Canon ix4000 review

[Jetstream Rider]

I recently bought a Canon ix4000, A3 printer. I thought I would share my thoughts. Let me just set the scene - I am a home user and do not have experience of refilling or of a wide range of printers. I do however have a good eye for quality and am keen to get a good quality printer for my money that will print usual paper stuff, as well as photos and the odd bit of crafty type stuff. This review will be of limited use if you are an ink jet guru, but at least its a start.

Firstly, its massive! A3 printers don't come small so make sure you have the room to store it. If you are in to asthetics, then this is probably not the printer for you, as it looks like a German bunker from the war. Box like when folded up and bunker like when it is open. However, this doesn't matter to me - would prefer to have a good ugly printer than a bad, pretty one! It plugs directly into the mains, no separate transformer, which I quite like.

Timings wise I have printed an A3 photograph at max quality from a 5 Megapixel file - it took 4 mins and 30 seconds, after 34 seconds of whirring. I then printed two 10 x 8 pictures on a cloth type paper and they took 2 mins 35 seconds each after 4 seconds of whirring, again both at max quality. To be fair, the A3 print was just after I had turned it on, so the whirring time is probably shorter once it is up and running.

Its quiet, but noisier than my i950 - the whirring is quite tuneful and the actual head movement is very quiet. Its noise is not an issue.

As for print quality, at first I wasn't happy, but now I am. I discovered it was the paper I was using that was bad. The first prints I did were on Canon Photo Plus Glossy paper at 4 x 6 - these were quick and looked excellent when they were printed, but after about 2 mins they grew a haze which hasn't gone away after 4 days. I tried some Ilford Galerie paper and this hasn't been a problem - likewise with Jessops (a UK photo store) A3 paper, there is no haze - I think it is my ancient Canon paper which caused it. On reflection, I don't really like Canon paper, as it stays wet too long and is not as good quality as some other brands. The haze was more noticable on the dark parts of the prints - I have a light one which shows none of it and a dark one which is most effected. I have tried text too and it looks sharp and as you would expect from a printer of this generation.

Installation of the software was straightforward.

The instructions are a bit Mickey Mouse inasmuch as they tell you how to plug the printer in, sort out the software etc, but nothing particularly technical - the troubleshooting on the onscreen instructions is similarly Mickey Mouse. Its a shame as the instruction book is quite thick, but in so many languages it only runs to about 20 pages. Normally I don't look at instructions unless they have some merit to them and these just seem to be for people who aren't quite sure what to do.

In summary:

Nice printer, quiet, fast enough (not worth the extra for the ix5000 in my view) and does the job. No streaking or lines in prints and good text printing.

Downsides:
Size, chipped cartridges, Canon paper doesn't seem up to the job (at least the Photo Plus Glossy stuff). Won't do automatic double side printing and no CD tray (but these are details to me rather than problems).

 

[websnail]

Just to add to this review with a brief couple of additions of my own..

1. The noise levels are as adjustable as they are on the other Canon Pixma range so you can go for quiet printing at the expense of printing speed

2. To my mind the lack of a CD/DVD tray is common sense and just reduces the potential for moving part breakage, etc...

3. I missed the bit about the lack of an automatic duplex printing but it does provide you with good instructions on how to handle the manual aspects of reversing the paper and I know a lot of people prefer that method anyway so it won't be a loss to most.

4. It really is huge.. Allow the same space you would for 4x iP4200's (ie: 2 deep and 2 side by side) as the input/output trays are obviously bigger and the width accomodates too.

5. When I printed off an A3 photo I did it at custom > level 3 > diffusion and it finished printing in approximately 1 minute with very reasonable quality.


As to the comparison with the ix5000, I couldn't say but the spec is the same except for page printing speed so I guess if you want something faster you spend the extra cash..

It's still VERY early days as far as I'm concerned but as A3 printers go this seems like it's worth the effort and a good budget option so long as you realise you gotta go with refilling to save on consumables..

 

[kenban]

The whirring noise is the print head being cleaned there are two differant type of cleaning cycles. A deep clean that takes a little while and a short standard clean cycle. The printer checks the number of days since it was last turned on and will do one cleaning or the other every time it is turned on. Also it will do differant cleaning throughout printing under certain conditions. I remember looking at one of the Pixma service manuals online a while ago and it has a chart in it that details when it does the differant types of cleaning and how much ink it takes. This is why one time it took 34 seconds and the other time it took 4.

 

[Osage]

I note the ix 4000&5000 are both four color printers and lack the photoblack of the somewhat similar A-4 printers with the ip instead of ix designations. Just kinda wondering what the Canon thinking was on this?---why withhold the photoblack?

 

[Jetstream Rider]

The 34 seconds was actually after it had done its power on cleaning cycle. I waited until it had finished and then started the print. I do think it will be shorter if it was on and clean already. I didn't say above, but I hope its obvious that my reiew is a preliminary look at the printer. I haven't played with the settings above like Osage said he had, I just went for the worst case scenario to clock the times.

I don't know much about ink, but my i950 has a black and photo magenta and photo cyan. The black isn't a photo black, so I didn't think it was "missing" from the ix4000. I just assumed that the inks were photo inks and that they now work well for normal printing too.

 

[websnail]

I note the ix 4000&5000 are both four color printers and lack the photoblack of the somewhat similar A-4 printers with the ip instead of ix designations. Just kinda wondering what the Canon thinking was on this?---why withhold the photoblack?

Ok... wild assed stab in the dark time..

I have a theory that could be partially correct and it may be complete b*llox..

1. This printer doesn't do automatic duplexing
2. Automatic duplexing is known to (in the iP4200) to use the CLI-8 black rather than the PGI-5
3. Normally, the CLI-8 black seems to get naff all (not a lot) of use in the iP4200

QED.. it's not really worth including in a printer..


Like I said, complete stab in the dark but for whatever reason I really can't find any problems with this printer when I compare the output with the iP4200 at all..