Customer Reviews

Canon PIXMA iP5200R Photo Printer

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

 

 

I wanted a printer I could share wirelessly between a couple of PC's, and one that would print better quality than my current $90 all in one scanner/printer/photocopier.

Basically the IP5200R fit the bill.

The printer is a little bit larger that one would expect, but the toploading of paper gives it a good form factor.

Setting up the printer was pretty easy. I just followed the directions regarding inserting the inks and getting the wireless going.

For my PC, I just followed the prompts and plugged the printer in by USB, and soon it was configured wirelessly and I could remove the USB cord.

I had a little bit of problem getting it installed on my MAC, but the Canon tech help was good, and I found out for some reason it was my MAC wireless card acting up, then all was fine.

In terms of print quality, it does an outstanding job on normal documents on normal paper, including printing color.

For photos, I discovered I really needed to use the Canon Easy Photo Print utility to get the best quality prints. Printing from other applications didn't result in as good a quality.

The Easy Photo Print was easy to use, although another Canon software product called Easy Photo kept getting software errors trying to open a pretty normal JPEG.

That didn't bother me because Easy Photo didn't look like anything serious I'd want to use. HOwever the Easy Photo Print is a fairly nice print utility to use.

Wondering about print quality? Naturally I printed a 4x6 of a pretty tough print, high contrast, snow, color and fine detail on the IP5200R, my previous inkjet, and compared the same shot to one I printed using an INTERNET photo printing service.

Well, the IP5200R won. The INTERNET photo printing service had the worst quality, the $90 all in one looked a little better, but the IP5200R had better color, and better detail.

The speed of printing is a great feature, as I can print a 4x6 in under a minute wirelessly. Not too shabby.

Also, the Canon Photo Paper Plus printed as well as another manufacturers ultra premium paper, although the paper itself wasn't quite as heavy a wait. This is a good thing because Canon Photo Paper Plus is much cheaper.

Canon has a fairly expensive Pro paper which is probably heavier.

The Canon inks are all individual containers for each color, and look to contain a healhty amount of ink. And the replacements don't look that expensive.

All in all, I think the ink and paper costs are going to be a little lower than my previous printer.

Having said all that, why did I give this printer four stars instead of five?

Well, it's a bit of a head scratcher, but I'd say the massive size of the printer is slightly off-putting. Also, the quality of the print is better than cheaper printers, but it's not going to be a knock your socks off difference, but you will notice an improvement in quality.

Surely the difference in speed, and the wireless capability, as well as an all round printer for general document printing and a pretty nice photo printer (with top easy top mounted paper feed) gives this printer a four or a four and a half star rating.

I'd recommend the IP5200r!

I bought this printer to replace my 5 year old HP Photosmart 1100P printer mainly because of print cartridge costs.

Setting this printer up for wireless operaton on first computer was easy. However, when I tried to setup on my laptop for wireless printing, there were no instructions on how to do it. I had to try many options before I finally figured it out.

The documentation is not up to mark. The Windows and Mac documentation is interleaved so I had to be careful. Many features are not documented properly.

The document print quality was good but not like "laser quality text" as claimed on the Canon website. The picture print quality is just amazing. It is really lab quality as claimed on the Canon website.

Loading paper in the cassette can be challenging. During product registration, it was not clear where the serial number was. I had to send a support request to Canon to ask them where the serial number was located. The documentation only stated that serial number is "inside the printer". But inside where?

The printer is bulky and heavy. The top covers have no latches and were taped to prevent damage in transport.

Overall a good printer for me since:
a) I can print wirelessly.
b) I can print double sided text on paper up to legal size and envelopes. This forms bulk of my printing requirements.
c) Picture print quality is up to my expectation. I do not print too many pictures.

Now I have to see how cost effective this printer turns out to be.

One more observation after few months of using this printer. It takes a very long time to select paper. After I hit the print button, it seems like an eternity before this printer decides which paper to use and starts printing.

Updated review: 12/10/2006
This printer did not live up to my expectations. The ink ran out fairly quickly as compared to the HP printer. In HP printer, the ink cartridges had lasted for more than 1.5 years, in Canon, they lasted for 6 months with the same level of printing load.

I purchased remanufactured cartridges but it turned out that this printer cartridges have ink level sensors. The remanufactured cartridges do not have these sensors. To use remanufactured cartridges, I will have to disable the ink level monitoring feature. The Canon documentation does not say if this will be permanent or will the monitoring feature get re-enabled if I put in new cartridges. The new cartridges are as expensive as HP cartridges but they last half as much.

This printer has 5 cartridges. One of the selling points in any 5 cartridge prinetr is that you can get away with replacing just the cartridge which runs out. What they don't tell you is that it will be more expensive. The cartridges cost way more if bought separately than if bought in a package.

Currently, I am back to using the HP printer and this printer is just a door stop. This printer shakes the stone coffee table on which it is kept during printing.

This printer was purchased to replace an existing Epson USB printer. Originally I had planned to wait for an IP4200R equivalent with a 6 colour head, but seeing that the next list of printers did not offer that feature, I jumped with the IP5200R instead. Out of the box, Canon have done a fantastic job with the installation software and manual. Nothing is overly complex and I am confident a home user could configure the printer with ease No mention of TCPIP or MAC addresses - it just does what it needs to unless you tell it otherwise. Wireless, Wired and USB all seem to work fine (WinXP SP2), and the manual suggests you can use a combination of wireless and USB should you wish to. Currently I am running wirelessly but will switch back to Ethernet for the faster printing speed.

My biggest concern is the print head. Contacting Canon I found out the print head is a spare part (qy6-0061) and retails for AU$190 or 59% of the price I paid for the printer. Hopefully it won't be an issue, but time will tell. I am use to the older model Canons with the easily replaceable ink head. Perhaps this is progress?

