| I am a very loyal consumer and will generally stay with the specific brands I buy. This was true with Epson printers that I have purchased for many years. Common sense finally took hold after the last tank change and subsequent 6 head cleanings before a good print could be made, not to mention almost 1/4 of the tank depleted. (at least by their monitoring system) Tired of wasted ink and paper, nozzle cleans, tank changes for 1 low color, etc., I decieded to make the change to Canon and purchased the ip6700D. Setup on my Intel driven Imac was a breeze! Talk about instant gratification! My very first print came out flawless with better resolution and sharpness than any Epson I have owned. I even had to look to see if it was doing anything during printing, unlike the Epson that was only rivaled by the dishwasher for making noise! Individual print setup was also a snap. The quality, paper and other parameters were simple utilizing the supplied software. I found the "trimming" capabilities were better and easier than some of my high dollar graphic programs I have. I printed out a box (100) of 4" x 6" prints, one after the other and didn't lose 1 sheet from a malfunction of the printer. No head cleaning. no alignments, no getting ready to do a tank change! Nothing but high quality prints. At least the remaining Epson borderless premium glossy paper worked well.
I guess I will pass this along as getting wiser with age and not putting up with poor performance again with using an Epson. Why did I wait so long? You won't be dissapointed with the ip6700D.
| | A Fast, Fine Printing Machine |
| My setup: Dell Dimension 9100, nVidia 6800, Dell 19" ultrasharp flat panel, Photoshop Elements 3, Nikon Coolpix 5700 camera. For the initial setup, I inserted the CompactFlash card from the Nikon into the printer and printed a picture on plain paper. This was to determine the printer worked properly out of the box. The results were fine. The 3.5" display is clear and easy to work with. The printer controls are, for the most part, understandable and easy to use. You could do a lot of printing with this machine without a computer and would need only a minimum of reference to the manual.
Next, I setup the software on the computer and connected the printer. The printer does not come with any sample paper, so I used Epson Ultra Premium Glossy paper for the first prints via the computer. The first print was a 4x6 done using software provided by Canon. The results were great and the print was done in about 45 seconds. The next print, on Epson paper, was 8 1/2 by 11 via Elements. The results were as good as the Epson Stylus 320. After this, I got Canon's Photo Paper Pro. Using the highest quality setting, the longest it took to print was 6 minutes for a borderless 8 1/2 by 11 print (compare with the Epson Stylus 320, which would have taken over 30 minutes for the same job). The print speed slows down in dense areas, so the denser (darker) the photo, the longer it will take to print. You almost need a lobe to see the dots, the printing is that fine. I would rate the results comparable to photo lab quality.
Text printing on plain paper is typical of photo inkjet printers. The results are acceptable, but if you really need quality text printing, use a laser printer - not a photo inkjet printer. Photos are what these printers are all about.
Paper feed in this printer is agressive and can be a bit disconcerting. I haven't noticed any scoring of the paper, even so, the Canon includes a setting to increase the gap between the rollers and the paper to stop scoring in the event it does occur. Once paper is initially fed into the machine, printing is very quiet.
I've heard reports of red cast on Canon's iP6600. This did not happen here. The color balance of the test prints matched the color balance seen on the monitor - and, I did not make any changes to the computer display or inside Photoshop Elements. For other printers, I've had to reprint after making adjustments to get acceptable results. I haven't had to with this printer. This means less waste (paper, ink), which translates to a lower cost of ownership. I would rate this printer 4 1/2 stars if I could, but instead rated it 4. This is because of a couple short comings.
1) There is a note in the manual about removing the power plug - "If the power plug is removed from the wall outlet with the power lamp lit, the printer cannot protect its print heads and may be unable to print." If you think about that statement, you can translate it to mean that if there is a power outage while the printer is printing, the printer may not recover from it. Thus, I've plugged this printer into the regulated/battery backed side of my power distribution box, instead of the surge-protection-only side that I would normally expect to use for a printer.
2) The software license agreement absolves Canon of any requirement to support the software on the CD. Canon probably does support it to some extend, but legally they are ensuring they don't have to. I can see doing this in regard to any print utility they provide, as it is freeware and you can always use something else, but I do think at least the driver software should be supported - after all, if the driver malfunctions, that would not be a satisfactory situation to a customer.
In summary, I am very pleased with this printer.
| | GREAT REPLACEMENT FOR MY CANON I950 |
| If you read the reviews on the Canon i950, you'll see the early reviews are generally positive, but the later reviews are generally negative as the printheads started failing a year or two later. I can vouch for that. My i950 was a great printer for about 2 ½ years, but then I was having to do the deep cleanings more and more often to keep the print quality at an acceptable level. Lots of wasted ink and wasted paper.
I finally decided to retire the old printer and get a new one. I did quite a bit of research on Canon, HP and Epson printers in the $150-$300 price range. I even looked at the "pro" printers from Canon and HP, but I just couldn't swallow the $500-$600 price tag.
