Canon S9000

The S9000 builds upon the success of the S900, offering the same mix of speed, quality and borderless prints but with the ability to output at up to A3+ in size. The printer is distinctive in silver and grey, and with the tray fully extended takes up a considerable amount of desk space.

In our tests, producing an A4 photo took a mere one minute, 52 seconds, while the A3 version took just two minutes longer. This is quite a feat considering the HP took three minutes, 25 seconds to produce just an A4 print.

It wasn't the fastest A3 printer at text, however, averaging just over 4ppm for the 25-page A4 document. It was also slower than the HP at the CorelDRAW test, indicating that the S9000 is more optimised for photo and coated papers than plain paper printing.

That was equally true when it came to the quality of the output, which was clearly better on photo papers than plain, despite Canon's claim that its MicroFine Droplet Technology provides unrivalled quality on plain paper.

The photo montage at both A4 and A3 was superb, thanks to true and vivid colours, but close inspection revealed some banding in areas of solid tones that meant it scored just shy of the Epson. The Canon's colour accuracy, however, was emphasised by the colour performance test. It produced accurate blocks and perfectly even fades, allowing it to achieve a perfect ten in this test. The CorelDRAW test on plain paper was only average compared to the other three A3 printers, though. The S9000 is further let down by its text output on plain paper, with lettering that was too spidery for our liking.

The Canon uses six inks to produce its photos, with separate tanks for each colour. These cost £7 each and, with a quoted lifetime of just 270 pages, colour pages work out at 7.8p - far more than for the Epson and HP. The only advantage is that you can replace each colour separately as it runs out rather than having to waste ink as with the Epson and Lexmark.

Features-wise, the Canon is lacking when compared with the HP, with no duplexer option, although software to make it PostScript compatible is available. It also doesn't offer Epson's PIM technology, but does support the newer and widely compatible Exif 2.2 standard for accurate colour matching.

Ultimately, the Canon S9000's poor text and average plain paper performance are more than offset by the superb photo prints it produces at a record speed. However, its high purchase and running costs mean it's not the best-value printer.