Canon PIXMA iP4300 Review
The Canon PIXMA iP4300 Photo Printer has been receiving great reviews at Amazon.com (4.75 starts out of 5). CNET gives it their Very Good rating (7.6 out of 10), and one single Yahoo! user has rated the printer 5 starts (out of 5).
Here is the Canon’s description of the iP4300:
PIXMA iP4300 is one fast, versatile photo printer. Thanks to its patented print head and 5-color ink system, you can quickly produce spectacular, long-lasting photos with borderless edges - from credit-card size up to 8.5″ x 11″ - along with bold, laser-quality text. The two paper trays let you hold both plain and photo paper, so you’re always ready to print text or photos. And for convenience, you can print 2 sided without manually flipping over the page!
Features include:
- Exceptional Resolution: 3,584 precision nozzles create exceptional resolution—up to 9600 x 2400 color dpi (More nozzles = higher quality).
- Exceptional detail: Microscopic 1-picoliter sized ink droplets produce exceptionally detailed photos.
- Click-Connect-Print: Just capture an image with a PictBridge-ready digital camera/DV camcorder, then connect and print.
- Print 2 sided: Print 2 sided–and save paper.
- Long-lasting photos: Using select genuine Canon inks and photo papers, you can create beautiful photos that last up to 100 years.2
- Vivid color, bold text: Four dye-based inks plus a pigment-based black ink deliver superb photos and laser-quality text.
- Enhance Your Digital Photos: Easy-PhotoPrint 3.5 software makes it simple to enhance and print amazing-looking digital photos through your computer.
- Smart software, better results: Easy-WebPrint software gives Windows users the tools to properly print Web Pages in full color and without trimming off the right-hand margin.
So, what are the iP4300 users saying?
- Print head and 5 ink tanks installed very easily.
- Setup was easy enough, but the quick setup photos on the instructions took an extra look or two to figure out what they were showing.
- I printed out and 8×10 photo on Canon’s Photo Paper Plus Glossy and it looked perfect! No banding, incorrect colors or any flaws whatsoever.
- I would recommend it to anyone looking for a cheap printer which gives great results.
- The instructions for installation were clear and precise.
- My printer gives me top quality color photos as well as crisp black and white copy, and the speed of the printer is commensurate with my needs.
- The HP 8250xi has truer colors.
- The photo printing program is dedicated to a Canon printer ONLY. Once the choices have been made for which photos are to be printed, THATS IT. You cannot choose any other printer but the Canon.
- The duplex printing feature is worth the price of the printer.
- When the printer is used often (daily at least) the prints are very good. If the printer is left off for even a couple of days, what should be a red color begins as sort of a rust color.
Overall, it sounds as though Canon has produced another low priced, great printing printer. Users are happy with its price and performance.
Let us know what you think.
 |
July 6th, 2007 at 10:11 am
Very good. One of the best printers that I ever used. It does everything that Canon advertises. A 4×6 photo can be printed in a little over half a minute. A typical income tax return (about 25 to 30 pages Government forms) can be printed in about three minutes at normal print quality. But, the “first page out” is almost one minute long (ie, the printer will run for about one minute before it sends out the first page).
Dulexing function works good, but slow, because it prints the first page, let it dry, “sucks” back the paper and prints the other side. For most HP printers, it prints all the even pages first, then you can put the whole document back to the tray to print the odd pages — which is actually faster if you want to print a huge document (Quickbooks, for example).
It is quite economical to operate too, even with OEM ink cartridges. After printing 50 4×6 photos (sceneries of Boston), the M and C ink tanks still show 75% full and the other tanks still almost full. Presently, Canon offers $8 rebates on its CLI8 cartridge sets until next year !!
Cons: The quality of documents, such as Government income tax forms, however, is just satisfactory compared with a HP printer. Somehow, the HP5610 printer gives a more “eye-pleasing” income tax return than the Canon printer (I think it is because HP handles the shaded part of the tax forms better) —- hopefully, the printouts will not raise the eye-brows of a Government tax auditor (just joking).
The Pixma ip4300 also gives a wrong colour on an Excel spreadsheet, but correct colour on a Word document. For photos, the facial colour is always a little bit red. I cannot tell the difference between using Canon’s own paper with other paper.
Finally, the software that comes with it such as Easy-WebPrint will not accept any other printers. (I do not know if it will accept other Canon printers). Also, the printer will not allow you to turn off the colour inks when printing documents or web pages. You can print in grey-scale, but it will use colour inks (not the cheaper black pigment), to print.
December 11th, 2007 at 10:54 am
I was recommended a Canon and went for the IP4300 as it prints on to CD and DVDs. Whilst I was amazed at the speed of the printing at ‘top quality photo’ level, the results have been mixed. My biggest gripe is with banding. No matter whether I do a manual or auto head alignment, I get horizontal bands 3-4 mm down the page. Very noticeable if you print off alot of wedding pictures. Black Jackets really show it up. However, whilst this banding was most noticeable on Premium glossy paper, I found prints on to plain paper spot on. The CD printing and regular paper printing have been very good, so I’d only recommend this printer for document printing and labels.