Canon Pixma iP4500 review

There's increasingly little to choose between specialist photo printers and the best standard inkjets.

Canon's Pixma iP4500, the cheapest printer here, is proof of that. It uses the four standard CMYK ink colours for photo printing, instead of the six or more used by most printers here, but its photos were among the best. A fifth pigment black cartridge is used for document prints on plain paper. Its only direct- printing feature is a PictBridge port.

Plain-text and mixed-colour document prints on plain paper were the best here. Charts and colour graphics were accurate and solidly coloured, while standard black text was sharp enough to rival most laser printers. Print speeds were quick. Standard text documents printed at 9.8ppm and two 10x8in photo prints printed in one minute and 49 seconds, which is the shortest time here. Everyday document printing is made easier by extra features such as a built-in automatic duplexer and front and rear paper trays capable of holding 300 sheets of 80gsm A4 between them.

This four-ink printer has lower print costs than the multi-ink specialist photo printers that make up the rest of the group. A mixed-colour A4 page costs just 5p. Meanwhile, 6x4in photo costs were among the cheapest here at 17.5p including both ink and paper.

High-resolution photos looked great. Photo prints at default settings didn't suffer from any odd colour tints. Skin tones looked natural in most photos. Dark and light backgrounds were reproduced accurately, and our challenging low-contrast test image was clear.

Serious photo-printing enthusiasts may be disappointed by the lack of colour adjustment options in the driver. There are a handful of colour- and image-optimisation effects, but there's no facility to load ICM colour profiles to ensure that your prints match the colours of the image displayed on your monitor.

The iP4500 is cheap to buy and run. If you want good-looking photos without the expense and poor document quality of most specialist printers, this is an ideal compromise. Epson's R360 gives you more control over the final image, but this is a great budget alternative.