As the usual suspects here may remember some months ago my beloved and
somewhat under used HP B8550 wide carriage photo printer jammed solid,
and nothing I was able to do got it unjammed. It still sits in my work
area, on it's own little table across my work area from my desktop,
while I decide what to do with it. I kind of want to send it to HP in
hopes of it being repaired, but that almost makes no economic sense, I
bought it near the end of it's product life and if I include shipping
costs it will probably cost more that I paid for it to get an estimate.
In the mean time I replaced it, almost by accident, with the Canon PIXMA
iX6520, and here is a mini review.
/Relevant/ Technical Specifications*;
4 color CMYK, (four dye including photo black, one pigment black for
documents), ink system.
Resolution Color 9600x2400 dpi
Black 600x600 dpi
Minimum/Maximum Paper Size: 2.16"x3.58" (55x91mm) / 13" x 19" (33x48cm)
Minimum/Maximum Paper Weight: 64gsm/280gsm
USB 2.0 (High Speed)
Print Speed
4x6 Color print ~37 seconds.
B&W Document 11.3 PPM
Color Document 8.5 PPM
The mini review: It works as advertised, thanks for reading...
OK, so there's more to it than that. Warning there will be some
references to the semi dead HPB8550, (hereafter refereed to as the HP)
printer as well.
I've been using the Canon PIXMA iX6520 as a dedicated Photo Printer,
hereafter to be refereed to as the PIXMA or the Canon, for about 6
months now and it's really quite good at it's job.
There are no frills, it's usb only and unless you share if from the
computer it's attached to there is no network printing, (though it works
fine shared on a network), Unlike the HP it has no built in display,
card reader, USB port for jump drives, or a control panel, (beyond two
lighted silver buttons, [On/Off and Pause/Resume which also doubles an
alert display]), I do kind of miss those, but then again I only paid
$100.00 plus tax for it. Unless you are going to use it networked
setup is a snap. Networking on a Windows network at least is a bit more
difficult, but that's a Windows thing, I haven't tried it with Linux or
any flavor of MAC.
Paper feeding is very reliable, for a printer in this class, (I'll say
inexpensive rather than cheap), in the past I've occasionally, had even
the best photo capable printers I've used feed more than one page, in
the middle of a run of multiple prints, that's not happened with the
PIXMA so far, (it only happened with plain paper with the HP B8550 once
that I remember but it happened, after which I didn't fully trust it).
Ink usage is average.
I haven't printed enough to use up the black cartridges from my initial
ink set, it's close on the Photo Black though), I'm on my second set of
color inks. As others have noted inkjet inks seem to last longer if you
print on a regular basis, I've been trying to find at least one thing I
want to print a week, even if it's only 4"x6". I've been recording my
print production, by surface area, in a spread sheet, so sometime in the
future, probably when this particular printer is no longer available,
I'll be able to definitively say how many square inches of photograph
this printer will give you per set of inks.
The prints very good, better than those I get could usually get from
even an a "professional" photo finisher, in my opinion. If I can manage
to get an image to look good on my desktop monitor, it will look good,
and mostly identical, on glossy and satin paper. The sole exception is
that sometimes shadow areas will appear a bit, um, well flat. I'm not
sure if that wouldn't be true with any translation from a lit display to
a reflected light print. This is an improvement over the HP . where
shadow areas tended to get a bit muddy.
Black and White printing on this printer is actually wonderful. Earlier,
less expensive Epsons, and every HP printer, I've ever worked with. that
did not have a dedicated B&W ink set, always imparted some kind of color
cast, usually an objectionable magenta cast, to the finished B&W print.
I would deal with by adding my own faux sepia or platinum toning. The
PIXMA doesn't seem to have that problem. There is some color cast but
seems to be more in the nature of the paper.
I've found that the Canon paper seems to give a more neutral black, a
Bromide paper look, while the Ilford paper give a warmer more
Chlorobromide look. Unlike my previous experience the images are quite
pleasing without adding an offsetting tint. I have a few other papers to
play with but haven't gotten around to trying B&W printing with them.
That brings me to print longevity, and I haven't a clue. I say this
because I've had prints under glass that were supposed to be good for
75+ years fade in less than 5. That said, Canon seems to claim 100
years with their inks and paper, but I don't use Canon paper, except in
4x6" size, and I only use that because unlike HP when you buy a set of
Canon inks bundled with a 50 pack of their 4x6 inch paper, you actually
get full size, (as opposed to half size), ink cartridges. This makes
the Canon bundle an actual bargain. However, back to the point on print
longevity, you'll have to get back to me in about 75 years.
So what's the bottom line here.
The PIXMA does everything you'd really expect a Photo printer to do for
you. Good color prints, good B&W prints, it's just good, and it's
affordable.
You'll notice that I've said nothing about what it looks like. That's
because it really isn't important to me, but it is stylish, in a kind of
Star Trek TNG, "photon torpedo", black lozenge, manor, much like most
Canon PIXMA printers.
So what do I find wrong with it? When taken in itself nothing. The
only niggle that I have is in comparison to the HP vs Paper handling,
The Canon's maximum size print is 13" x 19", (which seems to be driver
limited), which is a nice size print** so I shouldn't complain but the
HP allowed prints of 13" x 44" so you could print big panoramas.
Would I buy it again? Yes, it's a really good printer.
Would I recommend it to others, absolutely, while not the most
sophisticated printer on the market, it does exactly what it sets out to
do, which in itself is a pleasure.
~Fin~
*Taken from multiple sources, not all of this information is available
in the same place.
**People who've only shot an processed digital may not understand how
amazing that is. Most photographers shooting 35mm film wouldn't think
of making anything bigger than 11" x 14" prints, in most cases 8" x 10"
prints would be pushing to the limits of acceptable quality, digital has
come a long way and the typical prosumer and even consumer level digital
camera today can easily produce images that print that big with more
than decent quality. To even print to that size in the past would have
required a extremely expensive and space consuming enlarger, and to get
good quality would require medium format film at the very least.
--
There are two kinds of computer users those who've experienced a hard drive
failure, and those that will.
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