Canon i950

The i950 is specifically designed for amateur and semi-professional photo output and represents Canon's answer to the A-Listed Epson Stylus Photo 950. This is a difficult challenge, but the i950 gets off to a good start by being similar to the A3+ i9100 (see issue 107, p69), with the same clean silver-effect case sporting power and page-feed buttons, and Canon's great six-colour print engine.

This contains light cyan and magenta tanks, as well as the standard cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks. In fact, the i950 even boasts a smaller drop size than the i9100: two picolitres against the larger unit's four. It also has a more sensible paper-feed design: the rear feeder mechanism and front output tray both fold away, and the rear paper support doubles as a lid to cover the input path and prevent dust getting into the works.

Technical specs and design features aside, the i950 does almost precisely what Canon claims. Its speed is amazing, with a borderless 4 x 6in print racing through the machine in just 38 seconds in Best mode, and a borderless A4 picture dropping into the output tray in only one-and-a-half minutes. The quality is also nothing short of exemplary, with fully saturated colours jumping off the page and subtler tonal variations reproduced without fault. Banding was nowhere to be seen, and neither was the grain often exhibited by printers boasting the same 4,800 x 1,200dpi resolution. The speed and quality are truly astonishing.

Unfortunately, this is more than you can say for standard text printing. The quoted mono text speed is only 3.2ppm for normal quality and 7ppm for draft, and our 25-page document at 5 per cent coverage only averaged at 5.6ppm in Draft and 2.5ppm in Normal mode. It isn't speedy, but text printing is hardly the point of the i950. Similarly, the quality in Normal mode was acceptable but not very dense; this isn't a printer to replace your workaday office laser or inkjet.

It isn't as fully featured as the Epson Stylus Photo 950 when it comes to extras like CD or roll paper printing either, but if you want a pure photo printer the i950's incredible speed and superb photo results give it the ammunition needed to knock the Epson off our A List.

Author: David Fearon