Canon Pixma MP980 – Improved, But Still Could Be Improved

Pros

Canon Pixma MP980’s interactional LCD menu, dual-paper feeder, speedy photo and graphic prints, included auto-duplexer and space-saving built will match any offices’ or homes’ requirement of a printer.

Cons

The print quality for Canon Pixma MP980 is really poor, and on top of it the printer delivers slow text print speed, has defective wireless performance, fragile paper cassette, lacks fax machine and despite all these flaws the printer is priced really high.

Introduction

Canon Pixma MP980 could be seen as a competent all-in-one printer which prints and copies the document in complete color 4800 x 9600 pixel resolution. It’s especially included gray cartridge offers a slight distinct grayscale photo prints. Priced at $300 the Canon Pixma MP980 extends support to the rookie photo fanciers with its huge 3.5 inch LCD screen, a media card reader and a user-friendly control panel, but we definitely aren’t satisfied with the tricky wireless system, the duller-than-average outturn speeds and billowed price. In comparison to this, the HP Photosmart Premium Fax all-in-one offering a fax machine and an auto-document feeder all at a lesser price is a much better deal.

Design

The Canon Pixma MP980 AIO has got the same structure that Canon’s MP series dons, but the models for this year has been slightly cut down and measuring 7.9 by 18.5 by 15.2 inches (H x W x D) it has got a space saving design. Though, the all-in-one is a bit heavier and weighs around 24 pounds. The increased weight could be attributed to built in auto-duplexer at the rear end of the printer for double-sided prints, hence you definitely wouldn’t want to move printer on your own, at your home or at your workplace. The lustrous black and silver body of the printer exudates fashionable expertise and scanner lid on the top of the printer is flushed so well, that you can’t tell that it is there. Also to save a little more space for you the control panel and main output tray folds in.

Located on the lid is the control panel which hosts a brilliant 3.5 inch color LCD identical to the LCD on Pixma MP970. The menu has been arranged in a loop, and for accessing different settings you will have to use the tactile dial located at the base panel. The “OK” button and wheel offers satisfactory performance, though you also can use the four-way directional pad around the dial if you aren’t comfortable with the wheel. We used the scroll wheel most of the time, but even the buttons are comfortable to operate when you know where you want to navigate.

The remaining pad contains all the shortcut buttons, along with the Navigation button to assist you with onscreen menus, instant black and color copy keys, a home button, two buttons for decreasing and increasing the number of copies, in addition to a stop button for canceling task in progress. Lastly located at the bottom are two soft buttons for navigating through onscreen menus.

Two 150 sheet paper tray handles the paper sheets for the printer. Its always nice to see two paper trays for handling the papers rather than one, its easier to use one for the conventional papers and the other one for photo paper, then to keep switching in between the paper trays of diverse sizes. Though, the durability for the paper trays here is under scanner and only time will tell how durable are these paper trays.

System Configuration

Manufacturer: Canon USA
Weight: 23.6 lbs
Dimensions (W x D x H): 15.2 x 18.5 x 7.9 in
Inkjet Technology: Canon FINE (Full-lithography inkjet Nozzle Engineering)

Printing Technology: Ink-jet – Color – Photo printer
Office Machine Features: Print from memory card
Supported Flash Memory: Memory Stick, CompactFlash, MultiMediaCard, IBM Microdrive, xD-Picture Card, SD Memory Card, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Duo, SDHC Memory Card
Supported Media Type: Envelopes, Cards, Plain paper and Photo paper
PC Connection: IEEE 802.11b, Hi-Speed USB, Ethernet 10 Base-T/100 Base-TX, IEEE 802.11g

Software Included: Drivers & utilities, ArcSoft Photo Studio, Canon MP Navigator EX, Canon Easy-PhotoPrint, and Canon Easy-PhotoPrint EX
Operating System Support: Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP, Apple Mac OS X 10.3.9 – 10.5.x, Microsoft Windows Vista

Performance

The Canon Pixma MP980 delivered decent print speed in all our tests with only exception of color text test, in which the MP970 printed 7.85 pages per minute whereas the MP980 only succeeded in printing 5.75 pages per minute. In comparison to all the other printers in the market the MP980 came out almost average. MP980 just like several other printers in the market failed to succeed than HP Photosmart Premium Fax all-in-one and Epson Artisan 800, they still holds the throne and are still our favorite home photo printer.

The print quality of MP980 suffers the same problem that its precursor suffered from, particularly in the color graphics printing test. At first the text prints looked great, but a deeper look at them brought a lot of deformed lines and uneven edges. The same was the case with all the other print outputs that we took to test the performance of MX980. So on a whole unless you are keen on getting quality, the MX980 offers a decent performance.

Support

Canon Pixma MP980 is backed by a standard one-year warranty. You can get the toll-free telephonic support from 8 a.m. to midnight PT on weekdays and 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. There also is E-mail support available 24*7 through a web-based form and the standard Canon online support option comprises of downloadable software, drivers FAQs and manuals.

Word from the Experts

Canon Pixma MP980 multifunction printer, scanner and copier is slightly above its precursors, but lags behind in print quality. The print quality isn’t what is expected of it and neither is the print speed as fast as we would have wanted it to be. You can buy the less expensive HP Photosmart Premium Fax all-in-one as a better alternative to it and can even get a fax machine and speedy, higher quality output.