
Canon PIXMA MP500 Photo All-In-One Inkjet Printer (29 PPM, 9600x2400 DPI, Color, PC/Mac)

Pricing
$144.99 - $159.97 From 2 Vendors Get Best Prices »
- Spec Navigator
- Printer Type
- Media Handling
- Vendor Rated Speeds
- Platform Support
- Dimensions
- General Features
- Resolutions
- Copying
- Scanning
- Warranty & Support
Media Handling
| Maximum paper size, height | 14 inches |
| Maximum paper size, width | 8.5 inches |
| Minimum paper size, height | 3.39 inches |
| Minimum paper size, width | 2.13 inches |
| Media sizes accepted |
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| Paper handling support |
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Vendor Rated Speeds
| Black-and-white print speed | 29 ppm |
| Black-and-white copy speed | 29 ppm |
| Color print speed | 19 ppm |
| Color copy speed | 19 ppm |
| Color photo print speed | 51 ppm |
General Features
| Functions |
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| General features |
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| Interface connection |
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| Media slots |
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| PictBridge compatible | Yes |
Resolutions
| Black-and-white horizontal resolution | 600 dpi |
| Black-and-white vertical resolution | 600 dpi |
| Color vertical resolution | 2400 dpi |
| Color horizontal resolution | 9600 dpi |
- Lab Tested
- How We Test Printers »
Pros
Dual paper trays, built-in duplexer
Produces dark text with crisp edges
Cons
Lacks faxing and an ADF
No film-scanning
Bottom Line
Dual paper trays, a built-in duplexer, and strong text and photos make the MP500 good value even without fax capability.
Canon Pixma MP500
PIXMA MP500 Photo All-In-One Inkjet Printer (29 PPM, 9600x2400 DPI, Color, PC/Mac) Review, by Paul Jasper January 11, 2006
The Canon Pixma MP500 is an attractively priced combination of printer, scanner, and media card reader. It's not ideal for every user: serious photographers may bemoan the lack of a film-scanning capability, while home-office workers may miss a built-in fax and an automatic document feeder, but you get the most important functions in a compact and easy-to-use unit.
You can preview images and perform basic editing tasks on the 2.5-inch color LCD that flips up from the center of the clearly laid-out control panel.
The media slots hide behind a small door and can read most digital camera memory card formats. However, you'll need a third-party adapter to read xD-Picture, Memory Stick Duo, and Mini SD Card formats. The MP500's USB 2.0 port swiftly transfers images from the cards to your PC. The direct-print port on the front lets you print straight from a PictBridge-compatible digital camera. Unlike several of its rivals and many photo printers, the MP500 doesn't let you read images from a USB flash drive attached to its direct-print port. However, you can attach an optional $80 Bluetooth adapter to print from suitably equipped camera phones and PDAs. The MP500 also sports an infrared port that lets you beam images from many mobile phones.
The cassette in the unit's base holds 150 sheets of plain paper. The feeder at the rear has a 150-sheet capacity as well, but you'll probably use it to switch among different photo paper types and sizes. We appreciated that the built-in duplexer, which saves paper by enabling two-sided printing, waits a few seconds for the first side to dry before printing on the reverse.
Each of the printer's five ink cartridges incorporates a red LED that flashes when the ink runs low. In addition to the three primary colors, you get two black inks. On photo paper, the printer uses only dye-based black, but to produce stronger and sharper darks on the more-absorbent plain paper, it adds pigment-based black. In our lab tests, we saw dark text with crisp edges. Our line-art sample suffered only a few ripples in blocks of closely spaced vertical lines and some odd diagonal interference patterns. We also noted excellent contrast and surprisingly sharp details in photos printed on plain paper, though a little banding was visible in the darkest areas. On photo paper we saw beautifully sharp images with bold colors.
