Customer Reviews

Canon i960 Photo Printer

5 star:		(90)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I've mainly used Epson and HP Printers at work and at home; however, after reading the reviews of this Canon printer I decided to give Canon a shot. I have never been as blown away by a product before as I was with this one!

I printed over 100 photos at 4x6 without using all of the ink that came with the printer. The photos look like actual photos from a film camera. A friend at work wanted to know where I got my digital pictures developed.

The software which comes with this printer is amazing. You can instantly make a complete package of photos, including wallets, 5x7, and 8x10.

One amazing feature of this printer that I've never seen on the other brands is the ability to print full bleed on an 8.5 x 11 sheet of paper. I tried this and it worked perfectly.

I use a Sony F707 5 megapixel digital camera and have really been impressed with the results the "little Canon that could" have given me. If you use Canon's paper, the photos look perfect. Cheaper paper will still look better than HP/Epson photos, but not as perfect as the Canon paper photos.

Another reason to buy this printer: Check out the prices of Canon's replacement inks vs. HP's or Epson's. That alone is worth buying this printer...not to mention the fact that the 2 picoliter drops result in higher quality prints than HP or Epson can offer.

The "bumps" in the ink mentioned in the previous reviewer's friend's i950 were from using incompatible paper, not the printer itself (I know this the hard way)--if not that, then a setting was wrong, but Canon settings are so easy that it's probably not that. There should be no ink pooling or imperfection whatsoever if both the user & printer are functioning properly. Further testament is that the i950 & newer i960 have exactly the same printing mechanism, so there should be no difference in print quality. 3rd-party papers which work great in one printer may work horribly in another, & vice versa. Use Canon products & get consistent great results, or do your homework; I actually exchanged a Canon printer because of ink pooling on a particular 3rd-party paper which worked great in my Epson, not realizing the mistake was mine.

I do agree with the previous reviewer's decision to buy bulk ink & refill for medium & heavy users. There is a particular 3rd-party ink mfr which is best for Canon; I may or may not be allowed to say it here, but it can be found in archived newsgroup posts (i.e. google groups) if you search. You can also search which are the best 3rd-party papers, too. There are a number of good paper brands, but I would only recommend one 3rd-party mfr of ink, often sold under 4th-party rebranding. Otherwise, OEM Ink will cost about as much as paper in photo printing (yikes!).

If you want consistent great results with no homework, stick with OEM Canon stuff, but if you print a lot, judiciously-selected 3rd-party products results can be awesome, low-cost, and you really feel like you are getting away with something. When you see prints coming out of your own printer which are actually BETTER than your local "Mart" photo printing (be it 1-hour or 3-day), the enthusiasm bubbles. Plus, the degree of control you have doesn't have a price. The "Mart" places artificially jack up the color saturation for a "vivid" effect; with home printing, esp with the very easy Canon drivers, it becomes your choice. Power-user driver features are unintimidating and easily-available. Canon does FAR better on drivers than Epson! The other included softwares range from extremely useful to embarrassingly pathetic.

Updates/differences in the i960 vs i950: the i960 has the manual 4x6 paper tray, 2 USB ports, an updated PictBridge standard, different cosmetics, and a driver which permits viewing print details in Print Preview (which most wouldn't care about, but is the only thing I miss in my own i950). I see too many newbies looking for a printer with an LCD and I wince when I see that. Direct printing to me is a gimmick and I'm glad to not pay extra for an LCD.

Canon is the way to go in printers; the closest competitor is Epson, and having owned 4 Epsons and now 1 Canon, I have given away (2) or thrown away (2) all my Epsons, no kidding, and will never go back. Canon cartridges are also TTBOMK the easiest to refill. Canons are quieter, too (extremely quiet). Canon will eventually bring their 7- or 8-color widebody printer mechanism (i960 has 6) to the consumer market, but quality is starting to increase with diminishing returns. Even if you upgrade, your ink will still be useful; they have recently been adding extra colors but have kept the original BCI-6 colors/tanks the same.

My own tests show that this printer prints at LEAST at 20 Megapixel resolution on 8.5x11 paper. Print a 5-Megapixel photo on a quarter-8.5x11-sheet and you will notice that every single detail visible on your monitor will be visible on the print (both may require magnification).

