Customer Reviews

Canon PIXMA iP4300 Photo Printer (1438B002)

5 star:		(67)
4 star:		(35)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

The Good:
-Outstanding output quality for the price
-Good speed
-Automatic Duplex printing
-Lightweight drivers/software
-Inexpensive ink

The Bad:
Aside from a slightly cheap asthetic feel, I can't find a thing. And for such a low price, it's to be expected. Other manufactures might have shnazzier printers at the same price point, but keep in mind most other manufacturers don't sell printers, they sell ink, so you pay for it in the long run.

Overall I am extremely satisfied with this printer. Coming from an IP4000, I had high expectations, and this did not dissapoint. I have owned every major brand of printers (HP, Epson), and Canon is absolutely where it's at. Cartridges are much more affordable, you aren't forced to install 400mb of junk that loads 5 processes at windows startup (HP), and the attention to detail is great (i.e., you can program the printer to shutoff after X minutes of being idle). Do yourself a favor and buy a Canon.

I ordered this 4300 for the office on the basis of great results with its predecessor, the 4200, at home. If you're new to the Pixma line, expect the machine to function flawlessly if not beyond expectations, though at a slightly higher cost in ink than other printers. (Always keep a spare of each of the 5 colors on hand, and forget about finding clones for this model or cheaper ink prices than those posted on Amazon.) The iP4300 is a slight upgrade of the extremely popular iP4200 (see reviews of that machine). If you print a lot of photos, you'll notice a 40% increase in the rate of processing. If you want a preview monitor on your printer, you'll find it available on the higher-numbered, costlier Canon Pixmas (the ip6600 is the newest; the price of the ip6000 is currently attractive, but the machine is two years old). Finally, I wouldn't discount the duplex printing feature, retained on the 4300. It has saved me not only paper but numerous trips to the copy machine.

Advantage of the iP4300 over the 4200: Significantly faster printing of color copy because of added ink jets.

Disadvantage of IP4300: Slightly wider and deeper than the 4200, taking up more desk space. (Height and weight are the same.)

Bottom line: Still the best and most dependable all-around printer (not just photos) for home or office in this price range, at least until HP or Epson (I've previously owned both) return to form. If you need a clincher, it's the duplex printing.

I was using an HP Photosmart 7260 which made very good photo prints. It used 6 color photo ink but I had to change one cartridge to pigment ink for text.
I bought the IP4300 and here are the differences:
**It uses separtate ink cartridges but uses 4 colors for photos.
**The print quality is equal or better than the HP (but close).
**The IP4300 is quiet and 2 - 3 times faster.
**The print driver has both auto and manual modes so you can tweak the print.
**It has two paper paths. I put photo paper in the back feeder and plain paper in the front cassett. Located below the pull out catch tray.
**I can set the default to plain paper and select photo settings when needed. The printer will automatically use the back paper feed.
**This printer has automatic head alignment and it works great.
**You can turn on a power save mode to have it shut off if not used after some time (I chose 30 minutes). It will automatically turn on when printing.
**All 5 cartridges are installed. Pigment black produces excellant text.
**I have seen some reviews where itwas stated that the prints have a red tint. I got the same thing at first. If you are not using Canon paper, start with this setting: Select paper "Photo Paper Pro" and High Print Quality. This removed my red tint (I use Kodak paper).

Overall, if you want a printer for text and high quality photos, this is it. If you are looking for advance photo printers Canon makes those too. These are not usually good for text.
Ron

You searched diligently to find the right camera at the right price to capture those precious moments and exploit those eye-pleasing scenes. But once those amazing snapshots were taken, you needed a printer just as superb to make the photos worth their megapixels. I have always stuck with Canon for my camera, and because of this iP4300 I now stick with them for my printer. This printer produces phenomenal results, something I expect when I worked hard to take good pictures.

