Canon PIXMA iP2500 review

Regular Shopper readers might be forgiven for thinking we're running a spot-the-difference competition between this printer and the iP1800 reviewed in What's New, Shopper July 2007.

Apart from two silver-grey inserts, Canon's PIXMA iP2500 looks identical to the iP1800. The two inkjets share a near-identical specification, too. Canon says the iP2500 can print 22 black pages per minute and 17 in colour, compared to 20 black and 16 colour for the iP1800.

The iP2500 comes with a pack of matt photo paper and Canon's Creative CD, which contains a simple set of webpages. These comprise mostly paper craft projects that should prove a useful diversion for long holidays, but you can freely download similar projects from Epson Europe (www.tinyurl.com/258xa3).

The iP2500 uses a black cartridge and a combined tri-colour cartridge, rather than an individual tank for each colour. The supplied items are easy enough to fit, but last only around two-thirds as long as the highest- capacity replacements the printer will accept. Using the supplied cartridges, print costs are slightly high, but acceptable for a budget printer.

The iP2500 is basic, but for an entry-level printer it's very attractive. There's a simple paper input tray and printed pages drop out of the front. Things can get untidy at the fastest print settings, but most jobs stay neat if you keep an area clear in front of the printer. A small lever under the output slot allows the printer to deal with thicker media such as envelopes, but the printer makes a gentle scraping noise with the lever in either position, even if you're just using paper.

This printer delivers sharp black text at any quality setting and is quite fast. That said, it was only a bit quicker at delivering draft text than the iP1800, which managed 9ppm. It performed almost identically on the mixed text and graphics of our Normal test, and was only significantly faster than the iP1800 at printing photos.

As you might expect for two printers that use the same ink cartridges, the iP2500's output matched the iP1800. Photos, which you can print without borders up to A4 size, were sharp and detailed, but dark colours lacked impact and looked slightly milky, lowering the prints' contrast. Colours in graphics on plain paper also appeared slightly washed out, but they were free of banding or other problems.

This is a decent printer, but it's virtually identical to the iP1800. We would choose the cheaper printer and save £8, or spend another £20 on a printer such as the PIXMA iP4300, which has better performance and lower running costs.