Great Quality at a Low Price
Written: Feb 18 '03
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Pros: USB 2.0, Price, Quality, Seperate ink tanks.
Cons: No USB or Parallel cord provided.
The Bottom Line: You will be satisfied with the results, Canon offers more with bundled programs and individual ink tanks.
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| jellos's Full Review: Canon i 550 Ink-jet Printer |
My father purchased this printer last night. I urged him to go with Canon (I have the S750, check my review) since I really like mine. My father does some digital image stuff on the side so having a printer that prints good quality was important. Since he prints a lot, cost per page was a huge selling point. With that said off to Best Buy with gift cards in hand.
The price wasn't that bad, like another reviewer, we are able to take advantage of the $30 rebate, bringing the cost down to $120 with rebate. We looked at the i 850 and I couldn't see spending $50 more. Quality was the same, speed was a tad better, but memory was slightly higher. I wasn't worried about memory since it won't get high network use or large graphic files sent to it. I knew what he was getting when we finally took it home.
Set up was a breeze. We took advantage of USB 2.0. I can see someone not reading the fine print and getting this home and not getting it to work with thier older USB. I think Canon should have advertised version 2.0 better. USB printers have been hard to install on older Windows machines. I was pretty confident that with XP and 2.0 it would be smoother, and it was. When installing anything USB you have to follow the directions. If you have the printer on when you connect it to the computer, it could be disaster. I've seen people do it and have to run out and get a parallel cable. Don't worry, Canon has a huge pull out step by step guide to get it running. Now that it was set up I was very surprised and happy to see how fast things print. When you hit print, you don't even notice anything printing. The system handles it perfectly and you don't notice any lag. Much of that is XP but some of it has to do with USB 2.0. I will say the quality is fantastic. I noticed crisper prints, compared to my S750. I love my S750 but this has almost twice the quality. I didn't think the naked eye could see the difference between 2400 dpi and 4800 dpi, but there is a little difference.
Another good thing bundled with the printer was some software. I have a Canon S40 digital camera (reviewed it) and the same software came with the i550. Zoom Browser software is really fantastic for managing and organizing your digital photos. I'm sure everyone who has a camera has some sort of software installed but it doesn't hurt to install something that's free. I think everyone will like the Canon software regardless if you use Zoom Browser. They also include a photo stitching program, which allows you to stitch photos together. I think these added programs get over looked or not installed. None of the other reviews mentioned about either one of these programs. Sure it's not for everyone but it might make you change over and use either of these. I also like the printer management software. You have good features like power on and off timers. Easy way to clean the ink heads and re-align the print head. Canon does it in a way the makes it extremely easy.
I think printers have become very disposable over the past few years. I don't think you should pay more than $150/$200 for a ink jet printer. The printer market is only getting better and new technology is become cheaper and being implemented. I think Canon makes very good affordable printers that won't disappoint when it comes to a solution to printing digital prints. Considering that all companies have the same technology and around the same price, you need to have an edge and I believe Canon does. They offer good bundled programs and individual ink tanks. Other companies might offer a cheaper printer but take a look at what replacement cartridges will cost you. You will be surprised that the Canon will save you money over the years. Canon gives you full ink tanks right out of the box. HP used to (might still do) give you half tanks that won't last long and make you buy a $30 color cartridge regardless of what color is depleted.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 150
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
jellos
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Reviews written: 8
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