I did an OEM fade test, and in 6+ months of bright indirect sunlight, I see no fading of the ink, and the back of the paper is slightly yellowed (noticeable side-by-side), being exposed to air & pollutants, not under glass (which is why you put prints under glass). PPP is not as "white" as cheaper papers--that's a good thing, as those brighteners break down & yellow even faster. Still, a wet chem print will be more resilient over years of exposure.

The i960's price is a little above half what I paid for the i950, which even then was a good deal for what it did. You now truly can have photolab quality prints (I mean good photolab quality, not those cheap laser-exposed prints most of us [used to] get) in your home for a great price, and IMO the new low cost makes people not appreciate how special a piece of hardware this is.

Before you go figuring out price per print, something which may surprise you is the amount of FUN you will (hopefully) have which adds to the value, as does the privacy & immediacy. Prints can be much cheaper than wet chem (depending), but you will spend far more in updating your digital camera, as that is where technology really lags behind. 5 MP prints do 8.5x11 with no visible pixellation, but as I said, the printer is at least capable of 20 MP resolution, something most won't have for years.

Despite the absence of a "light black" color, you can also get better-than-potolab results in B&W, too, with the added advantage of being able to control tone. Professional digital headshots can print in "actual" pro quality or better with top paper, so the printer can actually pay for itself for models & actors. No one will notice a difference, except that they're better, and there's no paper branding on the back.

Printing text on plain paper is good, but not quite like a laser (you have to look up close to see). This is due to the paper & ink, not the printer's ability to do "letter" quality or real straight lines, which it truly can on the right (i.e. photo) paper. Though quality paper helps greatly, toner doesn't seep into plain paper the way ink does, and it is beyond me why they include a plain paper black (pigment) cartridge in the i8x0 series and not in the more-expensive i9x0, which only has dye ink. I have not compared the i860's text printing. For light text duty, the i960 does well, but serious text printers will need a fast laser printer or perhaps ironically an i860, which also does great photo prints--I couldn't tell i8/960 samples apart in a store with poor lighting. Canon will mail you a sample from each upon request; request the same image for both.

Canon is also the least money-grubbing of the printer makers: first to come out with separate ink tanks, not making refill-proof designs, better cost per print. The good karma flows beautifully into every other superior aspect of Canon printers, gaining my patronage & word of mouth.

I have done mad amounts of research, as you may tell, and this is the one to go with. There is little reason to wait for a more-refined printer, and even when there is one, it will be a Canon.

I'm a serious amateur photographer and a professional writer. The i960 is great for photos and text. The photo quality is excellent, comparable in quality and price to a photo lab. I shoot digitally and get better results from the i960, because there's no telling what settings the lab is using in its machine.

Individual ink cartridges is great, and supposedly this printer wastes less ink than its predecessors by skipping ink-consuming calibration processes at startup. At any rate, I've had the printer for about a month, have printed lots of photos and haven't started running low on ink.

Some have said this printer suffers in the text department, but I haven't been disappointed. My pages look just fine, at least as good as any inkjet I've used. Other benefits are the 4x6 paper feeder, the folding paper catcher in front, and man, this thing looks cool on the shelf (hey, it helps).

Overall, the i960 is a fantastic printer and very affordable at its sub-$200 price. I'd recommend it to anyone.

I was in need of a second photo quality printer. last Fall I bought a Canon i850 printer to replace my old Epson Stylus Photo EX. I was tremendously impressed with that printer's ability to make economical, lab quality photographic prints. The i850 only uses Cyan, Magenta, & Yellow color inks.
That printer is now on my daughter's iMac DV and still chugging along.
I very nearly bought the Epson 1280 photo printer, but when my students use it at college, I noticed several things that annoyed me:

