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by Steve Becker
Company: Canon Overview At 16.5" W x 11.2" D x 6.7" H (with the trays retracted) the iP4000 isn't compact, but it puts this space to good use; included within the printer is a second paper tray and a mechanism for performing duplex printing! The housing for the printer is made of plastic. While this two-tone black and grey housing isn't especially attractive, its design is quite functional and it has a quality look and feel to it. Canon calls the iP4000 a photo printer, though it uses only four ink cartridges (including a special black ink cartridge) when printing in color. Additionally, the iP4000 has a separate black ink cartridge for printing black text. The Software Canon includes a printer driver and its Easy PhotoPrint software with the iP4000 (Windows users also get Canon's Easy-WebPrint and PhotoRecord programs). The Easy PhotoPrint software has only a very basic feature set and I prefer the Film Factory software that Epson supplies with many of its printers. In fact, I tend to use Epson's software when prining with the iP4000. While the iP4000's driver has a fairly standard (and easy to use) set of printing options, it does include one feature worthy of special attention: its tools for cleaning the print heads. Canon should be commended for designing its software to minimize the wasting of ink when cleaning the printer's print heads. First of all, Canon provides the option of using a light (ink saving) procedure when cleaning the print heads. If this procedure doesn't work satisfactorily, then a deep (more ink intensive) head cleaning procedure can be used. You've probably experienced a situation where either just the black or just the color ink print head needed to be cleaned, but the printer's software forced you to waste ink by cleaning both the black and the color print heads at the same time. Canon's software provides the option of cleaning either just the black print head or just the color print head -- all printer manufacture's should provide this thoughtful and cost-saving feature! However, the mechanism the iP4000 uses to report the ink levels of its cartridges needs some improvement. I've seen new users of the iP4000 gleefully reporting that after having printed many photos their iP4000 indicates the print cartridges are still full. These users are in for an unpleasant surprise: While I haven't seen this noted in the printer's documentation, Canon has informed me that the iP4000 doesn't update its display of remaining ink until about 80% of a cartridge's ink has been consumed (this applies to both the automatic and the manual updating systems). Canon should make this information clear in its documentation; better yet, the printer should use a higher resolution system for reporting the amount of ink that's remaining in its cartridges. Printing Photos Since the iP4000 bills itself as a photo printer, I evaluated the photos printed by it against prints from Epson and HP six-color photo printers. While I found the iP4000 produced flesh tones that sometimes didn't quite match the quality of its competition, overall color fidelity was very good. Image detail and contrast also is very good and compares quite favorably to the six-color photo printers.** Additionally, the iP4000 is the fastest photo printer I've tested. Here is a table that shows print speeds when using the printer's "top-quality photo" checkbox setting. (Testing was done on a dual processor 2GHz G5 that's running 10.3.5.)
As you can see, using the highest quality setting significantly increased printing time. However, this setting produced no discernible improvement in output quality, so I expect most users will choose to use the "top quality photo" setting. Printing Text As is the case with most photo printers (some HP photo printers do an excellent job printing text, though they require switching to a special black ink cartridge), text printed with the iP4000 never will be mistaken for having come from a laser printer. However, at its highest quality setting, the iP4000 produces good quality text -- albeit at a very slow speed (about one page per minute on plain paper). At its default setting for text, the iP4000 yields about ten pages per minute Some Additional Information The iP4000 is a very quiet printer -- except for a slight clicking sound that comes from the printer's paper feeding mechanism, the iP4000 is almost silent. The printer's paper cassette tray is easy to use and provides a welcome alternative to using the top loading paper tray. I expect many users will use one tray to hold their photo paper and the other tray to hold standard letter size paper. Switching between paper trays is easy because Canon lets you do this either from a button that's on the front of the printer or from the printer's driver. Direct photo printing from PictBridge compatible digital cameras & DV camcorders is supported by the iP4000. The iP4000's built-in duplex printing capability is quite an unusual option for such an inexpensive printer. While using this feature slows down output speed because of the additonal mechanical interaction it performs with the paper, it worked quite well during my testing. (You enable this option via the printer's driver.) Conclusion While Canon says the iP4000 can produce very fine (2 picoliter) droplets, its prints looked slighltly grainier to me than the prints produced by Epson printers that have a minimum droplet size of 3 picoliters. (Interestingly, when I used the iP4000 with Epson's best glossy photo paper, this slight difference in graininess disappeared.) There are many factors that affect the appearance and evaluation of a printed photo (including the ambient light and subjective preferences), so keep this in mind when deciding which photo printer to buy. Comparing specifications between printers and reading reviews is a good starting point, but I always recommend test printing some photos on a printer before making a final decision. Canon's iP4000 has a lot going for it -- it produces competitive quality photos at a class-leading speed, and it offers features not found elsewhere anywhere near its price point. While its ink monitoring system makes it difficult to precisely track its ink usage, a visual inspection of its transparent ink cartridges indicates that it also is relatively frugal with its inks. This is one impressive printer that provides quiet, high quality -- and fast -- photo output, an impressive feature set, and outstanding value!
Pros: Produces high quality prints and is very fast when printing photos; includes a built-in duplex printing mechanism and a second paper tray; the black and the color print heads can be cleaned separately; includes printed manuals; ink cartridges can be changed individually; appears to yield more prints per cartridge then its competition; comes with one year of toll free support; is an outstanding value. Cons: Six-color photo printers produce slightly better flesh tones/wider color gamut; slight graniness sometimes apparent when using Canon's photo paper; slight banding is occasionally noticeable; manuals have poor layout and have many poor quality images and diagrams; inadequate ink monitoring system.  PrintMagic and WebPrint Plus can more than double the life of your ink cartridges. * Canon also sells this printer in a wireless version: the iP4000R. It has a SRP of $229.99. **Some HP photo printers appear to use built-in sharpening which produces prints that appear to have excellent detail. However, in some cases this also can produce some distortion in parts of an image. © 2005 by Steve Becker. All rights reserved. |
