Canon S330 Photo review

There's something about borderless printing that rivals the Pyramids, Gardens of Babylon and The Great Wall for sheer wonder.

We may have seen this miracle a number of times now, but it never ceases to amaze us how an inkjet can print so accurately that not a drop of ink slips over the edge. And an even greater wonder is that Canon has squeezed such a magnificent feature into a printer costing just £74!

Now we're not going to lie and say the S330's photos rival a high-street developers for quality, because they don't. If you scrutinise them, there's no denying a certain amount of graininess and loss of detail. But then again, put one of these photos side by side with a normal photo and you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference without careful examination - and after all, most people will just enjoy the picture, not zoom in to examine the dots.

The S330 has three more things in its favour. The first is the lightfastness of its prints: up to 25 years, no less! The second is the natural colours, although you'll have to tick Canon's Photo Optimizer setting (annoyingly hidden away in a tabbed control) for best results. The third is speed. Considering the quality of the print-outs, and the cost of the printer, a wait of just four minutes for an A4 photo is exceptional, while a traditional 6x4in photo emerges after less than two minutes.

It's quite a nippy performer in other areas, too. A bog-standard letter appeared after just 15 seconds, while dropping the quality to Draft produced results of around 11 pages per minute. The S330's draft quality is rather poor, though, with faded text and blurred edges around characters. Thankfully, the standard mode is much better. Blacks looked black, and even though there was some bleeding it was barely noticeable. At 4ppm, you don't have to wait long for the results.

If quality is your priority, though, then we advise using Canon's high-resolution paper. On this, the S330 was almost flawless. The text rivalled lasers for sharpness, graphics looked great and lines were immaculately reproduced. The only slight problem we noticed was that two greys that should have matched - one a bitmap, one a tinted box - appeared differently.

This printer does have some other niggling faults. The output tray is all too easy to knock off. There's no USB cable included in the box, no paper sensor (this tells printers whether they're printing on plain paper, for example, and adjusts the settings accordingly) and no automatic cartridge alignment.

The latter omission is a particular pain, because the S330 goes through cartridges faster than Robbie Williams goes through celebrity girlfriends. Each black cartridge lasts for just 130 pages, while the colour cartridge is little better at 170 pages. The only plus side is their affordability: £6.45 for black, £14.09 for colour. This works out at 5p and 8.3p per page respectively, which compares reasonably with other budget printers.

Then again, Canon is generous enough to include Photoshop Elements (albeit version 1 not 2), and the S330 has several other factors in its favour. It's quiet, doesn't take up much desk space and - once you've installed the cartridges - it's easy to use. When you consider the generally impressive quality and remember just how little you're paying for this printer, no-one can deny that the S330 Photo is a bargain.

Author: Tim Danton