Canon PIXMA iP5200R Photo Printer

This printer guzzles ink like a Hummer drinks gas. I almost ALWAYS use grayscale printing and yet it consistently runs out of one of its 3 expensive color cartridges (which means you have to replace them before printing anything at all). I also have gotten incorrect error messages on numerous occasions - it's a tempermental little bugger.

I get ten times as much ink out of a cartridge for my HP printer, and only need to keep track of two cartridges. I will never buy anything BUT a Hewlett Packard again. I am ready to throw this machine out on the street!

This printer is very convenient in our WiFi household [family with high school and college students, a couple of laptops, a couple of desktops, something different every day]. We used to keep a PC with attached Epson C80 printer on wired LAN. The PC had to be on and the printer had to be on. The print nozzles kept clogging, and Epson told me the solution was to power off the printer when not printing. The old printer kept getting clogged heads because it would only "park" when powered off. So either we had to keep the printer "off" and turn it on/off manually, or go through an ink wasting ritual clean/test/clean/test until the print nozzles unclogged.

Now things are much better... The Canon PIXMA iP5200R is on WiFi, so I don't have to use a PC to "host" the printer. The PIXMA has automatic power on/off, so it turns on when someone sends a print job and turns itself off when not in use. This is very convenient, saves power, and no trouble with the ink/nozzles.

I don't do a lot of extremely technical photography so I can't say how the PIXMA compares to other photo printers. The photos I print look great to me. Text and graphics printing look great too.

I think I'm getting good ink economy compared to other printers. The printer cartridges hold a lot of ink compared to some other brands (more ink per unit cost) and I'm not having to waste a lot of ink in the print nozzle cleaning ritual.

I'm very happy with this printer. I'm only disappointed that Canon discontinued this model, I was going to buy another one for another network setup at remote part-time office.

I originally purchased the Canon PIXMA IP4200 photo printer for use as a color printer (to print my school assignments), with the ability to print photos with some degree of accuracy. The 4200 worked well, but didn't have the ability to print on my home network with multiple platforms, mainly Mac Tiger 10.4 and Windows XP and 2000 Pro at the same time. That was really frustrating and unbelievable. I could not even use an A/B switch; the PIXMAs require a single full-time dedicated USB port. I have used printers from Brother and HP and never had issues printing while sharing across a network, even across multiple platforms. After a lot of effort and patience on my part, Canon agreed to replace it with the PIXMA IP5200R. At first it worked while the USB ports were plugged into a Mac computer, however (using the Ethernet port) with the Windows computers did not print at all. After I changed it around so that the USB port was plugged into a Windows computer, and shared that with other Windows PC's, not the Mac, it worked. I installed the network driver software (via Ethernet) for the Mac to work. I think that downloading the latest drivers from Canon's web-site would be a good idea, not using the driver disk that comes with the printer. It is working now for all five of my home computers, and I am satisfied. One of the main reasons I chose Canon over HP is that I did not like the fact that when I owned an HP printer, when the color cartridge ran out of one of the three inks, the whole cartridge had to be replaced, wasting 2/3 of the cartridge's ink, not to mention the fact that the print head had to be replaced too. Print heads can last a lot longer then the ink tanks. I like the fact that the PIXMA series has five ink tanks, which may sound expensive, but it allows for greater overall efficiency in supply use. I think that many people are complaining about the supply usage, but I believe that what happens when you install a new print head is that it uses almost half the ink just to fill the print head. Subsequent ink tank replacements should "last longer". While the Canon PIXMA series is certainly different then most, I believe it represents a better value then anything on the market.

This printer has been an exercise in frustration. I was very happy with our Epson 200R, but we used it to death and wanted to try an upgrade. I should have bought 2 more of the Epsons.

I like to take pics in low light, and this printer has not yet printed a low light print w/ enough detail. They are all horribly dark, muddy. The details drop out. The most frustrating thing is that the print driver gives very little by way of choice. Whereas the cheaper Epson gave more control over print quality, to adjust brightness the Canon gives three choices: Light Normal andd Dark. "Light" just washes out the picture. And, still, for my lowest light pics, Light is still too too dark. My pics look like MUD.

I read online that i should use the proprietary software to adjust the brightness of my pics. First, i hate the idea that i have to make my photos lighter just so they'll print correctly. Second, the software crashes every single time I get to the final step!

I understand there are various "profiles" i could use to help. Well, i frankly would rather be doing other things than spending an hour to print one photograph. Like taking pictures. I don't want to fool endlessly with settings--I just want a printer that works.

Argh!!!

The first few prints we made with this printer looked ok. I think they were probably brigth, outdoor shots. For anything else this printer has been useless.

Gave 2 stars bc the wireless funtion would be convenient--if only the printer worked correctly!!

Despite what others have reported, I had no problems setting up the printer for both wired and wireless. I do recommend setting it up wired first. My 2nd computer prints via the DLink wireless router with no problems. The power button on the printer is pretty well hidden (black button on a black case) but I discovered the auto power on/off setting which works great, even with wireless.

The duplex feature is great and photos print nicely.

Note, for the wireless set up you do need to know a little about this. If someone set up your wireless for you then you might need them back to configure the SSID (and WEP key if used.)

I have had no problem with ink and have done quite a bit of color printing and still have the original cartridges.