Scans of photos and line art earned high marks from our judges. Copies of a text document also scored well, but plain scans of the same file were less impressive. Many of the MP500's rivals outstrip its print speed of 6.4 pages--per minute for text, but the unit holds its own at 2.4 ppm for graphics. It printed our test photo on letter-size photo paper in a commendable 57 seconds. Its 4.3-ppm copy speed is also one of the fastest. Finally, the MP500 also performed solidly in our test scan of a 4-by-5-inch photo at 100 dpi, completing the scan in 9 seconds.
Upshot: The MP500 may lack some frills, but it delivers a great combination of performance, quality, and paper handling at a fair price.
Paul Jasper
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- Rating Breakdown
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85
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77
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86
- See Complete Lab Results »
Performance Comparison with Similar Printers
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74
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76
Performance
| 5 x 7 Photo (secs) | 56.59 |
| Color Output Quality | Good |
| Color Photo (secs) | 18.63 |
| Color Photo Quality | Superior |
| Color Photo, Best Quality Settings | 56.59 |
| Color Photo, Normal Settings | 18.63 |
| Copy Output Quality | Very good |
| Copy Quality | Very good |
| Final Scan Time, 2-by-2-Inch Document, 600 dpi | 17.84 |
| Final Scan Time, 4-by-5-Inch Document, 100 dpi | 9.09 |
| Final Scan Time, One-Page Word Document, 300 dpi | 10.72 |
| Line Art Output Quality | Good |
| One-Page Copy | 13.9 |
| One-Page Copy (secs) | 13.9 |
| One-Page Grayscale Graphic | 20.01 |
| One-Page Grayscale Graphic (secs) | 20.01 |
| Output Score, Color Graphics, Default Settings (formerly pf-Output-Print-Color-Default) | Good |
| Output Score, Color Photo, Best Quality Settings (formerly pf-Output-Print-Color-Best) | Superior |
| Output Score, Line Art, Default Settings (formerly pf-Output-Print-LineArt-Default) | Good |
| Output Score, Text, Default Settings (formerly pf-Output-Print-Text-Default) | Very Good |
| Preview Scan, 2-by-2-Inch Document, 600 dpi | 6.71 |
| Preview Scan, 2-by-2-Inch Document, Maximum Resolution (formerly pf-MFPs-pv2x2maxmax-Average) | 6.62 |
| Preview Scan, 4-by-5-Inch Document, 100 dpi | 6.74 |
| Preview Scan, Line Art, Maximum Resolution (formerly pf-MFPs-pvLAmax1-Average) | 6.93 |
| Preview Scan, One-Page Word Document, 300 dpi | 7.08 |
| Ten-Page Word Document | 94.04 |
| Ten-Page Word Document (secs) | 94.04 |
| Tested Color Graphics Speed (formerly pf-PCWColorSpeed) | 2.4 |
| Tested Color Speed (ppm) | 2.4 |
| Tested Glossy Photo Speed (ppm) | 1.1 |
| Tested Photo Speed (formerly pf-PCWPhotoSpeed) | 1.1 |
| Tested Text Speed (formerly pf-PCWBWSpeed) | 6.4 |
| Tested Text Speed (ppm) | 6.4 |
| Text Output Quality | Very Good |
| Three-Page PowerPoint Document | 86.01 |
| Three-Page PowerPoint Document (secs) | 86.01 |
| Three-Page Word Document | 48.79 |
| Three-Page Word Document (secs) | 48.79 |
| Total Scan Time, 2-by-2-Inch Document, 600 dpi | 17.84 |
| Total Scan Time, 2-by-2-Inch Document, Maximum Resolution (formerly pf-MFPs-2x2maxmax-Average) | 51.28 |
| Total Scan Time, 4-by-5-Inch Document, 100 dpi | 9.09 |
| Total Scan Time, Line Art, Maximum Resolution (formerly pf-MFPs-LAmax1-Average) | 82.68 |
| Total Scan Time, One-Page Word Document, 300 dpi | 10.72 |
| Two-Page Excel Document | 42.55 |
| Two-Page Excel Document (secs) | 42.55 |
Scanning
| Preview scan, 2-by-2-inch document, 600 dpi | 6.71 |
| Preview scan, 4-by-5-inch document, 100 dpi | 6.74 |
| Preview scan, one-page Word document, 300 dpi | 7.08 |
| Preview scan, one-page Word document, 300 dpi | 7.08 |
Text Printing
| Text output quality | Very Good |
Average User Reviews for Canon PIXMA MP500 Photo All-In-One Inkjet Printer (29 PPM, 9600x2400 DPI, Color, PC/Mac)
- Latest User Reviews 1 review
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Reviewed by: MasterX
Duration of ownership: 8 Months
Strengths: Great Print, Cheap, CD Printing All good
Weaknesses: CD Printing is disable in US versions by default
Overall: Great Printer bought it to print T-Shirt transfers, after i learned how to print CD's with it, it became the best printer i've ever had. Great for the college IT student.
