Product ReviewsPrinters
Canon's Pixma ip4500 boasts some fearsome specifications for £62: built-in duplexer; two paper trays, allowing you to either use the top-loading paper tray or the paper cassette built into the bottom of the unit; a plastic adapter for direct printing onto CDs and DVDs. The front of the unit is sparsely populated, with no LCD screen or memory card reader: a PictBridge port is the only concession to standalone printing. But for purists who edit their images before printing them, the ip4500's four-ink system offers excellent quality. At best settings, on Canon's top-end PR101 paper, prints are indistinguishable from traditional lab results. Despite offering four-colour photo
By default, the ip4500 builds in a significant drying time for each page it prints, and our initial testing revealed a disappointing print speed of 4.5ppm for A4 mono. Getting rid of the drying time raised this to a more acceptable 10ppm. Just don't be fooled into thinking the duplex mode will save you time as well as money: in simplex mode, our A4 document took under five minutes; duplex mode for the same document more than doubled the time taken. Photo printing was more rapid - a top-quality A4 print finished in 1min 32secs, and 6 x 4in prints emerged at just under two per minute. Our real-world tests show that print costs aren't the cheapest at 34p per 6 x 4in photo, but when the ip4500 excels at printing just about anything - and is cheaper than the outgoing ip5300 (web ID: 116244), which it replaces - a place on the A List is assured. By Dave Stevenson SPECIFICATIONS:
9,600 x 2,400dpi five-colour inkjet USB PictBridge port CD/DVD printing duplex unit two 150-sheet input trays 445 x 303 x 160mm (WDH) 1yr RTB warranty |
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