Customer Reviews

Canon i850 Photo Printer

5 star:		(95)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I couldn't decide which printer to get. I am using a Sony DCS P9 (4MegaPixel) camera. I bought both the Canon I850 and the Canon S900. I decided to use both and whichever one I liked better, I would return the other one.
I was only using Canon Photo Paper Pro papers. I used both 4x6 and 8 1/2"x11" full size papers. The price I paid after rebate and tax on the I850 was $140 (yes, afer rebate and including all taxes) and the Canon S900 set me back about $250 dollars + tax. Both were equally easy to set up out of the box. I was comparing 3,072 nozzles on S900 to 1,600 nozzles on I850. But, the I850 also offers:

5 and 2 pico-liter droplet size for ink...S900 is 4 pico-liter
248 RAM buffer for quicker printing compare with 80 for S900
4 colors of ink cartridges including a double size black (because it does text well, too)which is cheaper to replace than 6 cartridges on S900
Very, very quiet operation BOth were quiet but I850 was quieter
Liked the fact the I850 has a door that closes on front AND BACK...the S900 doesn't close on back to keep dust out
Smaller in size than S900...and sleeker looking in aluminum look

Bottom line...I could see a difference in certain kinds of pictures...I saw a little more purple in a flower picture printed on the S900 and more of a deep blue color on same picture printed on I850...the picture looked more blue than purple on my computer though so I don't know how good a test this was. This color shade difference may be due to the 49 graduations of color available on S900 and only 27 on the I850. But, on most printing, the sharpness seemed to be slightly better on the I850..only slightly better...details were darker on the I850, like outlines of green leaves on trees.
Would I justify the difference in price for the difference in print...ABSOLUTELY NOT. It just seems that the I850 is the newest printer technology and the S900, although only out since March 2002, will probably be replaced in the next 6 months or so with newer technology similar to the I850. Some colors on S900 came out with a different shade like bails of hay in a Halloween shot; on S900 it had a little more yellow tones than the I850 but the I850 had more detail on lines in hay and on my kids hair. Both were excellent and I took both 8 1/2x11 sheets (1 from each printer) to my local Best Buy store on a Saturday and the Canon rep working there couldn't tell the difference between the two printer's results. Bottom line is; If you need a magnafying glass to see the difference, then the I850 should be the choice. These pictures on both printers rival those that you get from local photo developing store...and you can adjust the contrast, brightness and color to your liking.
The speed when printing pictures on the I850 is fast. Again, I must stress how quiet this machine is while printing. You will almost forget it's on even when printing. The software that came with the I850 is Canon's Zoombrowser 3.5 version...the S900 came with older version. I took the pictures to show some friends and they couldn't believe I printed them at home. If you get this printer, you will not regret your purchase. Just remember, from what I've heard, that it does make a difference which photo paper you use...Canon's Photo Paper Pro is the BEST (and Canon claims pix will last 25 years on this paper). The text is quoted in Black/White as 22 ppm (WOW). Also, haven't done it yet but I've heard from other's that the I850 does awesome Black and White pictures...better than the S900. I hope this helps in your decision...by the way, it does only take about 30 seconds to do a high quality 4x6 print on this printer. An Epson of equal comparison would easily take at least 4 to 5 minutes to do the same print!!!

Bottomline:
If you want a photo printer go with the i950
If you want a great all-round printer go with the i850.
I owned both the i850 and i950, with the i850 first. The i850 is an great all-round printer printing fast text and photos. Using the Canon photo paper images look great, but simply lack the detail the i950 can provide with 6 inks and almost twice the nozzles and special photo inks. The extra nozzles not only make printing faster (at least for photos) but allow for more detail.

On a picture, printed from Photoshop 6.0, that contained lots of details and color, but specifically a tree with multi-colored (shades) of bark - on the i850 the tree looked good with good detail, but on the i950 the tree came to life, was sharper, with more tree/bark detail and color variations becoming visible. There was no question, the i950 was better, noticably for photos.

On mixed media (web page with graphics) the i950 and i850 were the same, but for some reason, the i850 was noticably faster. You get a larger black-ink cartridge w/ the i850 presumably favoring its intended role as a excellent all-round printer.