The set-up and installation guide is step-by-step. You don't need to worry about whether you'll be able to set it up or not, because it is quite simple. Everything you'll need is in the box EXCEPT a USB A to USB B cable. You will have to purchase a USB cable to connect the printer to the computer. The drivers and utilities installed total a little over 200 MB, not very big. Registration is extremely easy. Not a complaint about the installation (using Mac OS X 10.4).

The plastic that the iP4300 is made out of is a little flimsy, but not anything to worry about. You would still have to try very hard to break it. It is a slightly larger than normal printer, but not unmanageable. The fact that all of the trays fold up into a perfect box-shape is very convenient.

The photo quality is phenomenal. Of course, you will want to get some photo quality paper. I printed off 4 3x6s on a page, then an 8x10, and instantly saw a difference from any other printer I've dealt with. I did colors and black & whites, high contrast ones too, and in the all black areas I did not notice any streaks or lines. It was superb quality.

I was torn between this and the iP6700D. But in researching, I noticed that the iP6700D has two more photo colored ink cartridges (which sounds appealing at first) BUT less nozzles than the iP4300. So divide the already fewer print nozzles over 6 ink cartridges means a significant drop in nozzles per ink color in comparison with the iP4300's nozzle count. Then, the iP6700D offers the same B&W resolution as the 9600x color resolution, which also sounds better. But the iP4300's 600x is all you really need for B&W. The B&W print quality is amazing, do not worry. So unless you just have an insatiable desire for an LCD screen, I recommend to you the Canon iP4300 over any other printer.

I had a Canon BJC4200 for almost 10 years and it worked flawlessly. I got bored and bought a HP. My God! What a mistake, the HP were always cleaning its head, were slow, and when I printed a 10 pages document and went away, the pages were never in order! I quicky got rid of the HP and bougut an Epson. BIG MISTAKE. Epson economy printing is a joke. It is grey, faded, almost like if you had printed 1000 pages and the ink is in its last days. I called Epson and they told me that the NEW EPSON are programmed to print (in econo mode) in that way (grey and faded). I got angry for that rip off and bought this Canon. What a change! It is fast, it has dual tray, it never get jammed, it prints large documents and the pages are always perfectly rearranged and MOST OF ALL, in the Canon economy mode (even tough is very fast) the quality is excellent, like the NORMAL mode of the Epson. I just laughed at the people of Epson after seeing the economy mode impressions of Canon. My conclusion is the Canon is WAY AHEAD of its COMPETITORS. Canon makes the BEST ink jet PRINTERS in the industry. PERIOD.

This printer is BIG but very light in weight and it rolls out your prints quickly and velvety.

Like all Canon printers that I have had, the iP4300 needs to be programmed manually. This is easy to do, but if you run on automatic your printed images will be badly over-exposed. With adjustments the printer will produce excellent quality images on just plain paper.

Here are the settings I use for just plain paper. The printed page is rich in color, and is in sharp focus. If you use glossy papers you will probably have to change the settings from mine, but my settings will give you a ball park. The plain paper proofs are so good I'll probably not even use glossy papers. I prefer a matte look to glossy anyway. With these settings, I suggest using a matte paper. There are upscale matte papers.

Open the properties page
1. plain paper
2. high
3. manual
a. ICM (Windows color management)
b. sliders for cyan, magenta and yellow at 20
c. intensity 50 (dark)
d. contrast 0
e. brightness dark

Good luck and Godspeed, and I hope you enjoy your iP4300 as much as I do!

I've worked my way up from technician to network administrator in a school system and I've worked with all type printers from large networked printers to small local desktop printers, so when I say "WOW!" about a printer, I am impressed.

The quality of black and white printing and color printing is just as good as most laser printers around. The speed as compared to laser printers is close enough not to be a problem, especially with color printing where one might wait several minutes on the color laser printer to warm up, align itself, and then start printing. Of course on large print jobs laser printers rule.

The quality of photo printing blew me away! Out of the box my prints were equal to or superior than what I used to get from developers. Now, being able to crop, adjust color, tone, or whatever, my prints look much better than before. I will not go back.

