Customer Reviews

Canon CP-200 Photo Printer

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The photos produced by this printer move home digital photography into a new realm. They are as good, or better, than 35mm prints. The brilliant vivid saturated colors have to be seen to be appreciated, and they also have an archival coating.

The prints are a bit expensive at $0.55 each, but since you only print the good ones, and you can modify the image before printing, I think it is worth it. Maybe if everybody buys one the media will get cheaper. It is quite slow but you can batch print. Of course the prints are 4X6 inches maximum, but that is 98% of what I print.

I did have a problem during installation due to a conflict with my HP5550 USB printer. Make sure to turn off the HP printer manager or it won't work. Direct printing from a camera is extremely easy, so you can make prints for friends.

We bought this unsure of what results we would get....We first purchased a Canon A70 digital camera and then this little photo printer. We are very impressed. The prints are as a good as any print shop photos. Its portable and its fun to print out pics for your family and friends on the spot.

The main reason we stayed away from inkjet for family pics is lifespan (25yrs). These pics are coated with a protective layer good against UV and moisture.

The printer itself is wonderful, you could almost fit it in your pocket. The problem is, you have to plug it into the wall, and you have to plug it into your camera. It cost a lot less than the battery powered canon photo printer. So for me, it is worth having to plug it in. Next, it really does print in 90 seconds, once it starts to print, but figure up to another 90 seconds to get the data from your camera into the printer. Next, you can give the photo a bath in water and it will come out just fine. But don't be tricked into thinking that a $129 printer is going to do as good as the $129,000 developing machines. Sometimes, the photos will surprise you at how good they are though.

Having said all of that, once you get it plugged in, and the photo into the printer, the party does begin. The photo goes back and forth three time, first yellow, then red, and then blue. That makes you wonder, how did they do that. How do they know just the right amount of color to use.

Then if you can get over the fact you paid about fifty cents for a print, it is sort of a nice print. On borderless prints it does flatten the photo a bit. Canon says it stretches the photo out to the border. The solution for this is to print with a border. The photo will not go to the edge of the paper, but you will not have a photo that is stretched or flattened to fit the 4 by 6 size. SLR camera of course are already 4 by 6, my point and shoot is 4.5 by 6. I would rather they cut or crop the .5 off, rather than to "stretch" or flatten the photo.

This printer it is pretty solid, it looks like it will hold up pretty good. As if Cannon is hoping to be able to sell you lots of paper and ribbons. I am sure that you will pay Cannon $500 to $1000 for supplies before this printer would ever start to get old or wear out.

They are durable photos, I am sure 100 people could handle them and they would not show to much wear and tear. This is a party trick, there is no doubt about it. If your looking for a WOW effect for your next get together, go for it. If you want to keep feeding your money into this little gem, I am sure it will keep giving you photos to pass around to your friends.

I would like to see the price of the photos come down closer to the 29 cents it cost to get digital photo's developed at the online servies where we can set up our photo albums. Or at our local Target or Walmart store. I just wonder if the WOW effect is worth paying the extra price. But I hear there are people who sell these photos out in the clubs for $10, so I suppose you could turn it into a profitable business.

The technical support at Canon is very good, if you need any help getting your cp-200 set up with your computer or camera. Their software is reasonable to work with, I have seen a lot worse photo software out there. It works with your computer just fine, if you want to hook it up to the computer.

I bought this printer on an impulse after taking lots of digital pictures with my Canon A80 on a vacation. There is no warning about how pricey this printer can become. It came with 5 postcard size sheets and a cartridge that would print only the 5 pictures. Once they were gone, since you hadn't been warned, it was back to the store for another ink cartridge and paper. You have to buy an ink cartridge and paper pack for the number of prints you. These are available at amazon.com at the cheapest price I've found. It costs about 52 cents a print if you buy the 36 print cartridge packed with 36 sheets of paper.

(Canon also confuses the consumer by selling 4x6 sheets of paper without ink cartridges. These are for use in other printers, not this one. So beware! There is no ink cartridge included, they are just a tetch too large to go in this printer, and they won't work in it--but they are displayed right next to these printers in every store I looked in.)

The aggravation of the paper and ink cartridges aside, the printer makes beautiful prints. My regular HP printer prints very good pictures except in black and other dark color areas. So I use this Canon printer to print those which the other printer doesn't do so well on. I had no problem getting the software installed and this printer working from my computer.

Most of my pictures will be taken with my old Canon Ae1 and printed with Kodak Perfect Touch processing but my digital pictures will be printed on this printer when I need quality prints from them.

I got the CP-200 as a Christmas gift (one that I requested specifically) and have been reasonably happy with it so far. Fit and finish of the printer are remarkable - very solid construction, very nice workmanship, very classy design. I have a Canon S30 camera and the two look like they are made to go together.

I would give the print quality a 8.5 out of 10, with 10 being 35mm photoshop quality. With picture taken at a full 3.0 megapixel resolution and sent directly to the print, the results are pretty darned good - good enough to pass as standard 35mm prints at first glance. This printer seems to handle landscapes better than portraits - the landscapes I've done are virtually identical to photo shop prints, but the portraits start to fall apart a little bit when it comes to fine detail like the shadows around faces and tough areas like this. Don't get me wrong - at arm's length you'll never notice the difference. Quality is CLEARLY better than any inkjet I've ever owned.

