Customer Reviews

Canon i450 Color Bubble Jet Printer

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The personal printer market is quite confusing right now. The big companies have at least a dozen printers each on the market and it is tough to figure out where the good deals are. I've been researching for several weeks to replace my HP DeskJet, and I've been going crazy trying to figure out what to buy. I needed fast text, the ability to do photo-quality prints, and a low price. There are a bunch of high-end desktop printers that will meet these criteria for around [that price], but I didn't want to spend that much if I didn't have to. I kept going back and forth between several printers that have been on the market for quite awhile and got good reviews back when they were new but they are cheaper now because they are old (the Epson 820, for instance).

But I finally found the Canon i450 and ended up buying it. I couldn't be happier. After comparing features and print quality on so many different printers, I finally found the perfect combination. The text prints plenty fast. And the photos are excellent. It uses the 2 picoliter dots like the i850, so you get the same high quality. And all this for such an amazingly low price?? And you'll notice the ink prices are relatively low as well.

A previous review talked about the noise level. Let's discuss that for a minute. If you're like me and don't replace your printers every few months, you'll be pleasantly surprised by how quiet the i450 is. It is far, far quieter than my DeskJet. Perhaps there are quieter printers on the market, but we're not talking about a vast noise difference here. Obviously everyone has their own level of noise tolerance, but I'm one of those geeks who is psychotic about making my PCs as silent as possible and I still think this printer is quiet, so judge for yourself.

In researching ink jet printers, I started by pricing out cartridges and working my way back to a printer (printer manufacturers should probably just give the printers away because the cartridges are where the money is). I ended up with the Canon i450 mostly because the cartridges can be puchased on line fairly cheaply and also because it gets reasonably good ratings from consumers. I haven't been at all dissapointed. It's not blazingly fast, but more than adequate for my purposes. And the quality is excellent. Great value!

I'm happy with the print quality from this printer for pictures (and the borderless option is great), but I've found that the printer utility software has too many limitations. You can not fine tune the settings to get the machine to print the way you want it too. Even when you select the manual adjustment setting, it often will not allow you to switch to the highest quality settings, etc. Another limitation is that the ink levels have to be reset manually every time you install a new cartridge. With my old Epson printer the controls could easily be adjusted in the software, and the ink levels were automatically read and adjusted by the software...no manual resets required.

My other complaint with this printer is that it seems to make a lot of extra "noises". The actual printing is relatively quiet, but when it's not printing it will sit there and make all kinds of noises like it's processing information or something. My old (4 yr.+) Epson printer was much "louder" as far as the physical printing, but at least when it wasn't printing it didn't make extra noises.

Luckily I got this printer for free thanks to a rebate offer, but had I actually paid for this printer, I would have returned it. I would recommend going with an Epson printer over this one based on the utility software performance alone. However, for novice users who just want to print pretty pictures and word processing files, they'd probably be pretty happy with this printer.

after reading about several different printers, i settled for this one and am absolutely amazed at the awesome print quality!!! I've never had a photo image look better than a film processed picture EVER!!!! Every pic turns out great and you can't beat the price of the ink cartridge.. approximately $7 for black and $18 for color.. THE TANKS LAST FOREVER AND I'M used to paying double for my old Lexmark cartridges... THROW YOUR OLD PRINTER IN THE GARBAGE AND RUN TO BUY THIS PRINTER!! AWESOME!!!!!

let me address this "noise" issue i've read in other reviews.. this printer is extremely quiet compared to my Lexmark z-22... i wouldn't consider it a loud printer at all... it does shuffle when it's done printing a page, but it's hardly noticeable.. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS PRINTER!!!!!

I'm very pleased with this printer. The price is right, it prints great looking text fast, it prints great looking photos (not quite as fast), and supplies are inexpensive compared to HP. I don't think it is too noisy. Don't forget to get a USB (AB) cable as one is not included with the printer. You may also want to get a 50 pack of Canon Photo Paper Plus (8X6) available on Amazon for about $8 as you'll be impressed by the photos you print. I like this printer so much, I bought another one for my office.

There are too many great things to say about this excellent and very inexpensive printer. So I will only add one that I have not read elsewhere: unlike virtually all other non-Canon printers, the cartridges are very inexpensive and really last. The quality of pictures out of this printer is amazing, especially considering the price. I have four other printers, one of which is another excellent newer Canon. Canon used to make the best printers, but they fell behind a few years ago. Now they have taken the lead again, in my book when all is considered. The digital card version of this printer is also excellent.

This was a great printer...Crisp clear graphics and text. But it just recently started printing "foggy" lots of fuzzy text. Then the black stopped printing altogether. The color printed fine but NO BLACK. Not exactly helpful for printing papers. Canon help desk was very quick getting back to me about the problem. Probably a bad print head, but it should be taken to a fixit shop to get checked out. Fixit shop wants $75 just to look at it, which is applied to the first hour of labor if we have it fixed. Print head runs about $45. I can buy a whole new one for that! I would by a Canon again but definately get the extended warranty.

Buy the comparable ink from Carrot Ink.com. Cost alot less. Refilling doesn't not work with Canon. This was my 2nd Canon and refilling the cartridges didn't work with either.

This printer does a great job with black text and the occasional color use I've required from it (please note--I have not used this printer for photo printing). It is fast, offers nice quality, and is easy to resupply.

As with almost any printer nowadays, shop around for ink, and consider ink supplies besides the major brand names.

Also, for most jobs, this printer produces acceptable quality when using a Draft mode--unless you get your ink for free, consider doing all but the most important docs in Draft mode.

By the way, setup in Mac X and WinXP was a breeze.

The print quality is outstanding. However, the noise is a bit more than annoying. I read the reviews about the noise and thought, a little squeaking could not be that bad. Well, it is this fingernails-on-the-chalkboard kind of sound that goes about thirty seconds longer than you think you can stand it. I recommend you go another way ..... Unless you're deaf.

This is without a doubt the best printer I have purchased, (5).
The last 3 were Epson. It prints text fine and fast. Photos are really great, better than on the Epson 820 Photo that I had prior to this. Ink cartridges are very reasonable, generics are fine. Prints great on all the various papers that I have, even low cost gloss photopaper.
I have read where some users have complained that it was noisy. My wife and I agree that the i450 is very quiet, and that without using the "quiet mode".
There are plenty of settings available if needed.
This is a great buy, go for it.