Canon iP4600 Inkjet Photo Printer (2909B002)

Replaced another Canon printer that just wore out after many years of use. I love the duplexing feature of the Canon printers because it saves me so much money on paper. The individual ink tanks also are a money saver. No problems at all. Works like a charm. Not too noisy and it sits right by my head up on a shelf.I use it mostly for work, reports, etc. not for photo's - I haven't tried that yet. I only wish I could find compatiable ink tanks or a way to use ink refill bottles to do it myself and save even more money.

Overall I am satisfied with the printer for both general printing and photos. The printing speed for photos is good. Two sided printing is somewhat slower than I would like. The delay for drying before printing the opposite side seems too long. After a interval of no printing there is too long a delay before the first page prints while some kind of mechanical activity goes on in the printer. I would rate it as a good value purchase.

I bought this printer after so-so experience over the years with Epson and HP inkjet printers. I do not need a so-called "all in one" (who really does, these days when faxes are mostly a thing of the past and there are much better scanners out there than the all-in- one's have). I liked the print copy from this unit and the photographs were well above average. I liked the ability to use the dedicated paper feed at the rear to send heavy weight photo paper to the printer and still keep normal paper in the under printer tray for text, etc. My problems are that if one ink cartridge runs out, even if it's Cyan, for example, it won't print B&W text copy until you change the Cyan cartridge. Also, it's a bit of an ink hog--and the cartridges are very sensitive to being refilled and/or non Canon mfg's. Still, I was willing to put up with all this until a few days ago when it simply just would not turn on---nada, zip, zero. For no apparent reason it is now absolutely dead; no warning, nothing. Of course all this happened just one year and a month of ownership, so the warranty is worthless, too. I decided to go back to an Epson (Artisan 50). Fortunately the $100 plus of unused ink I have on the shelf can be used by my wife's Canon all-in-one, that is, at least for now. By the way, her printer, an MX870, has now been superseded by a later model which uses different ink, a bald-faced marketing ploy by Canon to obsolete previous inks so they can sell you a new printer and even more expensive ink!

Not unlike most everything, if you pay less, you're going to get less. However, the things skimped on in this printer hardly take away from it's great value.Pros:First, for me, I have absolutely no use for a scanner/copier so the fact that this printer doesn't have one is a bonus for me. That coupled with individual ink tanks are what peaked my interest in this printer in the first place. I used to work at Best Buy and at that time the iP600 came out and is the first printer I know of to use individual tanks on a consumer printer. I decided then that when I got my next printer it'd have to have the individual tanks, no more throwing away red and yellow ink when the blue runs out!Duplex printing right out of the box in a printer that costs less then $100?! Awesome! Usually, in order to get this feature on a sub-$100 printer you have to buy an attachment. Not here, right out of the box it's ready to print on both sides of a sheet. This is especially useful for me as my girlfriend and I are both in college and print many paged documents all the time. Our paper consumption is nearly cut in half!Easy as pie to set up. We both have Macs and an Apple Extreme router that has a USB port for wireless printing. Plug the printer into the router, open up Airport Utility, go to the printer tab, select the printer, the computer downloads and installs the driver is needs, and BAM... Ready to print wirelessly with no missing features. Ink management, duplex management, tray selection, and so on are all there.Print quality is amazing. One thing I've always liked about Canon's individual tank printers is the PageBlack cartridge. This is a larger ink tank and uses more of a gel ink that sits on top of the paper apposed to dyeing the paper like traditional ink. This tank is used whenever you print documents and the end result is incredible looking text that is very clean, dark, and sharp. Then, when it comes to photo printing this printer doesn't disappoint. I have been a photographer for over 10 years and am now in film school so photo quality was a very important sell point for me. 3x5, 4x6, and 8x10 all look great and are indistinguishable from prints done at the kiosks you can find in places like Wal-Mart or Kinkos.My printer fits into a reletively tight space. While there is plenty of room for the top paper feed tray to be open, if I were to put regular 8.5x11 paper into it then it'd have to curl back to fit. 4x6 photo paper fits just fine. This, however, is a non-issue due to the fact that there is a lower paper cartridge for the standard paper. This is a great addition as I can close the top paper feed (unless printing a photo) and have the printer feed from the bottom tray. This really helps keep the printer compact in it's somewhat tight space.Cons:As have been stated before, this printer isn't not quick on the uptake. Once it gets going it's fast enough, but the initial time it takes the printer to start printing once a job has been sent to it can take upwards of 40 seconds. This doesn't seem long on paper, but when you're used to a printer starting almost immediately after sending the job, this seems like forever. Essentially the printer goes through a head cleaning cycle before it begins printing. So, this is bittersweet because even though you have to wait, at least the nozzles will be nice and clean and you'll always get the best possible print quality. However, like I said, once it starts, it's about average with most any other printer I've used.The size of this printer, while compact enough to fit where I have it as said before, is a bit bulky considering the absence of a scanner bed. So, if you only have space for the small top feed only printers found for $30 or so, then this printer may be a bit too large for you. However, that's not to say this printer is huge by any means, just a bit larger then I originally expected.Final thoughts:4/5 stars from me mostly due to the slow uptake. This isn't really a huge deal until you're already late for class and trying to rush out the door and you send your paper to print and have to wait an extra minute for it to come out, which feels like an eternity when you're in a hurry. Most of the time, though, you just send the job, start surfing the net and don't really care how long the print takes to start-up. If I could I'd give 4.5/5 stars because it really isn't that big of a deal. For less then $100 shipped you get an awesome printer with great print quality, duplex printing, and insanely easy set-up (I imagine Windows set-up wouldn't be anymore difficult then it was on a Mac). It's size may be a little larger then you imagine, but I'm sure most everyone shouldn't have any troubles finding a place to put it. I highly recommend this printer and am very satisfied!

I purchased this printer to replace my old Canon bjc3000 printer that recently died after 8 years of faithful service. It was slow and noisy, but the printing quality was outstanding for a printer in this price range. My wife and I enjoy the hobby of photography. Friends and family were amazed at the prints we were creating on a home printer. Another aspect of this printer that I enjoyed was affordability of the individual ink tanks that I was able to purchase on line for under $4 a piece. All of this is why I decided to purchase the iP4600 when I found it on sale at Amazon. It is much faster and quieter than the old bjc3000 but even with all the advancement in printer technology over the last 8 years it is hard to tell the difference in quality between prints made on the new printer from prints made on the old. I was shocked when I went shopping for ink. Very few stores carry replacement ink tanks for the iP4600, none in my area. I can only find a couple of sites on line that carry them and the cheapest price I've found is $14 a tank!!! I can't vouch for the reliability of this printer because so far I have not printed enough to know. I have been avoiding doing much frivolous printing out of dread of buying more ink at inflated prices. I truly regret purchasing this printer and my advice to anyone shopping for a new printer is to research the price and availability of ink before making your final decision