The Epson guzzles color ink like Kool Ade! Although very high in quality, I get sick of tossing perfectly good ink carts when only one color is depleted.
Every 5-10 prints we have to run deep nozzle cleaning on the Epson 1280 which wasted even more ink. In the 8 months I've had the i850, it only required a nozzle check once.
So I looked at the newer Canon i960, and after reading several reputable reviews and talking to people who actually own it, I took the plunge....
No regrets. Set up on my OS X Mac was a breeze, and I really appreciate Canon's well drawn step by step set up poster included in the box.
I did not think that the i960 could match the Espon Photo 1280 for color fidelity-was I wrong! This printer can churn out an 8x10 that looks like a real photograph. The first thing I printed (after the alignment patterns-which you MUST DO to get top output...) was a scan from a 120 medium format Ektachrome slide. The 120 chrome is the standard for excellence. Lens was a Carl Zeiss Planar....the i960 print really did this German lens justice. The color and contrast were spot-on when printed from Photoshop CS.
Translation: This is a PRO quality color printer.
There is a lot of misinformation going around the web that Canon inks don't last as long as Epson's. NOT true. When printed on Canon Photo Matte paper, the print is guaranteed for 25 years.
EPSON, READ THIS: I will NEVER buy another Epson printer again! Canon's individual ink tanks have saved me $300.00 already....plus Canon lets me replace the printhead at home if there is a problem.
The i960 is super quiet. You can stack two paper sizes at the same time. It's amazingly fast, and can direct print from most Canon digital cameras.
A Superb product from a truly innovative company...what else do you need to know?

This is my second Canon printer; I upgraded to the i960 after using the S520 for a year. The S520 was an excellent, all-around printer, good at both text and photos, but I wanted something optimized just for photo quality, without regard to text output. Since I've only printed photos on the i960, and not text, that's all I can comment on. On that score, it's been outstanding. The S520 was pretty good, but the colors are even truer in the i960. I've printed approximately 150-175 photos on it so far, in 4 x 6, 5 x 7, 8.5 x 11 sizes, in both color and black and white. I've had great results with Canon's Photo Paper Plus Glossy, Canon's Photo Paper Pro, as well as Epson's matte heavyweight paper, but haven't tried any other papers yet. My only complaint is that the photos sometimes come out with fine, hairline scratches on the paper - more noticeable on areas of the photo that are heavily inked. They aren't obvious when you look at the photo straight on, but if you tilt it sideways under good light, you can see them. In fairness, I recently noticed that there is an option called "Prevent Paper Abrasion" (click Properties, then Maintenance, then Custom Settings, and you'll see it), but I haven't tried that yet. The printer comes with one full set of inks (6 separate tanks - black [BCI-6BK], cyan [BCI-6C], photo cyan [BCI-6PC], yellow [BCI-6Y], magenta [BCI-6M], and photo magenta [BCI-6PM]), but no USB cable, so you'll have to supply that. Overall, I have been very pleased with this printer, and if it got stolen, hit by lightning, or otherwise removed from my service, I'd go out and buy the same thing again.

Let's start with the strengths:

1) Good price
2) Ink cartridges don't expire before all the ink is used
3) Ink is cheap and 50+ 4x6" prints haven't made a dent in the ink levels.
4) Quality is excellent on high-res digital pictures
5) Whisper quiet. I still check to make sure it's working when I send a picture to it. It's THAT quiet.

Other weaknesses pointed out by other people that aren't that big of a deal (to me at least):

1) Hard to set up? Not really. Just follow the directions.
2) The 4x6" paper tray is flimsy? Yes, but functional and handy. But, be careful putting your $.20 a sheet photo paper in this tray, however, because the little indent for your thumb (to raise the cover on this attachment) will leave marks on the top sheet of your photo paper which will be evident in your printed photos. Put another piece of paper or something between that indention and your paper when you are inserting the stack of 4x6" paper.
3) Graphics on plain paper/B&W text printing slow and not very good? It seemed to take about 20 seconds per page of either text of full color graphics. Not great (and there are better inkjets out there for this), but a perfect compliment to a laser printer. The quality isn't the best I've seen but honestly, it looks fine. At least there are no stray printing marks (from guide rollers or whatnot). Bottom line: Get this printer primarily to print good 4x6" photos, and if you need to do other things, it can, but it's not the best.

