Canon S520 Color Bubble Jet Photo Printer

by Canon

Product Details

Product Manual [2.08mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 11 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 16 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00005YX3R
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (79 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 25, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Canon S520 color bubble inkjet printer provides flexibility with refined color, precision, and detail for photo printing. The S520 uses four individual ink tanks for cost savings, and with both USB and parallel ports, it's a suitable match to your Mac or PC.

Canon's trademarked MicroFine Droplet technology ably provides crisp clean black text in 600 x 600 dpi and color prints at 2,400 x 1,200 dpi, on a wide variety of media. Rated speeds are up to 14 pages per minute for black and 9 ppm for color. Canon claims you can even get 4-by-6-inch borderless prints in less than a minute. Supported papers include plain, banners, envelopes, and glossy photo cards.

This quiet printer (only 42 dB in best quality mode) will suit most light-duty tasks in small offices and at home. When ink levels are low, simply drop in the single color cartridge you need, reducing waste. Software includes the printer drivers and the BJ Solution Disk CD-ROM. On the latter, titles for Windows include PhotoRecord and ZoomBrowser; for Mac, ImageBrowser; and for both, PhotoStitch. Canon offers a one-year limited warranty on parts and labor.

From the Manufacturer

Now you can achieve exceptional printing results. The S520 speeds through projects at up to 14 ppm in black and 9 ppm in color. It features incredible 2,400 x 1,200 dpi color resolution--38 percent greater than 2,880 x 720 dpi printers. With Canon's latest technology, you can print 4-by-6-inch borderless photos in less than a minute. The S520 features Advanced MicroFine Droplet Technology that automatically refines color and improves droplet precision and detail for exceptional photo quality. To ensure that customers enjoy speed and quality together without compromises, Canon's Precision Color Distribution Technology helps to eliminate variances in color dot composition and visible banding typically found with high-speed, bidirectional printing. When the printer is used with Canon Photo Paper Pro, your favorite photos retain their brilliance for about 25 years.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

115 of 117 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Printer for an Affordable Price, March 9, 2002

By 

Xam "mixed media man" (nyc) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Canon S520 Color Bubble Jet Photo Printer (Office Product)

I needed a new inkjet printer and wanted something high-quality but also below $200. So I surfed the web and looked over many websites and reviews. I gathered that the Canon S series is the best for the money. The Canon S520 features four separate ink tanks so you can replace individual colors as they run out, which will save you money in the long run. It's also a fast printer, but I'm not usually in much of a hurry to print something. If you print a picture in high-quality resolution it can take a little longer (still quite speedy), but the results are fabulous. I've only used cheap plain paper so far, but photos and graphics still look really great. I'm sure it would look even better on higher quality paper. Also, plain text was printed very crisply as well, no complaints in that department. The printer is even really quiet, it makes very little noise. Overall I was really happy with this Canon S520 printer; it prints great looking color graphics/photos and it's pretty cheap, quiet and fast. I really can't find any fault with this printer, it's performed beyond expectations. Top-quality color inkjet printer - 5 STARS!

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great printer for the money, March 29, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Canon S520 Color Bubble Jet Photo Printer (Office Product)

OK, I did a fair amount of research for printers in this price range and cheaper. I banged along on an old Epson 400 for years until my upgrade to XP left me without a driver. I thought about replacing it with another Epson but caught wind of too many hit and miss problems with quality control and customer service.
Setup was quite easy. The printer is quick by my standards, shooting out a text draft that to me I would not be ashamed to send to anyone. I put in a sheet of high end photo paper and was very impressed with the results, though I did not buy it for that purpose. I like using the parallel port and saving an available USB port. In addition, I put an envelope in to print, a procedure I dreaded with the old Epson. Slick as a whistle, out came a clean smudge free envelope. I like the idea of individual ink tanks though I've not had to deal with a refill. I've had the printer a few weeks now and am very happy with it! Minor negative is the output tray. It has a concave design wich was well thought out, but the lip that attaches to the printer is shallow and if bumped will detach and spill your contents. Once I found it was vulnerable, I'm now careful not to bump it. That said, I'd buy it again!

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I found one after 2 months of searching, May 5, 2002

By 

MercedesT (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Canon S520 Color Bubble Jet Photo Printer (Office Product)

I have to say that I was quite impressed by the canon s520. I spent 2 months reviewing and researching all the other printers, HP, Epson etc and for the price range canon s520 topped the lot. I was going to buy the s750, but I couldn't afford it, so for a midrange price, the canon s520 is the top in it's league.
The installation went like a breeze, canon made the instructions simple enough that a 10yo could install the thing, although there's not enough instructions for the additional software that came with it(the photo imaging software), the default was the 3 options were all selected, but I wanted only to install the necessary, in the end I installed all 3 products.
The pluses are:
- one of the cheapest printers to run in cents per page, Epson c80 also matches canon s520, but the Epson costs...more to purchase in the first place
- fast efficient printer
- colour printing is unreal
- separate ink tanks, for ink saving and cost efficiency,
unreal! I looked at the other printers that had separate ink tanks, and the prices to purchase those printers, were way above my budget.
- it's not that noisy as other printers
Although this is my first colour printer, I was amazed at how close the colours were to the real thing. I've been printing out digital photo pics.
Black and white text, perfect. I used standard ordinary paper, there was no blotching, no smudging or anything.
Some things I noticed that was a bit annoying:
- when it prints it shakes the whole table, I have a wooden table, and it's pretty sturdy, when I'm printing while typing away on my keyboard it feels like a mini-mini earthquake.
- it takes about 10 seconds plus to initialise the print. The printer makes all these wizzing noises, and you have to wait a while before the first page shoots out, but then it's lightning fast.
- oh yes the power cable is short as, it's about the length of two keyboards if not shorter. I had to buy an extension lead.
I would have given it a 5star except those 2 points, did annoy me.
"You can on a Canon, really it's true"