CANON PIXMA iP3000 review

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Verdict:

The iP3000 has many advanced paper-handling features, and doesn't require optional inks to print decent photos. It's cheap to run, can print CDs, and even if you'll never use its imperfect duplex printing it's still the best printer here.

Review Date: 18 Feb 2005

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Our Rating 5 stars out of 5

ExpertReviews Award

Review
Specs

Like the PIXMA iP2000, the iP3000 has two paper inputs.

Each will accept 150 plain sheets, but can also be used for headed or coated paper. The iP3000 is also the only printer in this group to offer duplex printing as standard.

Duplex printers can automatically print on both sides of a sheet of paper. This is useful for printing product manuals or other booklet-style documents. It can also halve your paper use, making printing cheaper and less wasteful.

On duplex jobs inkjets suck in each printed page to print the second side, but must pause between passes to allow the first side to dry. This considerably slows print times, and with the iP3000 we noticed that identical print settings produced fainter documents when using the duplex option.

The iP3000 can also print directly on to specially coated CDs and DVDs. This makes it ideal for decorating your home movie DVDs or labelling backup discs.

The iP3000 is simple to install, and its head alignment routine is automatic. It uses a separate tank for each ink colour, but unlike Epson's Stylus C66 this helps it to achieve particularly low running costs. The DeskJet 5740 is marginally cheaper when printing in mono, but the PIXMA has the lowest colour costs here.

We noticed a slight glitch in the iP3000's draft text, and ran our 50-page test at a higher quality setting. This gave a slower result than the other PIXMAs, but the iP3000 was faster on all our other tests. Draft aside, quality was extremely good, and although photos couldn't match the DeskJet 5740's six-ink results, they were the best from any printer using its standard inks.

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