I'm Just Giving Up On My Canon

[cannonvictim]

I have had it with the Pixma IP 5200 that I purchased because I made a mess trying to refill the cartridges on my old Lexmark Z52. Nothing but fiddle and fiddle with chips and carts. If an after market cart that has usable chips had come along I would keep this. As it is I'm sending it to Good Will, I won't punish any of my kids by giving it to them. I don't know why so many at this forum make excuses for a company that even considers such a scheme to make money out of the computer business. Never Mind if it prints better than any other printer in the world----AT WHAT COST!!! I will never buy another Canon product!!

 

[mikling]

??????????

Despite the chips, it's still at the top when it comes to economy of use. Refilling a Lexmark Z52 vs a 5200 is different kettle of fish. The non resettable chip is an irritant but not a deal breaker, all things considered.

So Punish ME, please............................

Another thought
By your reasoning, if goodwill sells it to someone who cannot afford to feed it the expensive carts then ultimately that person will be hurt even more because they would be stuck with a paperweight. So if you're a good soul keep the printer, buy the OEM carts and make sure it doesn't fall in the wrong hands!!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile..... punish me.

Weird?????

 

[jackson]

: Never Mind if it prints better than any other printer in the world----AT WHAT COST!!! I will never buy another Canon product!!

You can't beat a 900 series HP Deskjet.
I recently picked up a HP 940c at a thrift store for $5.00
Look for one that still has all three 'fingers' that eject the paper.This one uses a 78 and a 15 cart and prints as good as my IP5000:just slower.
Actually, when it comes to text, it's better.
Bonus!!! these printers can print 'banners'.I use white roll freezer wrap, cut to 8.5 wide.
Plastic coating one side, bright white the other.It produces great printouts of oversized line drawings.

 

[fotofreek]

To Canonvictim - This forum is full of excellent information on refilling these carts. They work the same way as the bci-6 and bci-3bk carts from the previous generation of printers. If you do your homework and read up on the technique plus some tips and tricks you will find them very easy to refill. I have been doing this for more than three years. The first few times were not the neatest, but now it is fast, easy, and pretty neat. After you refill your original carts several times you can purge the carts and have them work again like new. That technique is also on this forum. I don't have the newest Canon printers with the chipped carts, but if I did I wouldn't bother with aftermarket prefilled carts that required the chip transplant. I'd probably buy an extra ip4300 for around $90, just for the extra carts and these plus the original set from your ip5200 will last you a really long time with refilling. If you really want to give your ip5200 away there will be lots of takers on this forum, myself included! That should give you second thoughts about giving up on a printer that is quite good and easy to refill.

 

[hpnetserver]

I picked up a new ip4300 from Fry's last week when it's on sale for $79. But there is a $20 rebate that I will get back in a couple of months. What a deal! I just can't resist the temptation of getting one. It is so fast and prints so nicely. The ip5200 can be equally good or better than ip4300. From all I have read in this forum refilling ip4300 (ip5200 too) is easy. It is easier than refilling any HP or Epson.

 

[WhiteDog]

I have nothing numerical or documentary to go on, but I think that the Canon printer line is not being represented by major retailers as it was a year ago. It looks to me that the office-prosumer/advanced amateur photo market is going over entirely to HP and Epson, if you judge by sales flyers and adverts, not to mention store shelves. I would not be suprised to find that there are lots and lots of Canonvictims around, and that Canon has laid a giant marketing egg with the CLI-8. Now if those carts held 12 or 15 ml instead of 5ml, at the same price, the story may have been different, even with the chip. I wish I had bought a last one of the i9900's and kept it in the box, and I was going to do that but the line closed off one day at midnight just like Cinderellas carriage, and it was gone. Sayonara. My task personally now is to read reviews of Epson and HP's with an eye to "what will be my next printer?"

 

[ghwellsjr]

I wish I had bought a last one of the i9900's and kept it in the box, and I was going to do that but the line closed off one day at midnight just like Cinderellas carriage, and it was gone. Sayonara.

The i9900 is still available direct from Canon at its original price of $500:

http://estore.usa.canon.com/Specification.asp?ITEM_ID=31729

You can also find new i9900s on eBay for about $50 less or used ones for around $300.

