Canon PIXMA iP1800 – Basic USB Printer

Pros

The Canon PIXMA iP1800 comes with superb software bundle; offers support for Vista and the print speed and quality delivered by the printer is really impressive and lastly the printer is a reasonably priced inkjet printer.

Cons

The Canon PIXMA iP1800 doesn’t have output trays and comes with miserly warranty.

Introduction

The Canon PIXMA iP1800 is the successor of Pixma iP1700 and a photo oriented, entry-level, single-function printer. Put another $50 and you could get a basic inkjet printer, which can print decent quality photos and documents. Though, the iP1800 doesn’t have the photo oriented features such as a PictBridge port and the media card readers, but the printer doesn’t comes with a broad easy-to-use software bundle which can easily help you create your photo projects.

Considering the price of the printer, the omission of PictBridge port and the media card readers was not surprising for us, and we actually think that the iP1800 is a decent printer for basic home users who are on a tight budget. We also like the print quality here, it was clearly better than a lot of its low-cost competitions, including the likes of the Lexmark Z845. The iP1800 offers a more comprehensive software package, in comparison to the iP1700 and even delivers great print speeds for different print tasks. Though, the print quality for the printer is comparable.

Design

In simple words, the Canon Pixma iP1800 is a representation of simplicity. The all-black body of the printer measures 6 inches tall by 9.3 inches deep by 17.4 inches wide, and even the printer is immensely light and weighs only feather-light 7.3 pounds. The printer has a simple paper support flap, which opens from the top of the printer, and features modifiable paper guides. Unluckily, the printer doesn’t have an output tray; and the prints are simply ejected out from the printer, make sure that you have something placed there for collecting the prints, and for saving the prints from falling on the ground.

The printer doesn’t have a control panel as such to talk about, and all that it has are just two buttons positioned on top of the printer: paper feed and power. The strange thing here is that despite being a photo printer, it lacks a PictBridge port and media card slots, but it gets explained by the low price of the printer.

System Configuration

Starting price: $89.90
Manufacturer: Canon USA
Part Number: 1855B002
Printer Type: Ink-jet – Color – Photo printer
Operating System Supported: Microsoft Windows 2000,   Microsoft Windows XP,   and Apple MacOS X 10.2.8 or later and Microsoft Windows Vista

Dimensions (W x D x H): 17.4 x 9.3 x 6 in
System weight: 7.3 lbs
Media Type Supported: Photo paper &   Plain paper
Software Included: Canon Easy-PhotoPrint and Drivers & Utilities
Ink Palette (Colors): 4-ink – magenta, cyan, black and yellow
Connectivity Technology: Wired
Microsoft Certifications: Certified for Windows Vista

Performance

The Canon PIXMA iP1800’s performance was just as expected from any printer for this price range. The printer was decently fast in text printing, and printed text the rate of 5.82 pages per minute, which was a tad slower than the Lexmark Z845 which delivered 6.85ppm. Though, it was amply fast in 4×6 photo printing and delivered the scores of 0.72ppm against Lexmark’s 0.48ppm.

As far as the print quality for of the printer is concerned, the Pixma iP1800 did an okay job. Text prints on an inkjet printer was decent for a $50 inkjet printer. The printed text was well-formed, though the characters edges weren’t as sparkling and pointed as we wanted. The color text appeared decent as well, with smoothly merged colors. Though, there were some issues with the color graphics print, but the photo elements appeared decent and sharp. On a whole, we liked the print quality, although, it was just on par with the older Pixma iP1700.

Support

The Canon PIXMA iP1800 comes with a short 90-day warranty from Canon. This is way far from Canon’s normal one-year warranty and a huge disenchantment, though, Canon stresses that its research has shown that their entry level printers will show very less issues. You, can also get toll-free telephone support from Monday to Friday, from 8 a.m. to midnight, and on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., ET. For online support, there is a Web support form for sending e-mail to a tech. There also is a searchable FAQs, knowledgebase, software/drivers and downloadable manuals, in addition to information on supplies.

Word from the Experts

The Canon PIXMA iP1800 delivers decent print speeds, immense software package and serviceable print quality for the casual home users who wants a reasonably priced inkjet printer for all their basic printing needs.