Now for my gripes:
1) 36 seconds for a 4x6" photo? Mine all take twice that long, exactly (72 seconds). I am using USB 1.0 - anyone know if that is causing the difference? Anyone getting 36 second prints with USB 1.0 - if so, how?
2) You better only be printing high resolution images. A majority of my images from my digital camera are 640 x 480 (taken years ago, small to save memory). I tried some 640x480 prints from the included software, and they were horrid. It was doing some sort of strange interpolated smearing between blocks of pixels. When I was able to print the same picture from MS Word, the quality improved substantially. When I view the 640x480 images in any other software application, they look fine. The Canon included software at least shows you how it's going to screw up your picture before you print it. I don't know how I'm going to print 1000+ pictures that are this way. One at a time from Word or Powerpoint, I guess.

3) The included software didn't even sort my files by name, and certainly had no option to sort by size or creation date. I think the software was designed to be extremely simple (and it is), however it doesn't have much function other than sending what you have to the printer. My images are all labelled with a standard digital camera format like "DSC001234", and the program would never sort them all. Maybe because I had over 1000 in one directory; who knows.

I don't think any printer out there is perfect. This one is very good; it amazing to see what looks like a photolab print come out of it. Honestly. Get the 120 pack of Canon 4x6" Phot Paper Plus Glossy if you can find it; it's the best deal. I tried printing with the included sample of Canon Premium paper; no difference.

It is nice to see a printer that doesn't tell you an ink cartridge is dead (and requires replacement) simply because it passed some arbitrary date. HP does this (they also sell their ink carts for $35 a pop) and I've heard other brands do too. This would be like your car's engine shutting off automatically when you passed the 3,000 mile mark since your last oil change. HP is never getting my business again due to this practice.

Enjoy this printer, just make sure you set your camera on "high res" from now on.

With five heavy PC users in the house, this printer gets quite a bit of work, and often for different purposes.

I use this printer mainly as a photo printer to print pics that I've taken with my Canon S400 or scanned with my Epson 2400 scanner. The quality of the pictures are stunning, especially when taking vivid color photos of scenery or portraits. Color is true (when using the right paper) and images are bright, rivaling what you get from a good film developer, and infinately better than the budget developers.

My kids use it for homework, school projects, and my little one uses it to print from her many Barbie PC games. It does it all well; text is excellent, color is true, and it's extremely quick.

The little things make this sub $200 printer a great purchase. The 6 individual ink tanks does indeed prevent waste, as I've found in our house that black often goes first, with photo cyan going next. Now I don't really care if my little daughter prints out 20 copies of Dora or Barbie certificates. For those with wireless networks in their homes (or wired for that matter), the auto turn on feature is just terrific. Leave the printer off, and when one of the kids doing homework has to print, it automatically turns itself on, prints the job, and turns itself off. No more hearing kids running down the stairs to turn it on (or worse, hearing them yell downstairs for me to turn in on).

The included 4X6 photo paper cartridge is well designed, and cool to watch. Now, with just a turn of the nob, I can print photos without having to unload the printer paper. Very convenient.

The USB connector in front is just the ticket for printing directly from your digital camera without going through the PC. A time saver when you just don't want to spool up PhotoShop.

This is a fast, quiet, and capable printer. Frugle with the ink, while producing excellent quality text and pictures. For this price, I don't see how this is not a must buy for the home. Awesome.

Since my 4 year old HP 932c died, I was on the market for a new photo printer. I did a lot of reading and research, both online and going thru magazines. I considered Canon IP4000, IP5000, i560, i860, i960, Epson R200, R300, HP7960, HP 7660. As you can see, I went thru many printers as printing high quality photos is very important to me.

My top criteria are: cost of operation, print longevity, print quality. Unfortunately, no printers are perfect. They all fall short on at least one area. I even tried to print some photos on an Epson R300 as someone in the office happen to have one on his desk, the print from R300 is not bad but it is a little bit of fuzzy if you look closely...

My concern for Canon is the print tend to fade quicker if Canon's paper is used (go figure) as all Canon papers are nanoporous. They don't make swellabel paper which is more immune to fading. After I found out there are reasonably priced swellable paper that works well with Canon, the choice is obvious - Canon.

I've been very happy with my decision, the print is sharp, color is accurate, speed is fast, everything I expect it to be and it fully meets my expectations.