I have the AU version which ships with the CD/DVD adapter. Uncertain if it will be useful. Weighs a tonne (surprised when I got the box), but very well built and designed. All moving parts open and close smoothly. Bundled software excels in some areas, and languishes in others - the software can not open GIF images for example.

I won't comment on the print quality as what I think quantifies as good skin tone, could be considered over saturated by others, and vice-versa. But speed and individual ink cartridges certainly meet the grade.

Overall I would give it a 4/5. Should a 6 ink photo printer come out and the software be improved then it would easily be 5/5.

What an excellent product!

Amazing quality - 9600 x 2400dpi resolution

Wireless 802.11B/G

borderless 4"x6" in a little over 30 seconds

Amazing quality! This printer prints twice the quality of the "Picturemate" printer that only prints 4x6 photos. This Canon costs 10 dollars more than the picturemate, and is wireless and prints full size pages, has 2 paper trays, etc.

Ink drops at 1 picoliter - there are Epson printers that are 2x and 3x as expensive as this printer and only print at 1.5 picoliter, and at about half the resolution.

Having 2 paper trays is awesome!!!

[...]

I originally purchased the Canon PIXMA IP4200 photo printer for use as a color printer (to print my school assignments), with the ability to print photos with some degree of accuracy. The 4200 worked well, but didn't have the ability to print on my home network with multiple platforms, mainly Mac Tiger 10.4 and Windows XP and 2000 Pro at the same time. That was really frustrating and unbelievable. I could not even use an A/B switch; the PIXMAs require a single full-time dedicated USB port. I have used printers from Brother and HP and never had issues printing while sharing across a network, even across multiple platforms. After a lot of effort and patience on my part, Canon agreed to replace it with the PIXMA IP5200R. At first it worked while the USB ports were plugged into a Mac computer, however (using the Ethernet port) with the Windows computers did not print at all. After I changed it around so that the USB port was plugged into a Windows computer, and shared that with other Windows PC's, not the Mac, it worked. I installed the network driver software (via Ethernet) for the Mac to work. I think that downloading the latest drivers from Canon's web-site would be a good idea, not using the driver disk that comes with the printer. It is working now for all five of my home computers, and I am satisfied. One of the main reasons I chose Canon over HP is that I did not like the fact that when I owned an HP printer, when the color cartridge ran out of one of the three inks, the whole cartridge had to be replaced, wasting 2/3 of the cartridge's ink, not to mention the fact that the print head had to be replaced too. Print heads can last a lot longer then the ink tanks. I like the fact that the PIXMA series has five ink tanks, which may sound expensive, but it allows for greater overall efficiency in supply use. I think that many people are complaining about the supply usage, but I believe that what happens when you install a new print head is that it uses almost half the ink just to fill the print head. Subsequent ink tank replacements should "last longer". While the Canon PIXMA series is certainly different then most, I believe it represents a better value then anything on the market.

The Amazon product description says "print to [the iP5200R] from an individual WiFi-enabled computer. " I had a heck of a time setting it up, but eventually I managed to get it configured. The first time I set it up, I think I made a mistake at step 12 of the instructions for setting it up, although I really can't be sure.

If, somehow, Canon and/or Apple could make the setup process less fragile, I would give it 5 stars. As it is, if you want to print wirelessly without buying a router and setting up a network, this works, and its not like there are a lot of options.

Despite what others have reported, I had no problems setting up the printer for both wired and wireless. I do recommend setting it up wired first. My 2nd computer prints via the DLink wireless router with no problems. The power button on the printer is pretty well hidden (black button on a black case) but I discovered the auto power on/off setting which works great, even with wireless.

The duplex feature is great and photos print nicely.

Note, for the wireless set up you do need to know a little about this. If someone set up your wireless for you then you might need them back to configure the SSID (and WEP key if used.)

I have had no problem with ink and have done quite a bit of color printing and still have the original cartridges.

This printer is wonderful. The print quality is as good as you get through snapfish or similar digital processing companies - assuming you step up and buy good photo paper. The output speed is excellent in both color and black. The flexibilty of having two paper trays works well for me as I have the printer hidden away in a draw and connected wirelessly to my hub/router. The printer is larger than I expected but, really what's the big deal, if you want a smaller printer that's portable get a HP Deskjet 460bwt. Set up was a breeze - I'm running Mac OS 10.4.7 on a MacBook Pro. Great quality, great price and excellent flexibility with the wireless feature.

Positive:
I've had this printer about three months. The printing quality of both photos and text is very good - considerably better than the quality of the Epson Color 800 it replaced. It is fast and reasonably quiet. The two sided printing and the dual paper sources are nice features.

Negative:
The reviews of this printer indicated that the five separate ink cartridges would provide an economical ink supply. This has not been the case. When I received the printer, the original inks seemed to be only half full when removed from their packaging. Although I have printed less than a dozen 4x5 color photos and perhaps a hundred b&w pages, I have already had to replace every one of the cartridges which cost me about $70 from the cheapest supplier (of Canon brand ink) I could find. I am particularly surprised that all of the color cartridges have needed replacement as I have done virtually all of my printing in the greyscale mode. I called Canon support, hoping they would provide some compensation for the less than full ink cartridges that came with the unit. They would not.

Conclusion:
This printer produces good quality results, but it seems to have extremely high ongoing costs.

This printer works as advertised - the set-up was not "plug and play" simple but, in the end, the printer works with a Linksys wireless network supporting a wireless Apple iMac, and wireless Apple Powerbook, one USB wired PC and a wireless laptop PC. The software is not great - I have had problems getting photos to print in the right size and orientation on 5x7 photo paper.