Canon BJC-50 Color Bubble Jet Printer

by Canon

Product Details

Product Manual [4.11mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 6 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B00000JH71
• Item model number: Q30-2750-US1
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1973

Product Description

Amazon.com Review

Need a printer while you're on the road? Take the Canon BJC-50 with you. This battery-powered, compact, color bubble-jet printer makes a great traveling companion for your notebook computer.

Setting up the BJC-50 was easy. We just followed the Quick Start Guide to install the lithium-ion battery and ink cartridge and to connect the AC adapter and printer cable. We then turned on our computer and followed the Windows setup wizard for setting up a new plug-and-play printer.

In our test of the BJC-50, we printed several color, black-and-white, draft-quality, and letter-quality samples. The samples included graphics, large and small letters, and a variety of color shades. Draft-quality printing was fast but attractive. Letter quality demonstrated modest improvements in character quality, and the printing was reasonably clear and sharp. Color shades were accurate, if not bold. There was some ink "bleeding" on ordinary uncoated paper, and even a discrete glance betrayed the BJC-50's bubble-jet origins--all as you would expect in a small bubble-jet printer.

At only 2.1 pounds the BJC-50 is exceptionally lightweight; its case is slim, attractive, and very compact--easy to tuck away in a backpack or briefcase. If you need color printing on the go, the Canon BJC-50 is a solid choice.

Pros:

• Compact and lightweight
• Portable, battery-powered

Cons:

• Requires switching between color and black cartridges
• Single-sheet feed (feeder optional)

From Winmag®

Most portable printers are built for convenience, not speed. That's the case with the Canon BJC-50. But unlike many similar units, this lightweight (slightly more than 2 pounds) traveling companion produces very impressive output. It's likely to become a real asset to the road warrior.

The BJC-50 produces clean, crisp text and graphics wherever you are: home, office, hotel, airplane or client's office. I found color output on a variety of papers, including glossy photo paper, equal to presentation copy from full-size printers. Resolutions range from 180x180 dots per inch (Draft) to 720x360 (High).

The BJC-50 uses a lithium-ion battery that's good for approximately 100 pages of text. You can run the printer with the provided AC adapter, which is also used to charge the battery. The straight-through paper path accommodates a variety of media: plain or specialty paper, glossy paper and high-gloss film, transparencies, fabric sheets and T-shirt transfers. The easy-to-use printer driver lets y ou select media type and size, color or monochrome output, halftone setting and print quality.

In addition to being smaller and weighing a pound less than the Canon BJC-80 (see Reviews, November 1997), the BJC-50 differs from its sibling in that it's primarily a manual-feed printer, though an optional sheet feeder is available for $59. The BJC-50 has a built-in IrDA port and will also accommodate the TWAIN-compliant IS-12 Color Image Scanner Cartridge ($99), which transforms the printer into a 360dpi scanner. This printer also has a lock to prevent an accidental power-up while it travels in your suitcase or briefcase-a very handy and practical feature.

For portable printing, the lighter BJC-50 is a welcome addition to Canon's portable printer line. Just make sure you have a couple of ink cartridges on hand as backups.

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A convenient, small printer, but with bothersome quirks., February 21, 2007

By 

D. Henderson (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Canon BJC-50 Color Bubble Jet Printer (Office Product)

I purchased this printer after a very bad experience when I traveled away from home and needed to print out a simple document. So I had my laptop and I saw those ads about a business that offers to be your office away from home. Well, I could not get the document printed out. So I did my research and purchased the BJC-50 since it was the smallest portable printer available at the time (the two Canons and a HP version). My BJC-50 is about seven years old and still works. It worked well with my laptop and Windows 98 and now with my laptops using Windows XP.

PROS:
The BJC-50 is the smallest available travel printer for printing documents and prints at a relatively acceptable speed.

The BJC-50 printer includes a LiON battery which makes for truly portable printing. I'm amazed how long a charge lasts and the battery pack is inside a battery compartment in the printer (not externally like the HP Deskjet 460 series). Well, the LiON battery is piggy back attached to the HP 460. I'm guessing that HP recommends removing the battery before traveling. You don't need to do that with the BJC-50. Just remember to slide the power lock switch on the right side of the BJC-50 to prevent the printer from accidentally turning on when traveling.

CONS:
The REALLY BAD part of this printer is that the ink cartridges, once opened, do not last very long. The color cartridges dry out faster than the black cartridges. And the ink cartridges do not provide feedback to indicate the amount of ink remaining in each cartridge.

The printer is relatively loud when it is printing.

You need to be careful when feeding the paper otherwise the printer ejects the paper.

I cannot get the IS-12 Scanner Cartridge in the BJC-50 printer to communicate with the IS application under Windows XP even though Canon's web site and the Readme file says it is supported (there is a configuration issue somewhere). This is more effort than its worth for now.

SUMMARY: This is one temperamental printer. While it provides convenient printing on the go, I think it takes more effort than it should just to get something printed.

I'm purchasing a HP Deskjet 460WF. I'll let you know how I like it soon.

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great! Canon BJC-50 Color Bubble Jet Printer!, April 15, 2000

By 

Carlos R. Arias (San José, Costa Rica) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Canon BJC-50 Color Bubble Jet Printer (Office Product)

I have owned several brands and models of portable printers... nothing like this one! Its portability, reliability, and quality are just the best. Ink tanks last fairly long also.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Beware, August 5, 2001

By 

Annette Knobloch (Thibodaux, LA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Canon BJC-50 Color Bubble Jet Printer (Office Product)

I purchased the Canon BJC-50 in August of 1998. It has taken at least three hours to three days of effort to get it to work for each time that I have occasionally used it. I have used it mainly for color printing, and also for scanning with the optional scanning cartridge. It is particularly troublesome when switching from scan to print functions. It is quite noisy. I can not depend on it to function when I need it. It usually works eventually, but only after many trial and error attempts. Email technical support usually does not provide a quick solution. There have been no quick solutions. There have only been time consuming, painstaking encounters with this machine.