What finally pushed me into the 6900d was two things. First, it got pretty good reviews across the board, and second, Staples had it on sale for $129 ($179 with a $50 rebate-sorry Amazon). A high quality, name brand photo printer for $129? I couldn't pass on that.
Set up was extremely easy. From opening the box to printing my first photo was less than 15 minutes, and that included a 4 minute printhead alignment that the printer runs as part of the set-up process. Instructions for setting up the printer itself were clear and accurate, and the software installed easily with no hassles.
Photo quality is very good. I printed out several 4 x 6's and a couple of 8 x 10's, and they look great. Color is accurate, and saturation seems about where it should be. This is with absolutely no adjustments, except for putting the print quality on high. Speed is fine. I knocked out the 4 x 6's in well under a minute, and the 8 x 10's in a little over a minute.
I won't comment on the LCD screen or the built in card reader, because I will never print any photo without cropping and editing in Photoshop. If you like to take your card right out of your camera and print your photos right away, then I guess you'll enjoy these features.
Obviously I can't comment on the longevity of the printer since I've only had it for a short while. I did consider whether to buy another Canon due to the printhead problems I had with my i950, but at the end of the day, if you read enough reviews, you realize that every printer brand seems to have its own problems and issues. The way I looked at it, for $129 this is like a disposable item. If I can get 2-3 good years out of it, then I'll be happy and ready to move on to the next printer.
A couple of words of advice....if you are a discriminating photo enthusiast, do use Canon inks and Canon paper. It really does make a difference. I've seen a few people comment that they used off brand paper or ink, and the results were "close enough". Well "close enough" is not good enough for me. I notice a significant difference in the print quality. The good news is that I tried the Canon Photo Pro paper (very expensive) and the Canon Photo Plus Glossy (pretty cheap considering you can buy 120 4 x 6's for around $15 here at Amazon), and the difference is virtually indistinguishable. In fact, I printed out 2 identical photos with each kind of paper on the 6700d, and I asked people if they could tell the difference. Most couldn't, and a few even said that they thought the cheaper paper had the better quality. Unless your experience is different than mine, load up on the cheaper paper.
The bottom line is that this is a very good photo inkjet printer, for a pretty reasonable price.
| | Prints look good WHEN it WILL print |
| I bought this printer from Amazon after reading the mostly positive reviews. I was going back and forth between Canon and Epson. I had read that the comparably priced Epson models went through a lot of expensive ink so I went with the Canon. I've owned several Canon cameras in the past and have always been satisfied with the operation and quality. This printer however has been a lemon since day one. I followed the instructions for quick set up, loaded the software and hooked up the USB cord. I think I got one print out of it and then it showed an error- U071 more than one yellow ink cartridge installed. I went to the manual and it said to make sure the cartridges were installed in the proper order, so I removed and re-installed the cartridges. No luck, same error code. I turned off the printer and turned it back on. Same error code. Remove and re-install the cartridges, turn off and on. Finally ready to print. One print later and the error code appears again. After trying to use the printer like this on several occasions and having printed maybe a total of five pages I called Canon tech support. The representative had me removed the cartridges, take out the print head, blot the bottom on a piece of paper and re-install in printer. The error code cleared and he had me run a maintenance print on the cartridges which came out looking fine. I thought that maybe it was going to work now, however after printing out one more print it went back to it's old ways. I've had it for maybe a month now and I'm tempted to ask Amazon for a replacement. Of course I've long since thrown away the box. After the hassle of trying to get this simple printer to work properly I'd definitely be hesitant to ever buy another Canon printer. If I do get this one to work or end up getting a replacement that works I may amend my review. The prints do look good when it does print.
| | Compares to a professional lab |
| On a whim, I printed images in sizes from 4x6 to 11x14 at a professional lab. The images were amazing.
Next, I took the same images (JPG format) and printed them on the iP6700D in sizes from 4x6 to 8.5x11.
The images were very similar. I displayed the images and asked some people to comment on the images. I noticed very slight shade variations that were only noticeable in side by side comparisons in a few instances. For example, the light blue sky was very slightly darker from the professional lab. These slight color variations are expected since I did not use an ICC profile.
One person commented that "I feel silly, these are so close and they both look excellent". Most people (untrained) were not able to find any differences in the images unless they were pointed out.
Be warned, that the Canon ink for this printer uses dye, not pigments (Epson printers use pigments). You must use an appropriate paper. The expectation is that Canon paper will produce the best results, especially if you do not use an appropriate ICC that is created for the paper and printer. That said, I have used other paper with excellent results, and numerous professionals routinely use other papers with excellent results. On the other hand, before you complain that your images look horrible, try the Canon paper.
Also, do not use non-Canon ink and then complain about the colors. Again, many people are very pleased with the results, but many more are not. Non-Canon inks are also much more likely to have problems with fading.
I like the printer because I produce amazing images directly from my camera with zero post processing. I do not even need to connect the printer to a computer, I simply drop the memory card into the printer. Sure, with certain photos, it is not possible to obtain the correct color cast without post-processing, but no printer will without manual intervention (a picture taken in yellow light, turns the whites yellow).
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