Canon S820 Photo Inkjet Printer

by Canon

Product Details

Product Manual [3.21mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 11.5 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 19 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: B00005YX40
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: February 25, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

For photography fans, Canon offers the S820 Photo InkJet. It's ideal for printing colorful borderless photos directly from your desktop, as it requires no special papers to achieve refined color and detail. Plus, with both USB and parallel ports, it's a suitable companion for either your Mac or PC.

The S820 uses a six-color printing process with individual ink tanks (256 x 6 nozzles) to reduce waste. Just drop in the single color cartridge you need, without having to change the others. The inks are formulated to provide lightfast images lasting up to 25 years.

Print crisp clean black and color prints at 2,400 x 1,200 dpi on a wide variety of media, including letter size, legal size, A4, A5, photo cards, No. 10 or European envelopes and banner paper. Canon claims you can print an 8-by-10-inch photo on plain paper in under two minutes and a 4-by-6 in about one minute, both in photo quality.

The unit is designed for compactness and quiet running for users seeking high-quality photo printing. Software includes the printer drivers and a BJ Solution Disk CD-ROM. The latter includes PhotoRecord for Windows, ImageBrowser for Mac, and PhotoStitch for both Windows and Mac. Canon offers a one-year limited warranty on parts and labor.

From the Manufacturer

Imagine: brilliant 4-by-6-inch borderless photos in about 60 seconds, and 8.5-by-11-inch photos in approximately two minutes, all with the ability to retain their vibrancy and color for 25 years, and all right from your desktop. The S820 Photo Printer produces photo prints of silver-halide quality, thanks to a high-performance six-color ink system. It combines standard cyan, magenta, and yellow ink tanks with one-sixth density photo cyan, photo magenta, and black ink tanks in one printhead--making 2,400 x 1,200 dpi photo-quality printing available. Plus, Canon's advanced MicroFine Droplet Technology combines cutting-edge achievements in ink-droplet size, accurate ink application, consistent droplet quality, and ink composition. The result is spectacular print resolution, up to 49 gradation levels, dramatically reduced graininess, and breathtaking detail and color reproduction.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

100 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing output!, March 10, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Canon S820 Photo Inkjet Printer (Office Product)

I bought a S820 to replace my old Epson Stylus Color 600. I'm totally blown away by the speed and quality of the output. Printed an image I took with a digital camera on 1 of the free 4x6 Photo Paper Pro samples, I couldn't believe it came out of an inkjet!!

I prefer the S820 over the S820D because of the legacy (parallel port) support and [price] difference. I process all my photos before I print them so the direct print feature in S820D is not important. I liked the idea of the integrated CF reader in the S820D, until I found out that the printer needs to be turned on in order to transfer files to an attached PC. S900 gives the same quality as the S820x but 2x as fast. However, I can't see myself printing more than 30 photos a month, so I can't justifies paying... more for the S900.

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Call me insane, but this is tremendous quality for 200 bucks, September 13, 2002

By 

Jennifer C (Sterling, VA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Canon S820 Photo Inkjet Printer (Office Product)

Ok, I admit it...I haven't bought a new computer and printer for quite some time, but I am a demanding photography hobbyist always looking for my next photo gadget. Maybe if I quit spending money on cameras I could buy a real computer. Yes, a good idea...so I bought a new Dell PC on a back to school special a few weeks ago.

I hand-picked this printer to go with it. Yes, I could have picked any printer and expected to pay more but after a ton of research, this was the one. Priced at roughly $200, I couldn't believe the value. Amazon[.com]'s price was almost $100 cheaper than my local Circuit City or Staples.

Hooked it up last weekend - took 10 minutes max and I even installed a brand new USB 2.0 card to expand my ports. Love the individual ink tanks...not having to replace colors that haven't gone out is great for the wallet and the environment. The individual cartridges can be replaced for $11.95 and were available at my local Office Max.

I did have to play around with the printer settings. I bought both Canon (at canon's site) and Kodak paper (at Sams club) and started figuring it out. I have a Minolta 4MP S404 and an Epson 2450 scanner. The first photos printed on the Kodak paper were grainy and very non-photo like. Good news followed after about 2-3 attempts with different print settings. The result, virtually photo perfect prints from the Minolta S404. Stunning and unbelievably fast. Best news, the Canon lets you save the perfect print settings once you discover what works the best. Thank goodness, without this "profile" feature I would go nuts.

It was harder to get the same output from my scanner but I upped the scan resolution above 600dpi and the photo print quality has outperformed my wildest expectations. The result is a near perfect copy of the original.

It might be me, but I can't figure out how to make the 4x6 (Kodak paper) work. I have been printing on the larger 8x11 paper and slicing the final photo to size. Also, I got nearly same quality from Kodak and Canon paper with the right settings. For the price, the Kodak paper is a winner with this printer.

Bottom Line: Would buy it all over again, fast, and tremendous output quality for the money.

Cons: Only downside was fooling around with the print settings and saving the print profiles to get consistently good results.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfection..., April 2, 2002

By 

Electronics Fan (NYC) "cybersa" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Canon S820 Photo Inkjet Printer (Office Product)

I was looking for a printer mainly for my 20-year inventory of slides and negatives, plus some limited use for B&W documents. Initially I bought the Epson C80, which I returned because I wasn't too happy with its photo quality.

The S820 has far exceeded my expectations. Especially on Canon's Photo Paper Pro, I end up with better quality prints than the photolab. With my scanner (Epson's 2450 -- highly recommended), with Photoshop 6.0, and the S820, I have the perfect digital darkroom.

Main pluses for the S820:
- Perfect photos. The borderless feature works nicely - not the slightest defect at the edges.
- Quick. ~1minute for 4x6 at max resolution
- Robust and quiet.
- Simple: Just a basic on/off button; no need to experiment with the numerous options other printers provide: Just pick the paper type and size and you're fine.
- Economical

Disadvantages: Nothing I can think of.

A few additional comments:
- Use nothing but Canon Photo Paper Pro for your prints. Costs about the same as the Epson paper, but the results in quality are remarkable. It's still difficult to find the paper even online, Canon's site is the only one I found that has both sizes (4x6, 8.5x11). For the 4x6 size, make sure you buy the borderless type, not the perforated type.
- Canon introduced the S820 with three other printers. All seem to have the same photo quality, with the following differences:
* The S820D Can print directly out of memory cards.
* The S900 Faster (8x10 in 1 minute)
* The S9000 Faster, plus can print up to 13x19
I do not think any of these features are worth the extra $$: Though I have a digital camera, I still like printing out of the PC, and I'm happy with the S820's speed as it is.

This is perhaps my best IT purchase in a long time. I couldn't recommend a product more than the s820. Not surprised that most of the online shops are out of stock so quickly...