Canon BJC-4650 review

Canon's latest colour bubblejet printer is something of a treat for the average home as it can handle A3 paper a must for, among others, budding draughtspeople doing GCSE Technology courses.

Based on the time-honoured bubblejet format, it sports an almost straight paper path with a single bin atop the machine and the standard Canon pull-out paper-catching tray. The input bin accepts up to 100 sheets of 75gsm paper, or a 10mm stack. The machine's footprint on the desktop is quite large (as you'd expect from an A3 printer) - it's 17.6x10x8.5in without the paper trays extended, and a further foot or so deeper with them pulled out. Controls are kept to a minimum - there's just a power button and a paper feed button on the unit, together with a couple of small LEDs to indicate power and error conditions. The look of the whole thing is very Canon - neat and businesslike.

Setting up the BJC-4650 is straightforward. Its two ink tanks are a doddle to install and change, while its power and data connections are accessible and logically placed. As is usual with Canon drivers, there are no problems installing them and, indeed, none in use. For most people, setting everything to Automatic and letting the drivers sort out the nitty-gritty will produce acceptable results.

Purists will appreciate the alignment and test facilities included in the drivers, together with all the other functions for setting output quality and so forth.

Frankly, this is not the fastest-printing inkjet we've ever come across. In fact, it feels very slow in comparison to an Epson Stylus Color 600 or 800 or the HP DeskJet 870 when it's in Best mode. It speeds up appreciably in Standard mode - but only with the concomitant degradation in quality. Here too, it lacks the punch and vibrancy of the Epson offerings. However, it's well ahead of the Olivetti JP 792 - also reviewed in this issue - in terms of quality of output.

Textual output to plain paper is very good, with very little sign of splatter or ink-creep, rivalling a 600dpi laser for blackness and crispness. Its graphical output, though, lags behind the likes of the Lexmark 5700 and Epson 600 or better - both of which have maximum resolutions that are around twice what the Canon can offer. Here again, though, it's horses for courses. Most A3 prints aren't meant to be viewed up close anyway, so pin-sharp resolution isn't the order of the day in a printer like this.

And its prime point of uniqueness and major selling point must be that it takes A3 paper and prints to within millimetres of the edges, and here, none of the Epsons can come close for the price.

Most people will have little need of an A3 printer, but for those that have, the market is somewhat barren - at least it was before Canon launched the BJC-4650. At its VAT-inclusive list price of £328, it's a capable enough, if somewhat slow printer that produces tidy output which doesn't quite match the best inkjet output available. If you need an A3 printer, this one's a no-brainer. Go for it.