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More…The $100 (as of 3/3/09) Canon Pixma iP4600 color inkjet printer is inexpensive to buy and maintain. Although it's minimally equipped and slow when printing text, it's still worth considering for the budget-minded home user and amateur photographer.
Canon Pixma IP4600 Photo Printer
Pricing
$62.00 - $112.48 From 4 Vendors Get Best Prices »
PCWorld Rating, September 30, 2009
3 User Reviews Add your own »
$62.00 - $112.48
From 4 Vendors
Get Best Prices »
- Lab Tested
- How We Test Printers »
Pros
Low price; economical inks
Comparatively fast at printing photos
Cons
Slow while printing text
No media slots
Bottom Line
While the photo quality and speed are pleasing, the lack of media slots and the merely decent text speed are not.
Canon Pixma iP4600 Color Inkjet Printer
Pixma IP4600 Photo Printer Review, by Susan Silvius, PC World March 24, 2009
The Pixma iP4600 printed fairly well on plain paper in our tests. Though text pages exited at a snail's pace of 7.3 pages per minute (ppm), they looked black and crisp on all but the most intricate fonts. Photos were slightly grainy and pale, but still acceptable. Predictably, Canon's own photo paper improved matters: Images showed better detail and smoothness, and flesh tones were pleasing despite containing a slight hint of yellow. Best of all, the iP4600 printed photos quickly--its 1.9-ppm rate is currently one of the best results we've seen.
All that attractive output costs well below average to print, too. At the time of this review, the standard-size inks cost $15 for a 350-page pigment black for printing text (or 4.3 cents per page). The remaining dye-based colors--cyan, magenta, yellow, and a second photo black designed for greater color depth--have yields ranging from 471 to 665 pages. A page with all four colors (except photo black) cost 12.2 cents at this writing.
The Pixma iP4600 has many nice features, but it makes one odd omission: It has no media readers, offering just a front PictBridge port instead. I don't understand how Canon can market this model as a photo printer when it lacks the ability to read cards.
You do get two input trays: a bottom-dwelling cassette, which takes only plain paper (150 sheets), and a rear vertical tray for up to 150 sheets of various media, including envelopes, photo paper, and legal-size paper. Automatic two-sided printing is an impressive inclusion on a printer this inexpensive.
Canon makes setup easy even for novices. Instructions in the concise "Getting Started" pamphlet are clear and amply illustrated. The printer communicates status and error messages via your computer screen, which is good, because all that the printer's front panel provides are two buttons with LEDs that light or blink in ways that are largely mysterious until you consult the documentation.
Even missing a few luxuries such as media slots and an LCD screen, the Canon Pixma iP4600 is still an excellent--and inexpensive--choice for your home. Out of the box, using standard cartridges, printing color on the iP4600 is a lot cheaper than doing so on its close competitor, the HP Photosmart D5460.
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PCWorld Lab Results
- Rating Breakdown
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71
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72
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85
- See Complete Lab Results »
Performance Comparison with Similar Printers
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Performance
| 300dpi Line Art Image (secs) | 20.45 |
| 4 by 6 Color Photo (secs) | 22.44 |
| 4 by 6 Grayscale Photo (secs) | 22.78 |
| Color Output Quality | Good |
| Color Photo Quality | Superior |
| Copy Output Quality | n/a |
| Copy Quality | n/a |
| Grayscale Glossy Output Quality | n/a |
| Grayscale Output Quality | Good |
| Line Art Output Quality | Good |
| One-Page Webpage (secs) | 26.82 |
| Overall Scan Quality | n/a |
| Sports Action Shot (secs) | 31.71 |
| Ten-Page Word Document | 106.35 |
| Ten-Page Word Document (secs) | 106.35 |
| Tested Color Speed (ppm) | 2.6 |
| Tested Glossy Photo Speed (ppm) | 2.9 |
| Tested Grayscale Speed (ppm) | 2.6 |
| Tested Text Speed (ppm) | 7.3 |
| Text Output Quality | Very Good |
| Three-Page Word Document | 43.84 |
| Three-Page Word Document (secs) | 43.84 |
| Two-Page Excel Document | 41.92 |
| Two-Page Excel Document (secs) | 41.92 |
Text Printing
| Text output quality | Very Good |
User Reviews
Average User Reviews for Canon Pixma IP4600 Photo Printer
2 Reviews Add your own »
- Latest User Reviews 2 reviews
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Reviewed by: johnbachel
Duration of ownership: 4 Months
Strengths: Beautiful photo prints. Can print duplex pages.
Weaknesses: Goes through ink tanks too quickly. I spent $200 in three months on ink, before getting rid of it. My I860 cost me far less to run.
Overall: Okay for user who prints infrequently. Not good if you want to print a lot of pictures or text.
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Reviewed by: pauldelmore
Duration of ownership: 1 Year
Strengths: canon reliability
Weaknesses: very low ink level in carts. Much less than in my 4100
Review Now! Already own it? Tell us What You Think
User Reviews From Around the Web
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Reviewed by: JRMR
Strengths: Aesthetically pleasing, FAST, impressive options and features, easily transported, excellent instructions and documentation
Weaknesses: Long setup process, no USB cable included (!!!), hard to find significantly below MSRP anywhere
Overall: I got this printer after my 8.5 year old HP Deskjet 842C died. The printer is absolutely beautiful right out of the box.Unfortunately, you'll have to forget its looks for the next hour or two while you go through the setup process. Preparing this printer for initial use is unfortunately like prepping a fighter jet for combat. There are a myriad stages, so don't even think about jamming the cartridges in and printing away. The installation process has at least 13 minutes of prescribed "breaks" - I kid you not - while the printer aligns its heads and does other things to prep itself to become your servant. Thankfully, the entire process is backed by detailed paper instructions with everything from exactly what to do to what could possibly go wrong. It's a bit obvious from a few grammatical errors that the manual wasn't originally written in English, but it's still easy to understand.Despite its deceptively simple external looks, the iP4600 has more moving parts than nearly any other electronic device I've ever owned. This includes a paper tray that's practically invisible - good for form, terrible for function. The upshot of the printer's design, however, is that it collapses into a rectangular box when not in use, which saves space and also makes it infinitely easier to move than most models from competitors. Combined with the glossy black finish, the Canon looks gloriously sleek on any desktop.In true Canon form, the printer has more features and options than any but the most hardcore users are likely to use, including the fantastic ability to save your preferences into separate profiles. The best feature - and the one I bought this model for - is autoduplexing, which should save a lot of paper.The only 2 gripes I have is the arduous setup and the lack of a USB cable in the box. Given the featureset, Canon probably figured that anyone who bought this model would probably not only be OK with complicated setups but would probably also have a couple USB cables lying around anyway. Since this description matches me, I'd have to agree with them, but I must admit that in absolute terms both issues diminish the appeal of the printer and cost it a 5 star rating.All things considered, I think this is a great printer at the $100 price point - it's easily worth $200 for its feature set, although that fact won't help those users who're on a budget. Surprisingly, nearly all the stores that sell it list it above MSRP, which is odd for a tech product.I hope I can get another 8.5 years out of it as I did with my previous HP. 4 stars.
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