The paper and ink situation is an annoyance - you have to buy Canon postcard paper specific to this printer and it comes with the ink. Expect to pay close to $0.50 per print for the paper and ink alone. And finding it can be tough - I tried KMart, Target and Radio Shack in succession with no luck and finally found the paper at Office Depot.

The person who bought me the printer also bought a package of paper to go with it - but she bought the smaller print version of the paper (it's like credit card sized). One problem - this paper size requires a different paper cassette that is not included with the printer, so I couldn't even try the gift out initially. On top of that, I STILL haven't even seen a place to buy one of the odd sized cassettes - even Ebay turned up nothing.

The printer will give you pretty darn nice prints if you're willing to deal with the annoyances. I could have returned it, but decided to keep it because the print quality is entirely respectable, but not spectacular.

I got the Canon powershot A60 for christmas, so i got this afterwards to go along with it. There are alot of hidden things not mentioned that made me waste almost 40 dollars. The camera to the printer...is a great print. But when i purchased the printer, i purchased canon 4 by 6 paper, that is not "postcard paper" and it does not work. It says the printer is out of paper. there's 12.99 wasted. then i bought "card size" paper and ink....and found out you need a "card size paper cassette" to print with that paper, which is not included, and i cannot find it for purchase. there's another 19.99 blown.

I loaded the software on my laptop, an HP pavillion. Since i purchased, on 12/30, i have not been able to print via my computer. Once i finally got my computer to recognize the printer was hooked up, it still wouldnt print. It says to check the power. I've done all the troubleshooting and used all the "help" options. I've had my father fiddle with it, to no avail. i can still not print from my computer.

All in all, even though i get pretty good prints(which sometimes have ink splotches) ...this is more hassle then 179.00 is worth. I think it was too expensive and they didnt put enough thought into what was included(i had to drop another 20 bucks for a USB hook up, to attach the printer to the computer), and were not specific about the paper and ink. if i could i'd return it and get something a little more user friendly...

I used this printer with my Digital Rebel. It fed the paper almost immediately and started the printing process. Photos were done quickly. I find it valuable when visiting friends and family. I am able to leave photographic memories immediately. As for the price of photos, I don't print every photo that I take, only ones that I can't wait to print before I get home on my computer. This is definitely a nice little tool that can even be put in your camera bag. Don't expect to find cheaper replacement ribbons on the third party printer cartridge sites.

I got my parents one of these cute little printers for Christmas. It prints excellent pictures, but only on special Canon "post card" paper! Even though it says it makes 4x6 prints, you cannot use generic 4x6 photo paper in the printer. This fact is not completely clear in the documentation and makes the prints more expensive than anticipated, not to mention that the special paper is difficult to locate in neighborhood office supply stores!

Canon's CP-200 and CP-300 printers are really cool compact gadgets. Finally after you take a picture on your digital camera not only can you print it imediatelily but print it anywhere (there's AC outlet). I recommend the 300 model more because it has rechargable battery pack, where-as 200 model doesn't. Another big caveat is you need to carry extra ink and paper, so the total travel weight may be much more than you think.

These printers work with almost all major brand digital cameras: Canon, Minolta, Nikon, Panasonic, Pentax, Sanyo, Sony, Toshiba, HP, Kodak, Polaroid, etc. Will NOT work with no-names like SiPx, Targus, Samsung, Picty, etc.

This is a good quality printer with 2 major restrictions. First, the printer, printer paper & cartridge packs, and additional paper trays for labels and such are expensive. Second, the largest it prints is 4"x6".


SETTING UP

A number of earlier reviewers commented on how difficult it was to print from the computer. Expect setup to take about an hour if everything goes right. Printing from the computer requires a USB printer cable, which doesn't come either with the printer or with Canon digital cameras. But if you dig through the stuff that came with your computer, you might find one. Otherwise you can either buy one or DirectPrint from your camera by connecting your camera to the printer with the same cable that connects your camera to your computer.

The CD that comes with the printer is useless. The ZoomBrowser EX that's on it is outdated, and the driver that allows your computer to interface with the printer isn't digitally signed. But all you have to do is go to Canon USA's website, and look for the consumer support page and find the CP-200. Canon provides current versions of ZoomBrowser and other software and drivers for whatever version of Windows or Mac OS you use. Download what you need, unzip the files you've downloaded, then go to your computer's Add A Printer and specify the location to which you unzipped the driver. Then the printer installs.

Printing from Zoombrowser is extremely simple. You may not need directions, but if you do, Canon's website has a pdf file which takes you screen by screen through printing.

Some reviewers said borderless printing distorted their pictures, but the current version of ZoomBrowser crops photos instead of stretching them. If you don't want edges cropped, print with a border.

Printing is fun to watch; the colors go by layer by layer. Aparently the picture stands up to a lot once it's dry, but I didn't test it.


The supplies for this printer aren't cheap. Your drugstore and Ofoto print at about half the price. If you want to print entire albums, this may not be worthwhile. However, if you only need an occasional picture, it's incredibly convenient not to have to go out, and the prints are very good. Then when you're not printing, the printer can go in a drawer.