Canon Laser Shot LBP-3000 review

Gallery

Verdict:

The LBP-3000 is slow, has only Windows drivers and isn't ideal if you regularly print graphical documents. It's cheap, small and smart, however, and should prove affordable for light or medium use.

Review Date: 21 Aug 2006

Price when reviewed: inc VAT

Reviewed By: Simon Handby

Our Rating 4 stars out of 5

Review
Specs

Canon's LBP-3000 is the most affordable printer in this test, and it's one of the smallest and smartest looking.

It stores paper in a 150sheet tray that projects from the front, but it's covered by a smoked plastic dust guard that forms the base of the multipurpose feed tray. The printer's output tray is formed by another piece of smoked plastic that can be flipped shut for neatness.

On our Windows XP test computer, Canon's install program threw up a couple of warning messages that some users might find disconcerting. The first warned that Windows Firewall would prevent the printer being shared successfully by default, and it offered to create the necessary exception. The second warned that the installation could not be stopped once started. However, it completed with no hitches, and we were soon ready to print. Canon's driver is friendly enough, but is one of only two in this test that doesn't offer any help with manual duplex (double-sided) printing. It's still possible, but it's easier to make a mistake.

At just 14 pages per minute (ppm), this printer is one of the slowest in the group. It came very close to its rated speed when printing both our 50-page text documents, however. It was about a page per minute slower when printing our mixed-colour document, but it was one of the fastest printers when performing our photo tests.

The LBP-3000's text looked a little less black than the best printers here, but otherwise appeared fine. The printer's graphics were less satisfactory, with some horizontal banding in lighter areas of our prints. In the background to our PowerPoint slides, we could see distinct bands of different dither patterns where there should be a smooth progression of grey shades.

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