If price is an issue, the i850 is the printer for you ... If photo quality is the most important, then the i950 is for you ... Can't make up your mind? Go with the i950, the extra money is worth the results.

my printer searching began months ago when the new hp 7xxx and canon ix50 and epson x25 werent even out. I have comapared this printer to almost everyone in the category. The HP series produces good prints but with snail slow speeds and little cartridges are way to expensive. Next the Epsons, much more slower than Hp but little better print quality. the printer gulps up the ink cartridges. Now comes the Canon i850. I downloaded a 3 MP image from internet and printed it on the photo pro paper included. The next minute, my expression is WOW! I really did not expect that the quality will be that good. I can say that it is better than 35mm developed photo too. Then the put some Hp photo paper to print the photo, and the same photo was terrible. So better used canon paper or Epson works fine too. Text printing is superb considering it is a inkjet. Again u need good paper like HP 106 brightness. the Word documents came laser crisp and lightning fast. Speed is also a big factor that makes this printer a real winner. the photos as well as text come popping out. I think this printer is the best in the market for right now. If u want pro quality photos that rival those of s900 and lab proccesed, buy this printer. Most photo printers stink at text but this prints "laser" sharp text on good paper. Once again do not waster your money buying one of the HP 73xx or epson x25 or the other canon photo printers. this on is the best money can buy. canon japan has already introduced the canon i950, the six color inkjet with the same technology as i850. If you are a really dedicated photo enthusiast, you may want to wait for i950 or else I850 is more than enough for me

The i850 produces the best photo prints I've ever seen from an inkjet. I looked at the HP 7350 and a few from Epson because I've never owned a printer from any other manufacturer. When I started to read the reviews about this printer, I decided to check one out in person. I was immediately impressed by the quietness and speed -- and WOW, the finished print -- I couldn't find any flaws. I thought my HP 970 printed great photos but the Canon blows it away. I'll keep the HP because it still is a great all-around printer and I've only had it for a 2 yrs. Inkjet technology has made some great advances the past few years! And Mac users, this is a great printer because it works perfectly with OS 10.2 Jaguar -- including borderless prints. Just download the current drivers from Canon's web site. This is a fantastic printer for the price. A side note, one reason I decided to go with this Canon printer is because I've been very pleased with their scanners too. I have the N1240 and it produces great color tones with all my photo scanning. I highly recommend the i850 printer.

I purchased this printer 2 months ago and have found the perfect home printer. The main reason I was in the market was the high cost of "color" inkjet cartridges that I went through like candy in my old Canon and HP printers. I did my research and I wanted a printer that had separate color tanks so that if I ran out of cyan ink I wouldn't have to trash the whole cartride that most likely had plenty of yellow and magenta inks. The individual tanks are far cheaper to buy (at about ~$$$ each) than a new color cartridge (~$$$).

Now for performance. The output quality is fantastic. I have printed out over 40 photos on 4x6 glossy photo paper (I have used 3 different premium glossy brands with little, if any, discernable difference in sharpness or color fidelity. I work for a large major medical equipment manufacturer and we ditribute "low-end" printers for over $10,000 that you would not be able to tell the difference in quality with the naked eye given the same source input. The bottom line is that the photo print capability of this printer is nothing short of stunning. I am also more than happy with the general purpose color and document printing on standard high resolution paper contrary to a number of reviews (usually from editorial product reviewers) that I have seen elsewhere.

The speed of both photo and general purpose printing is nothing short of astounding. I couldn't believe my eyes at the output speed of photo prints and general purpose documents. Documents came out nearly as fast as a laser printer I have at work. And the pinter is so darn quiet. Except for the normal "thunk" as the paper is fed into the machine, I can barely hear the printhead while it is in operation.

In short, if you are looking for a printer that is miserly on printing supplies that produces fabulous photo and general purpose output, then GET THIS MACHINE!

As everyone else has noted, this is a very good printer for the cost. The performance will probably be sufficient for all but the most particular users. I just printed out a 8.5"x11" borderless print and cannot find a flaw in it. And the print out was relatively quick: 2'30" for a 1.5MB file.

The printer comes with the following:
- CD with 3 or 4 software programs, the drivers, and the complete documentation
- quick start guide
- (really) quick start poster which was enough to get everything running
- sample pack of the Canon 4"x6" Photo Paper Pro
- print head, ink cartridges, and power cord

As noted by other reviewers, a cord to connect the printer to your computer is not included. I bought a Belkin F3U133-06 USB Device Cable (6 Feet) which has the square connector for the printer and the flat connector for the computer. The printer can also use a parallel port cable, but I have not tested this.

