Product Reviews

The expectations of a modern-day inkjet have risen sharply over the past year, and we now demand even budget models to competently handle tasks that vary from simple letters to high-quality photo printing. The S600 is Canon's latest venture into this crowded market and, at a price point of £161, it's aggressively targeting the likes of Epson's excellent Stylus Photo 890 (reviewed issue 79, p178) and HP's DeskJet 980cxi (reviewed p157).

We were introduced to Canon's new S range with the disappointing S450 (reviewed issue 78, p146), which was criticised for a lack of photo quality and colour performance. However, the S600 incorporates a far higher specification, including Canon's new 1,088 nozzle print head, which allows the S600 to achieve its rated dpi in a fewer number of print head passes. The main advantage of this is print speed, but the reduced number of passes across the page may also reduce banding.

The S600 is simple to set up, with the usual array of attachable input and output trays, plus USB and parallel connectivity options. The S600's four separate ink cartridges are quick to install, and the clear casing makes it easy to observe the amount of ink remaining, although the software also keeps tabs on this. The only problem with setup concerned the confusing print-head alignment routine, which makes it difficult to correctly align the heads.

The S600 claims a maximum text output speed of 15ppm (pages per minute), but it only managed a more modest 5.5ppm with our 25-page plain text document on standard settings, although this still tops the DeskJet 980cxi's 4.2ppm. Print quality was excellent, though, with solid characters in a deep black. Only a slight blurring to the edge of characters let it down, but in general the quality was high and certainly superior to the DeskJet 980cxi.

I was also impressed with the S600's performance in our 25-page letter test, printed at the draft setting. The S600's fast paper spooling mechanism helped it achieve a speed of 10.2ppm - only slightly behind the DeskJet 980cxi's 12.5ppm. The real surprise, however, came with the quality, which was almost the same as that on the standard settings. Text still remained sharp and focused and, more importantly, retained a solid black, making the Canon S600 a superb printer

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for quick, high-quality text printing.

One of the major criticisms of the S450 was its colour performance, and the S600's four-colour ink system already puts it at a disadvantage compared to Epson's six-colour Stylus Photo 890. That said, the S600 performed well, completing our four-page DTP test in around nine minutes, making it faster than both the DeskJet 980cxi and the Stylus Photo 890. The quality was also good, with strong colours and excellent detail on Canon's high-quality HR-101 inkjet paper, although arguably the DeskJet 980cxi handled mixing different fonts and graphics better, with marginally sharper text. Experimenting with the quality settings helps, although it's disappointing that the S600 doesn't produce optimal results out of the box. In terms of overall quality though, the Stylus Photo 890 produced far smoother and more detailed results, in part thanks to the extra range of colours available from its six-ink system.

The S600 failed to reproduce accurate Pantone colours, with many of the solid process colours showing an obvious composite make-up. Few achieved an accurate match with the Pantone swatch, although to be fair the S600 isn't intended for use in the professional pre-press industry.

Generic colour performance was more impressive though, and the S600 reproduced smooth colour fades with only mild banding. Colours were stronger than the DeskJet 980cxi, although the composite make-up of some colours was evident, unlike the smooth colours of the Stylus Photo 890.

Photo printing wasn't a strong point for the S450, and the S600 isn't significantly better. Speed was good though, with an A4 print appearing in less than three minutes, even on the maximum settings. However, the S600 had problems resolving fine detail, and the colour balance was also difficult to get right. More importantly though, was the level of grain, which gave photos a sandy look. Dark areas also tended to be saturated, destroying the fine shadow details in our test image. The DeskJet 980cxi achieved smoother, more detailed results, and the Stylus Photo 890 was frankly in a different league with its superbly crisp and highly realistic prints.

The S600 is an excellent printer for text printing and general colour use. Text quality and performance, even in draft mode, is among the best I've seen, and colour performance is similar to that of the DeskJet 980cxi, which is impressive given the £34 price difference. Photo printing is poor though, and if this is a major priority then the Epson Stylus Photo 890 should be your preference.

It's difficult to wholeheartedly recommend the S600. A £161 printer should be able to print good photos, and the S600's grainy images lacked the more professional look of those produced by the 980cxi. The S600 is a good inkjet at a competitive price, but the 980cxi remains the better all-round printer.