Canon Pixma iP4500

Greetings all,

 

I've been doing some searching about for printers and the Canon Pixma iP4500 has

caught my eye. Problem is, I don't seem to see a lot of mention of this printer

anywhere in terms of reviews and the like. There's a couple here and there at

places like CNet and about 9 user reviews on Amazon (no real mention at all here

on photo.net). I think it's a fairly new model, so perhaps it just hasn't had

time to sink into the masses yet. So far, I haven't really seen anything bad

mentioned about it (other than there's no memory card slots or a preview LCD...

not really important to me), which oddly enough, makes me suspicious.

 

This thing seems to fit the bill for me, though, from what I've read. I just

can't justify the $500+ prices on some of the "pro" photo printers, so I am

looking for something in the sub-$200 range (preferably even less than that). I

don't currently own a printer, so being able to do "normal" printing in addition

to photo printing would be great (I print off 50+ page text drafts on

occaision). 8x10 photos in both color and B&W would be ideal (though I usually

shoot B&W film if I'm in that sort of mood). I'm obviously not a pro

photographer, but I'd still like to be able to print and frame some of my stuff

for myself and family/friends. Hopefully the cost-per-print is pretty

competitive, though I haven't really seen any comparisons. Ink pots are $15 for

pigment black and about $40 for the 4-color dye pack -- I'm not sure how that

compares, either. It supposedly prints down to 1, 2, and/or(?) 5 picoliters

(I'm not sure what determines that). Is there anything else I should be looking

at spec-wise?

 

So... am I barking up the wrong tree with this printer? Should I be looking at

a comparable Epson instead? Maybe I should just stick with my local Ritz for

prints (I hope not, because they are just awful...)?

 

Any suggestions or information would be appreciated. =)

 

Thanks,

SDS

The problem with comparing printers (and cameras come to that I suppose) is that few of us have many of them to make a valid comparison. My trusty Epson R200 has just died with a dead head, and looking round for a replacement I read the review of the Canon ip4300 on the Computer Shopper website.

 

www.computershopper.co.uk

 

They gave the ip4300 a best buy award in 2006 and repeated this with a second one in October 2007. So I went to buy one, and I found the ip4500 available as an 'updated' model, and that is what I walked out of the store with. IMHO it has superb print quality (better subjectively that the Epson) is fast, and is reasonably cheap to run. I can very stronly recommend it, however please remember that my recommendation is based upon a single example of each, subjective, and that the Epson was probably failing when I made the prints I have used for the comparison.

 

Lifes never easy, is it? :-)

 

Nick

For a lot of text printing I would find an inexpensive laser printer it will save you a lot of money in the long run and you do not have to worry about ink drying out. Newegg has a brother laser for $64 after $20 rebate. You could still get a ink jet for prints and be under $200.

 

Just my 2 cents

 

Good luck,

Dave

I've been using the ip4200 for a couple of years and it has never put a foot wrong. Despite "only" three colours the print quality seems more than acceptable.

Thanks for the responses everyone. I think I will get the iP4500 and see how it goes. I don't print enough to justify a photo printer AND a laser printer, though perhaps if the need arises in the future, it's good to see that laser printer prices are falling so low.

 

Thanks again. =)

 

SDS

I've owned an ip4300 for a year. I have no complaints. Very capable inkjet photo printer using canon papers, inks, and profiles. Better than I expected for sub $100.

Just bought my own iP4500 so still getting to grips with what I think of it. Been using Canon pro paper PR-101 the real expensive stuff. My initial findings are sometimes I get stunning quality prints but sometimes I have issues with color balance (greens are undersaturated and biased towards yellow) and reproduction of skin tones (oversaturated and bleached out, lacking full tonal range). Time will tell if this is a real problem or whether there's a solution (perhaps a custom ICC profile for color balance). So the verdict is out on whether I deem this printer truly "photo lab quality". The choice of paper will obviously make a big difference.

@ Jon Athan

how did you get on with this printer & the skin-tones problem?

 

I'm looking at buying it & found one mini-review that also mentioned this problem

it says (very confusedly):

"Though color graphics tended to be yellowish (on both plain and photo paper), only flesh tones suffered from the

excess attention"

-from-

http://www.pcworld.com/article/139940/canon_pixma_ip4500_inkjet_printer.html

 

I like the way it says "only flesh tones" like they not so important :-)