Installation was pretty simple and worked fine with my old ('97) Windows 98 desktop and my new Windows 2000 laptop. I've mostly used the Easy Photo-Print program to print images. It automatically makes the proper printer settings so you don't have to worry about that.

Another nice feature is the Auto Power Setting available from the Maintenance tab. The printer can be setup to turn on when a document is printed to it and turn off after a certain period on inactivity.

Anyway, highly recommended.

I bought this printer because it got good reviews on other sites, because of its separate ink tanks for different colors and because a mail-in rebate was offered. After using it for a few days, I am very pleased with the results.
Setup with Windows XP took only about 5-10 minutes. The printer is quiet, fast, works flawlessly so far, and the output exceeds my expectations for an inkjet printer. I printed some borderless 4x6 photos from my digital camera that I also had printed by two professional labs, and the i850 performs less well than one lab (a little detail is lost and there is some granularity in a picture that includes the sky with shades of blue - granted, a difficult subject) but just as well as the other lab. You have to look closely to see the difference, though, and I've had worse pictures from the drugstore. If you need professional quality images, then obviously you'll need to buy a professional quality printer which will cost at least three times more. However, for those among us who usually have their pictures developed by the drugstore around the corner, this printer delivers very, very nice results for the price.
What I miss: the ability to print pictures directly from memory cards, as some other recent printers do. Also, no printer cable is included. Be careful, because some computer stores charge a LOT for these cables (up to about a third of the price of this printer!), but you can find USB printer cables for a few bucks on the internet.

I purchased the Canon i850 on recommendation from the Canon rep that I met in a store. Well......this is the best printer I have ever seen for [its price].

The colors are superb, and the B&W print looks like it came from a laser.

The set-up instructions are on a separate sheet, and worked the first time. I loaded the software on my mac, and printed within minutes. Photos printed on 4x6" glossy paper look like they came from a professional photo lab.

Word of warning. The image software that comes with the printer works a bit too well. When you first start it up, it finds ALL images in the folder you direct it to, and immediately displays them on the screen so you can choose which ones to print. It found a couple of images that, ahem, I did not want anyone else to see. Oh well, I guess they didn't belong on my hard drive anyway?!?

All in all, an excellent printer and software combo. You will enjoy it too.

I have been an Epson printer users for the past few years and have had very good luck with them. They have been quite reliable, very economical (when using third party ink) and produced near photo quality output on any glossy paper. My only criticism has been the long time it takes to output the highest quality prints.

I've recently heard good things about Canon's line of printers, but it was the claim of 90 second 8x10" prints that caught my attention. So, about two months ago, when [a local store] advertised a refurbished model S600 for [a reaonable price], I had to try it.

I must say, I was very impressed with its speed. It could indeed produce high quality prints in about 90 seconds. Colors were very good, but there was an apparent graininess to the pictures. The printer also seemed very sensitive to the brand of paper used. Canon's own Photo Pro paper was best with JetPrint Photo Professional a close second. Even with these shortcomings, the S600 became my photo printer of choice (love that speed).

My trusty Epson 900 just died last week (clogged nozzles in the print head). A replacement was needed, so I immediately researched Canon's product offerings and found out about the new i850. Specs seemed good, 4800x1200 resolution and 22 PPM in black, 14 PPM color. ...

Setup was a snap, up and running in about 10 minutes. They unit itself is much sturdier than the S600. Text printing is very speedy and clear, but let me tell you, the photo output just blows me away. Where the S600 had dots clearly visible to the naked eye, not only can dots not be seen with naked eye, they cannot be seen with a 3X magnifying glass. Only at 10X magnification are the dots visible, truly amazing! The speed is about the same as the S600, 90 seconds at highest quality. Another benefit is that this printer is not as sensitive to the brand of paper used. My stockpile of Epson Glossy paper works great.

To sum it up, buy this printer. There is no other unit out there that offers its terrific output with its blazing speed. You will not regret this purchase.

I had a Lexmark and it died so I decided to buy a new color printer. I've always been happy with the HP products (I have a HP LaserJet 3 and 5P) and was looking at their color printers at Fry's. I looked at a print on the printer next to the HP I was looking at and saw the quality. I was amazed! A Canon rep was there and said that it came from the i850. He did another print and that sold me! The quality is excellent for using for colors. Most photo printers use six colors. The best thing is the cartridges are inexpensive and if one color goes out, you just replace that color, as each color is individual. I have been using this printer for a month now and friends cannot tell the difference between a print from the i850 or from a processed print. I highly recommend this printer.