The other day, I was trying to print some shots of our kids on our Epson Stylus Photo 890, and having nothing but issues--first it was clogged print heads, then it was trailing dots and splats at random spots on the page. I literally cleaned and aligned the heads probably 15 times over the course of a couple hours, trying to get a reasonable print out of the thing.
Finally, I gave up, and decided to lower my blood pressure by blasting over to my favorite local independent Mac dealer, The Mac Store, to check on the availability of the new 80GB iPod (more on that in another article). While I was there, grousing due to the iPods not yet being in stock, I happened to notice a Canon Pixma iP6600D (say that three times quickly!) sitting there, with a gorgeous borderless 8.5x11 photo glossy printout sitting there in its output tray. Of course, every sample print from every printer in any store looks great. With my Epson troubles fresh in my mind, I was definitely tempted, though, by the beauty of the print staring me in the face. I wanted to buy the thing, take it home, and beat the Epson to a pulp with a rubber mallet, basically.
But I had done zero research on any replacements for our Epson (which we had purchased over five years ago, I learned later when checking our records). And I'm not normally one to just purchase without doing the requisite research...what to do, what to do. So I moved over to a new 24" iMac (oooh, very nice machine!) and brought up Google. Canon Pixma iP6600D went into the search box, and up popped the results. That's when I was hit with the obvious stick--the first match was for a review at, of all places, Macworld. My employer. Duh! I didn't even think to look at Macworld's review section first.
So I followed the Macworld link, and read Jim Galbraith's review. 4.5 mice out of 5.0 was a great initial sign, and the only negative he noted was fuzzy text printing. Since we use a Brother Laser for text work, this didn't concern me at all. I then went back to Google and checked some of the other links, only to find the same general consensus--great photo printer, text is a bit fuzzy. Based mainly on Jim's review, I made the purchase decision and took the machine home.
After working through the setup, I can say that I completely agree with Jim's review. I'll also add that, if you haven't upgraded your inkjet in the last five years, you owe it to yourself to check out the new stuff. I'm simply astounded by this printer. Borderless printing was troublesome on our Epson--it failed miserably most of the time, and the paper feed for it often seemed to delight in taking the sheets in just slightly off square. With the Canon, my 4x6 borderless prints on photo glossy paper simply look stunning. And they seem to feed in squarely every time. We can print directly from our Canon camera, or we can plug in its memory card and print from that. The machine also has separate ink tanks, a welcome change from the Epson's "one's dry, replace them all!" approach. In short, I love this printer, and would recommend it highly to anyone who doesn't need sharp inkjet text printing.
As a side note, I bought three different types of 4x6 photo glossy paper to test with: Canon Photo Paper Pro (the top of the line stuff), Canon Photo Paper Plus (the high end solution), and CompUSA's Premium High Glossy Photo Paper. I was quite surprised to find that, after the Photo Paper Pro (which was clearly superior), the CompUSA paper seemed to give the second best prints. The colors seemed sharper and more true to their real life shades than with the midrange Canon paper. And the CompUSA stuff was cheap--I think I paid $7 for 50 sheets, versus something like $20 for 20 sheets of the Photo Paper Pro. So we're doing the majority of our printing on the CompUSA paper, and saving the Photo Paper Pro for the extra-special prints. (Yes, I'm aware of issues with long-term storage of these prints. But I intend to keep our electronic library accessible for many years to come, so reprinting will always be possible.)
So the moral of my story is...do your research before making a printer purchase! Ideally, well before. But if you haven't done that, at least pick somewhere to shop with a fast internet connection, and at least do some basic Google research. And if you happen to work for a company involved in the Mac business, check their website first :).
Wow, you had an Epson that lasted for five years? That must be some kind of record - we've had two Epsons, and both of them died almost exactly a year after they were purchased. Never again will I get an Epson, ever ever ever.
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Wholeheartedly agree Rob. I've got the Canon IP 5200 and it's the best inkjet I've ever owned. They really nailed the borderless printing!
I absolutely loathed the Epsons that I've had before.
I had two Epson inkjets. The first lasted four years and never failed to satisfy me both with its crisp text and very nice color graphics (though not photo quality). I was so happy with it that when I decided I wanted a photo quality printer I bought another Epson. It lasted 4 months before clogs and splotched printing became the norm. Epson tried to blame the problem on me (generic ink) but those claims ended when I faxed them my receipt - 1 printer and 3 Epson branded ink sets. They finally replaced it with a refurb that stopped feeding paper properly after 6 months. Another refurb arrived non-functional and I was again accused of being the cause of the problem.
I fired Epson and bought a Canon. I was thrilled with the Canon for almost two years but after two years I began having ink problems. I wasted three ink cartridges, one black and two magenta before deciding that messing with more ink was throwing good money after bad. I'm tired of buying supposedly high quality printers that don't last. So now I'll send my prints to the print shop and everything else goes to the color laser printer that cost the same as the Canon and Epson printers I'd bought.
A few years ago, I bought a Canon printer. Three month later OS X came out and Canon never leased OS X drivers for it. Some guy made them himself (which proves it was not that hard) and I was able to use the printer, but I swore I'll never buy a Canon printer again. And I won't. I vote with my wallet against a company with so little respect its the customers.
I'm perfectly happy with my new HP inkjet and my old Laserjet.
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