And I got all this for just $88! Also, with this printer having seperate tanks for each color, the total cost of ownership is much lower than for printers with combination ink tanks.

The people in our IT department have tried a number of different printers for home use/photo printing and we've all ended up with one type of Canon printer or another. This printer has my highest recommendation!

12-15-07 This printer stopped working today after replacing the yellow and blue cartridges. Obviously, i am not the only one. Don't think this is in the stores anymore, but if it is, don't buy it.

I am adding to a Canon MP730 all-in-one that i thought printed photos pretty well. It does print ok - however, compared to this $100 Canon 4300, it's mediocre at best. This Canon 4300 printer prints photos from my 4-pixel digital camera that look like I bought them at the photo store. It's prints great regular text too. I've tried double-sided photo matte paper that I use to make customized calendars and they look great. I've printed on cheap Staples brand gloss 4x6 paper and they look even better. Now, I have yet to see how long the ink lasts and the ink does run a but high. Also, I sprung for an extra $15 and bought the 2-year service plan - just in case. I'll update this review in 6 months if the performance goes down hill, but for now, this is the best color printer out there for $100. It doesn't copy or fax, but I have the Canon MP730 for that. I did try to hook this up to a Netgear wireless server with no luck - so i tried the Netgear mini server - still no luck, but I'm pretty sure it's a problem with Netgear and maybe my router, not with the printer.

I just changed from an Epson 785epx(about 4-5 yrs old). I couldn't be much happier. This printer does seem a little cheap when it comes to the case, but I really don't plan on dropping it or moving it around. I tend to keep my printer right by my computer, so i wasn't to worried when it came to the outside.
I was more worried about the quality of the prints. I was debating between changing my brand to HP or Cannon. All the research I came up with kept pointing me to the Cannon for the photo quality(which was my main concern).
This little printer did not disappoint one bit. I think my favorite part about cannon is the individual ink tanks. I can not tell you how many times I had to waist some ink on my epson because only one color ran out and I still had ink in the other tanks.
I also found 100 sheets of 8 1/2 x 11 Kodak Premium High Gloss paper at Costco for $[...] and the prints came out great(my epson would not print on Kodak paper, only epson paper).
So, for under $[...] this printer should put a hurt on all other brands!!!! Cannon you found a new fan!!!

(Please see updates at the end of this review)

I know this machine is feature rich, and the print quality is excellent, but I am quite disappointed with the software. Twice the installer hung forever and required a system restart in Mac OS X (current version), and I finally ignored the CD and installed through CUPS (localhost:631). This was annoying enough, but it also selectively fails to print, with no indication that anything is wrong other than a job forever stuck in "waiting to complete" state. I have two other printers that work fine, so this is not a newbie issue, although it does entail the somewhat greater complexity of a printer-sharing setup and may be more reliable on a direct USB connection to the host machine.

When it works, it does so smoothly and quickly, and the envelope handling (from Endicia) is noticeably better than my trusty Epson. I have not tried the photo-quality printing for which this unit is famous, so this is not a comprehensive review... just a comment on the Mac integration. I'm fairly loyal to Canon as I love their cameras, but the bloatware that ships with this printer is both inscrutable and fragile in the OSX environment.

UPDATE 1: Since my initial writing of this review, it has died completely: it is convinced that the cyan ink tank is not recognized, even though it is FULL. This prevents any operation of the printer, and cannot be bypassed with re-inserting the cartridge, resetting, power cycling, or anything else.

UPDATE 2 (about 2 weeks later): I have to credit Canon's tech support for responding well... they quickly shipped a replacement Cyan ink tank, which fixed the problem. Stopping and restarting the printer in CUPS released the hung jobs, and it is now working quickly and smoothly.

UPDATE 3: (a few months later) OK, final word on this. I hate it. When it works, it is fast and produces beautiful output. But it's flaky, and even running out of paper is a traumatic experience that requires power-cycling, fiddling, stopping and starting the printer in CUPS, and various incantations (not all polite). I would absolutely not get another of these, even free.