Canon Pixma iP1500 review

With a low price and ink cartridges costing under £7 for black and less than £15 for colour, we can see the iP1500 tempting the mass market. Often we'd expect such a cheap printer to be costly to run, but 3.8p per sheet of black text and 16.1p for the ink used in a 6 x 4in photo aren't bad. The problem is that Canon only sells photo paper in packets of 15 or 20 sheets, which proves expensive.

However, if budget is your prime concern you could save money by printing photos on cheap glossy photo papers to save money; Canon's 24 ink family doesn't resist fading too well even on the recommended papers. If you just need the occasional photo that you don't expect to be cherished, it does very well.

Best photo quality is very good indeed. On our photo montage, grain was absent without intense scrutiny, while fades and transitions were excellent, as was colour accuracy. But although skin tones were good, those in our 6 x 4in test did suffer a little noise up close. The mono photo was beyond rebuke though.

The iP1500 fell down in our coated tests where white-on-black text suffered bleeding and copious grain blighted mono fades and transitions. Printouts fall directly on the desk too - there's no output tray.

Plain and draft text was impressive though, and appeared in respectable speeds of 6.4ppm and 7.6ppm respectively. Overall, if you only want an occasional printer for minimum investment, and one that's capable of the odd glossy photo, it makes a good choice.