Manufacturer's Description

Canon PIXMA MP530 All-in-One Printer

The PIXMA MP530 can print up to 29 ppm (28 cpm) in black and up to 19 ppm in color (19cpm), and a 4" x 6" borderless print takes about 51 seconds. The USB 2.0 Hi-Speed interface enables the fastest image transfers and scanning speeds possible today. Plus, with direct photo printing, just connect to any PictBridge compatible digital camera or DV camcorder, and print. The unit's 5-color ink system produces exceptional photos, along with laser-quality text. Canon uses a high-performance 1,856-nozzle print head that ejects precise and consistent droplets as small as 1 picoliter. With that, you get outstanding resolutions up to 9600 x 2400 color dpi and clear, detailed images.This high-end office All-In-One does it all. The AE (Auto Exposure) Copy feature automatically optimizes reproduction quality based on the type of original you're duplicating. When scanning, the unit's high-resolution CCD technology enables you to produce exceptional 1200 x 2400-dpi scans, with vibrant 48-bit color depth. And now, faxing: With the PIXMA MP530 Office All-In-One, you can achieve up to Super G3 fax speed in color and B+W. Plus, the expanded memory lets you store 40 speed dial codes, and receive up to 150 incoming pages.

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Product Specifications for

Canon PIXMA MP530 All-in-One Printer

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Most recent User Reviews for

Canon PIXMA MP530 All-in-One Printer

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  Reviewed by: countdr

  07-06-08

  Duration of ownership: 10 Months

  Strengths: good text print quality

  Weaknesses:Ink consumption,ink cartridges overpriced, uses color ink to produce black text!?

  Overall Evaluation: Compare to my previous HP the ink comsumption is very high even in 'fast' mode. I mainly use printing function, so my evaluation is for that function. Too high cost for text print.

• 

  Reviewed by:

  02-26-08

  Duration of ownership:

  Strengths: Perfect for home or small office.

  Weaknesses:None

  Overall Evaluation: After researching several all-in-one printers, I decided to purchase the MP530, based on specifications, size and appearance. It's ideal for a home office and the scanning and print quality are excellent.

• 

  Reviewed by:

  09-06-07

  Duration of ownership: 1 Years

  Strengths: Canon quality

  Weaknesses:Ink 3 times price of older models.

  Overall Evaluation: I hope printer manufacturers stop the wholesale ripoff of consumers with thier new chipped ink cartridges. You could buy aftermarket ink for the Pixma series for as low as 2.99a cartridge. Now you have to mess with removing chips and putting them on replacement cartridges if you want to afford ink.

• 

  Reviewed by: windskisong

  06-26-07

  Duration of ownership: 3 Months

  Strengths: pretty good picture printing, very good simplex (non-duplex) text printing, fast

  Weaknesses:uses color ink to produce black text with duplexing option, when duplexing black text quality looks vastly inferior, does not work with any color cartridge removed, uses chipped ink cartridges

