electronics Canon PIXMA iP1500 opinions and reviews

Canon PIXMA iP1500

The Canon PIXMA iP1500 doesn’t come with great speed capabilities and neither is its print quality extraordinary. But for a no-frills printer it gives the customers just about enough value for money.

Being economical, all you will find in this four-color printer (black and tricolour cartridges) are the basic options. So there is no memory card slot or PictBridge-compatible USB port for printing directly from a camera. Also lacking is an output tray. Thus you will have to be extra careful while taking prints as the papers would be popping right onto your desk. That’s not the end of the story. The cartridges used are relatively small. As a result you will have to replace them quite often especially if you take prints frequently.

As expected, the performance wasn’t extraordinary but it cannot be called tardy either. Text printing takes 6.3 pages per minute and graphic printing 1.2 ppm. Printing a 4 x 6 photo takes 2 minutes and 30 seconds while an 8 x 10 averages 5 minutes and 55 seconds. Not bad compared to some others in the ink jet family. The speed of 29 minutes and 53 seconds for business applications suite isn’t highly disappointing either.

The overall print quality can be termed as more than acceptable. Colour photo prints were very good with slight gloominess observed only in the monochrome pictures. Overall photo quality remains sharp. Text results are good but stylized fonts were imperceptible in small fonts.

Graphics are not the greatest with slight lack of clarity but not bad enough to make you furious.

Designed in grey and black, it is reasonably smart in appearance. The dimensions of 416 x 207 x 165 mm shouldn’t be a cause for concern at all. Prints can be taken on paper up to the legal-size.

iP1500 ships with the setup poster and a user manual containing that essential basic information along with the software package.

Canon’s software suite contains the Easy-PhotoPrint for assisting you in photo printing, PhotoRecord to be utilized for printing photo albums, and last but not the least, Easy-WebPrint for taking prints from the web. Note that no photo-editing software is available.

Due to the small ink cartridges, Canon PIXMA iP1500 is restricted to light-duty use. However, with a blend of good speed and quality, this compact, home printer can be made use of for your everyday printing tasks and occasional photo printing too.