 600 dpi (mono) / up to 9600 x 2400 dpi (colour)
Scanning: 2400 x 4800 dpi
Display: 2.5"
Original Size: 216 x 297 mm (max)
Media Size: Legal (216 x 356 mm) (max)
Media Type: Envelopes, plain paper, iron-on transfers, photo paper, printable CD/DVD disc
Standard Media Capacity: 300 sheets
PC Connection: Hi-Speed USB, Ethernet 10 Base-T/100 Base-TX, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IrDA
Office Machine Features: Print from memory card 

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