Review Now! Already own it? Tell us What You Think
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Reviewed by: scristaldi
Strengths: Print quality on some print work. Duplex is nice feature.
Weaknesses: Ink cost and way system uses ink.
Overall: Software will not let you turn color off! Printer slowly uses even when you push bars all the way one way or the other. Should be able to just turn color printing off. This printer could have been a good purchase but with the ink issues and some other printer problems it IS NOT A GOOD BUY!
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Reviewed by: stretch34318
Strengths: Great print and scan quality.
Weaknesses: It takes a while to get ready to print, poor quality(read below)
Overall: the first one I had worked great for about 3 months, then it started automatically turning off 5 sec. after you power it on. Then all of the sudden, about a month and a half later, it started working fine. It did that 3 times before I sent it back to get a new one using the warranty i bought with it. The new one has worked great for the past 2 months and now all of the sudden, my computer tells me "printer offline" , and I have made no changes to anything. Great product, terrible quality.
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Reviewed by: No_Burdens
Strengths: Photo Prints, clear colors
Weaknesses: Trailer pages sometimes foollow a print job, if your printing in color you get a colorful blank page...
Overall: I love my MXP500 The first thing I did when I got it was to print the most loud, detailed picture I and and true to form it came out perfectly! I have had a few other printers and even a couple other photo printers and this one is far superior to anything I have had previously!
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Reviewed by: lukenmelanie
Strengths: It is the best printer I have owned! Crisp colors and clear Scanning is great for old photos and the copier is great too.
Weaknesses: None that I have seen
Overall: Highly recommend this printer to anybody who is interested in a workhorse and and a quality product. I did a lot of research before hand on the internet, best buy, and circuit city...in the end after all the research and making the purchase I am not a bit sorry at all
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Reviewed by: drealynn42
Strengths: Low ink usage, excellent quality, easy to use, quiet, quick, etc
Weaknesses: Larger than other printers, installation issues (that were easily resolved)
Overall: I'm very happy with this printer! At first I was wary because of the size and price, but I don't regret buying it at all. First of all, I've printed several dvd case labels that would have completely drained the ink in my old printer, but the tanks are still full! And not only is the ink lasting a long time, but the ink is reasonably priced at the store. It is no more expensive than the ink I was buying before. It's true that generic brand ink is not available for this model, but I don't foresee having to buy cartridges as often as I was before. Setting up the printer was very easy. I did have some installation issues which were quickly resolved once I figured out my firewall was the issue. Once the firewall was off, it installed and was ready to use immediately. The printer makes some noise when it warms up, but it is very quiet and quick during the actual printing. Sometimes I don't even realize it printed my document! The scanner makes very high quality scans and crops your document for you. It also comes with photo editing software if you want to do more cropping or editing. I'm especially happy about the scanner because it's nice to make copies whenever I want instead of having to pay for them elsewhere. In short, this printer has been a huge relief after my last couple of clunkers that gave me nothing but frustration. I've seen some good price deals lately too.
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$144.99 - $159.97 From 2 Vendors Get Best Prices »
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