Several other Canon printers that don't use the chipped cartridges available on eBay include the iP4000, iP6000D and MP780. I would highly recommend getting a printer in the original box. Otherwise, shipping will probably damage it.

No one has to put up with chipped cartridges if they don't want to.

 

[Manuchau]

I certainly can sympathize with the frustration that cannonvictim is feeling. Part of my business (the most profitable part, in fact) is refilling inkjet cartridges for my customers. Since most of them are not very "computer smart", I won't refill the Cli-8s since most people will not keep an eye on the ink levels and could potentially damage their printheads. No matter what anyone says, this is a blatent attempt to put refillers and 3rd-party cartridge manufacturers out of business. Not only that, but they had the audacity to raise the prices on these chipped cartridges. Had they kept the price low, they might have scored a hit with these fine printers. I no longer sell Canon printers and have gone back to selling HPs and Epsons, since the HPs are refillable, and good compatibles work with Epsons.

Did Canon shoot themselves in the foot with their present strategy? Time will tell, but I certainly hope they come to their senses and revert back to re-fillable cartridges.

I'm just one small guy, in a small town, with a small business, but if I am any indication, I hope other retailers will also hold their nose and give up selling Canon printers for a while. Their market share, hopefully will shrink, and maybe that will get their attention!!

 

[mikling]

What I think is happening is that the market for casual photo printing to which Canon was good at, has switched to printing at Costco, Walmart, Walgreens etc. The machines these people buy are the All In Ones and HP, Canon and Epson fight here. Most of these people buy new carts or take it to a pro refill stop.

In the enthusiast market Canon still holds well, and the evidence is Epson is trying to retain/regain with the R260 which many have claimed eats ink at a furious rate. Canon is trying to retain the portion of the market that uses printers to print directly on DVDs, print decent photos and lots of text with the 4300. If you print lots of text Epson has nothing for you there.

One notch above this segment is the serious amateur/pro category. I expect this segment to be hotly contested and actually grow. Why the Digital SLR market will fuel it. These people may come to realize that the 1 hour photo lab is not that great AND with an expensive toy, they have to find use for it with prints. Here the market has lots of choices. Traditional pro photo labs are not cheap and are fading away fast.

It basically comes down to a question of archival requirements.

If you want great looking prints for a few years and then tire of it, dyebase inks is it for better colors and ease of maintenance and running costs. Here is where the 9900 and 6600/6700 and Pro 9000 simply wipes out anything anyone else has. The Epson R260/R1400 is trying to be there too. HP doesn't really have a serious offering here if any kind of volume is anticipated. HP does offer a reasonably priced B&W printing option but again running costs will aggravate despite refilling because refilling these will only work a few time unless you have equipment.

If you want serious archival properties badly, you must choose pigment and here Epson is king. The R800/1800 is it. If you do B&W too the R2400 is NICE. But you're dealing with pigments and permanency.
Looking at what Canon and HP have to offer in this area, my feeling is uneasy about their products and anticipated products. Why? I don't feel comfortable with polymer pigments being used on thermal heads. Remember these pigments are solid particles that can melt and burn. So if you think bad inkflow and kogation is a problem with dye inks, I think a similar and much much greater problem will exist with pigments here. It really makes me wonder because either HP or Canon has designed their printer to self check their printing performance. So if it detects a clogged nozzle, it will print perfectly without that nozzle. On the surface that sounds neat BUT I suspect it will have to repeat and reprint to cover the missing spot. Ultimately that signals that they anticipate that with continued use, nozzles will clog permanently and had to devise a way around it. I can't see this NOT hurting print speed. Epson's piezo head seems to be a natural for pigments and looks to be superior in this arena. I think Canon knows it is missing this market and keeps promising the pigment based Pro 9500. I wonder if there are development problems here?

remember the above are not facts but my opinion on how I see it. So don't take it as gospel.

 

[Manuchau]

It may not be gospel, but the information is accurate and clear. Your knowledge of printers, printing, and the current market is excellent, and I appreciate that.

Hallelujah!!