Product Reviews

The problem with most inkjets, no matter how good, is that they're often very picky about the paper they use. You usually have to stick with coated paper or the manufacturer's own stock, both of which are invariably more expensive than standard media. With the BJC-7000, Canon claims to have solved the problem.

Inside the rather chunky black ink cartridge, there are two chambers. One of these holds black ink, while the other contains what Canon refers to as its 'Ink Optimiser'. This is basically a solution that's sprayed onto the paper just before the ink is laid down, effectively turning ordinary paper into pseudo coated paper. What this solution actually does is stop the ink from spreading, even on the cheapest of copier paper, and binds the ink to the paper, which has the useful side effect of making the ink waterproof.

Apart from this innovation, the BJC-7000 also boasts a true maximum resolution of 1,200 x 600dpi and, like other printers in the Canon BJC range, gives you the choice between a standard CMY colour cartridge for business graphics, or a six-colour photographic cartridge. This goes one better then Epson's excellent Stylus Photo (reviewed issue 35, p153), which uses five colours in its photo cartridge. The addition of extra, light colours is designed to improve the colour range and the appearance of subtle shading and progressive fills.

I encountered no problems during installation. Windows 95 detected the BJC-7000 straight away, and I was ready to put it through its paces less than ten minutes after taking it out of the box. To test the claim that this is a printer that will print on the plainest of plain papers, I removed a stack of 80g/m2 paper from a photocopier and printed a series of standard documents. I printed a five-page letter, a three-page report complete with charts, graphs and coloured tables, and two highly detailed CorelDraw! images.

The resulting output proves there's some substance to Canon's claim. Text still has

On Canon's recommended and special photographic media results are flawless. Colours are much more vivid than on plain paper, and results on the glossy paper are almost as good as the Epson Stylus Photo's.

These sorts of images do, however, take some time to emerge into the output tray. For example, a full-page CorelDraw! image takes at least 15 minutes to print, even on a reasonably fast PC. Text speeds are more acceptable, however: the five-page letter dropped into the output tray after two minutes and 20 seconds.

The printer itself is quite bulky, so you'll need a fair amount of space. The imposing, box-like case measures 467mm across, so it's surprising that it doesn't support paper any wider than 228mm in width. But despite a depth of 313mm, the output tray is pretty sturdy, so you don't have to leave any desk space in front of it.

Apart from the size, there's nothing out of the ordinary about the appearance of the BJC-7000. The 130-sheet capacity feeder tray protrudes at a steep angle from the rear of the machine, creating a reasonably straight paper path. In the tradition of modern inkjet design, the printer has no controls on the case beyond the power and resume buttons. Everything else, including print head cleaning and alignment functions, is controlled from the driver software.

All in all, the Canon BJC-7000 is one of the most versatile, powerful and flexible personal colour printers on the market today. Output is excellent on most paper types, and on special media it's stunning. Unfortunately, it doesn't offer anything over and above the competition in terms of value for money. Current pricing puts it at £350, which is more expensive than both the Lexmark 7000 and HP 890C (reviewed issue 38, p168).

Running costs aren't anything to write home about either: 3.3p for a page of plain text is over the odds, although colour costs are on a par with the HP 890C. Bearing this in mind, and despite the fact that plain paper quality is slightly better than the Lexmark 7000, I can't wholeheartedly recommend the BJC-7000.