Another thing I have to say is the service I got from Amazon is superb, this is not the first time I do business with them but this time, their service simply stunned me - I placed my order on Wednesday and by Friday, the printer showed up, and this is with their free shipping option, I didn't pay a penny for shipping. No I don't work for Amazon, just an extremely impressed customer.

Quiet Mode - Doesn't just reduce noise. Will also slow the printer's operation a bit. Why would you want to do this, you may ask? I ran in draft mode and the printer was so fast it sucked the paper from the paper tray at an impressive speed ... so fast that it can feed the paper slightly askew and almost throw it across the room on eject. In "standard mode" plain paper printing can be so fast the ink hasn't completely dried. So ... it can sometimes be a good thing to slow this creature down a bit and Quiet Mode is the way to do it. I run that way all the time and life is good.

Ink Cartridges have no "stale date" - Don't make yourself crazy trying to read the dotted characters at the package bottom to read a date into it. They're lot numbers, not encoded dates. Unlike all HP cartridges and most Epson cartridges, Canon just doesn't date its ink. It "seems" that ink cartridges without self contained print heads have very long shelf lives since there are no internal jets to clog as the sealed cartridge ages. I will believe the Canon rep on this one since it makes sense, although I'm always more comfortable knowing the age of the ink. Like many of you I want a reserve of ink "at the ready" so I just buy from a retailer that always has a fresh supply like Best Buy, Staples, OfficeMax and probably Amazon.

The Nozzle Game - Don't let the salesman sell you a more expensive Canon (I860, I960) because it "has more nozzles". More nozzles doesn't mean anything in terms of printer resolution or precision. Each cartridge has a certain number of nozzles, no matter what printer it's used on. I believe Black has 320 and color 512 except yellow which has 256. The I560 holds 4 cartridges and if you do the math has 320+512+512+256=1600 nozzles. The I860 has an extra 256 nozzles but that's only because is can hold a 5th cartridge (black with 256 nozzles). Ditto with I960 which holds 6 cartridges at 512 nozzles each for a whopping 3000+ nozzles. So, consider the advantages of having more cartridges and the essence of these cartridges but don't be led to think that high nozzle counts means it prints better.

Warrantees and Print Heads - Just be aware that unlike HP printers the Canon I-Series has one installable print head which will likely determine the useful life of the printer. Since the cartridges do not have print heads they are less expensive, but they do not contribute to the useful life of the printer. I do know that the apparently simple and little print head is claimed by Canon to have a lot of electronics in it and is the most expensive component of the printer. So ... when it goes, the printer goes (costs around $70-$80). Canon expects their print heads to last 1-3 years, maybe more, and their $50 extended warranty covers it. I was tempted to buy the $30 extended warranty from Best Buy but was told the print head is a "consumable" and won't be replaced. So ... Buyer Beware on warrantees and expect to surrender your beloved Canon when the print head goes.

Enjoy your Canon and treat yourself to a new one every couple years or so. I'm very happy with my I560 and Canon support for this and my LiDE50 Scanner has been solid. (I pay for the phone call and in return they offer me courtesy, knowledge and they even speak English.)

-- Sam

Every once in a while we cycle our digital technology at home in a hand-me-down way. Every time we do this, there is an order-of-magnitude improvement in speed and/or quality, and this purchase was no exception.

We logged a departure from HP with this purchase, moving from a DJ 712 to the Canon i960.

I am an anti-banding freak. I select my printer by walking through Best Buy (or whatever store) and examining print samples for banding. IMHO HP used to distinguish itself by not having any. But I've grown tired of visible dots as well.

I have never seen an Epson printer of any kind pass this banding test in the stores I visit. Epson sales reps - take note.

Wanted to go to the 6-tank variety because I was just irritated by the $30 cost when ANY color ran out. This should be more efficient.

I already have a Canon PowerShot S50 and the little CP-300 dye-sub portable. Love 'em.

Was pleasantly surprised to see the i960 print one of my digital photos off the computer on 4x6 Photo Pro paper, and it looked as good as the dye-sub (except, of course, for the lack of protective layer). No visible dots, no banding. Looks like lab quality to me.

I have no technical or ergonomic issues with the i960, love the speed and quality of the output. Had a great OOBE, and am looking forward to years of continued successful and professional results.

It was a good purchase for me.

Cheers,

-- Mike