  Overall Evaluation: This printer is getting rave reviews from both PC Magazine and PC World. That said, there's a big problem with this printer that neither review mentions: namely, duplex black text printing from ALL applications produces inferior results than when duplexing is off--and uses colour ink to produce black text when printing in duplex mode. Consequently, until this issue is addressed, the MP530 is difficult for me to recommend. Why? According to Canon technical support, the design flaw is by choice. But more on that later. If I don't duplex print on fast mode, the text looks very good (the problem is duplex text printing). The print quality when duplex text printing looks dotty and washed out. If you turn duplexing off, the text print quality is vastly superior. The difference on fast mode when not duplex printing is quite astounding. Simply using duplex printing makes the text quality significantly worse on fast mode. One might be inclined to believe bad quality from fast mode text printing isn't a big deal (except that the MP530 is quite capable of producing very good text quality even at fast mode--except when duplexing), but this problem also extends to standard printing when duplexing is enabled. That said, in standard mode the problem isn't as pronounced. Basically the MP530 is using the colour inks to produce black text instead of the pigment black ink when printing text in duplex mode. I find this to be extremely bothersome. The problem exists when duplexing text in other printing quality modes, but it's most apparent or obvious when duplexing text on fast mode. You won't find this issue listed in professional reviews from PCMagazine or PC World, simply because the reviewers probably didn't bother to check. For whatever reason, missing this issue is pretty sloppy. If you want good text quality when duplex printing, it's best not to use this printer at all: you're using color ink instead of the black pigment ink--and the text looks vastly inferior as a result. This is from Canon technical support: "The unit was designed to print using "composite black" when duplexing. Composite black is created by using color inks. Unfortunately, we do not have answers as to why Canon USA made this decisions, these decisions are determined by the developers at Canon INC." Absolutely brutal. Composite black text print is vastly inferior to the text print produced when using the black ink cartridge. Canon technical support is basically telling me that duplex black text printing on the MP830 is horrible by design. Oh, plus you have the added bonus of wasting color ink when printing inferior black text while duplexing. Inexcusable Upon inquiring further, this is the reason Canon technical support gives for using color ink to produce black text while duplex printing: "Composite black is least likely to show through the other side of the document, which may occur when using black ink and printing on both sides of the paper. " Then why can I print text on one side, flip the page over manually, print text on the other side, and not experience any issue with ink showing through to the other side? The text quality looks vastly superior when I do this instead of duplexing (I do not experience any issues). It shouldn't be that difficult to allow a printer driver option to use the pigmented black ink with a longer drying time (because I've also been told by Canon pigmented black ink may smear when duplex priting) if that's what the customer would prefer, instead of inflicting poor text quality produced by color inks when duplex black text printing. This issue is very easily reproduced: Print text in fast mode with duplexing on. Then print text in fast mode with duplexing off. Night and day It's not just fast mode that's affected either; it's all print quality modes when duplex printing is enabled. More importantly, all customers have the added bonus (in addition to poor black text quality while duplexing) of wasting color ink when printing black text with the duplex printing option enabled. Canon's response to this is that pigmented black ink will smear, bleed, or show through to the other side when duplex printing. Contrary to Canon's claim, I am not experiencing any issues when printing black text in standard mode on one side of cheap Britex Premier Multiusage paper (20 lb 92 bright . . . I paid less than a dollar for 500 sheets on sale), flipping the page over manually, and printing the other side again on standard. Regardless of whether I've tested using tons of different papers (and I admit I haven't), again, it shouldn't be that difficult to allow a printer driver option to use the pigmented black ink with a longer drying time if that's what the customer would prefer, instead of inflicting poor text quality produced by composite black (created by using color inks) when duplexing black text.Thanks to webslingerac for his review of the MP830. Same issue

• 

  Reviewed by: qrx22

  05-05-07

  Duration of ownership: 2 Months

  Strengths: Suprisingly useful and intuitive software, duplex scanning (via software), fast print & scan, separate ink tanks for colors, paper tray, nice sleek appearance

  Weaknesses:Very heavy, bulky, no built-in networking, start-up takes awhile & makes a loud beep

  Overall Evaluation: SOFTWARE: I love the software. Generally I hate installing more than the bare minimum to get a machine going, but this is one exception. The MP Navigator is intuitive, simple, and guides me through every scanning session like a breeze. Every time before I scan, I open up the MP Navigator window, select the most appropriate setting (magazine, photos, OCR text, etc), and do my scanning. Each page from that scanning session shows up as a thumbnail, which you can double click to do simple manipulations like rotate or crop. After you're done, you can save as image files, convert to PDF (either multipage, or separate PDF files), or export to the bundled OmniPage Pro software for text editing. The software is an even bigger bonus when it comes to ADF scanning. Animated illustrations show you which direction to put the stack of paper. If you have double-sided documents, you can scan one side of the stack, then turn the stack over and feed the other side in, and the software will automatically sort the pages in the correct order using the duplex scanning option. When you're done, the handy thumbnails let you check that the pages are in the correct order before saving, converting, or exporting. PRINTING: Prints are decent for an inkjet. Having separate ink cartridges for each color is a bonus since you only have to replace the color that you run out of. Prints fast on normal mode, pretty good on best quality, and lightening fast on draft mode. It has a slide-out paper tray in the bottom, as well as a paper feeder in the back. COPYING: Lets you enlarge/reduce without having to turn on your computer. SCANNING: This unit, like pretty much all multifunction machines currently on the market, uses a CIS scanning element, meaning you'll get inferior scans if you don't press your document firmly against the glass. I sure miss the days of CCD scanners, which gave crystal clear scans even with textured paper, and still picked up text from books that you can't quite crack open wide enough to lay flat on the scanner. With that said, the scan quality is still very good for a CIS, and much better than the HPs that I had before. LAST WORDS: This machine is bulky and heavy, and it doesn't have built-in networking. Those were the main reasons I took away 1 star. Despite that, I would still highly recommend this unit. Scanning is far superior to the HPs I used previously, even taking into account a dedicated heavy duty professional ADF scanner from HP. What really puts this unit ahead of the competition though, is the software. Whereas HP's bloated software was unhelpful, slow, and occasionally glitchy, Canon's software made my work efficient and easy. To think, I almost didn't want to install the software in the first place!

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Review:

Canon Pixma MP530

With its built-in fax and duplexer, the MP530 handles small-office tasks well.

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