electronics Canon PIXMA iP5000 opinions and reviews

Canon PIXMA iP5000

An upgrade to the highly appreciated iP4000, the Canon PIXMA iP5000 is a good all-purpose printer with excellent text and graphic quality though photo prints aren’t as good.

It is very similar to iP4000 with dimensions of 6.7 x 16.5 x 11.3 inches (H x W x D) and weighing 14.9 pounds.

Like iP4000, this also makes use of the five-ink system with the pigment-based and dye-based black inks. The dye-based ink is mainly for photo output. A very irritating feature here is the installation routine which comprises a registration step which you cannot exit.

Two paper trays with a combined capacity of 300 sheets are present. Double-sided printing is also facilitated. There is no parallel port but you will find a USB 1.1 connection for your PC and another USB connector for printing directly from a PictBridge compatible camera.

The major disparity between iP5000 and its predecessor is the 1-picoliter minimum drop size as also the maximum resolution of 9,600 x 2,400-dpi. These changes play a big hand in the improved text and graphics quality even as the picture quality doesn’t quite match them.

Text quality is really good with fonts easily readable even at 4 points. Graphics too are excellent with minor negligible defects. Photo quality could have been better. Monochrome photos showed little tints and there were some colour issues with the other photos.

Coming to the performance, it gives very much mixed results. The business-applications suite needs 16 minutes and 9 seconds while the photo suite is very disappointing at 2 minutes and 6 seconds for 4 x 6-inch photos and 3 minutes and 38 seconds for 8 x 10-inch photos.

Even as the photo quality is a bit of a let down, the good text and graphics quality still make it a worthy all-round printer.