The Next Step in the Evolution of Photo Printing

To quote Canon:

"PIXMA represents Canon's next steps in the evolution of photo printing: a state-of-the- art synthesis of the high quality and great speed. The word PIXMA combines "Pixel," or the core of quality digital images, and "Maximum" symbolizing the highest standard of performance. The "X" joining the two signifies the critical link between input and output highly sought by most photo consumers today."

The Pixma iP4000 replaces last year's i860 model and will retail for an estimated $149.99. The iP4000 is Canon's fastest consumer inkjet printer to date with print speeds up to 25 ppm in black and 17 ppm in color. It blazes through 4x6" borderless photo prints in just 36 seconds. And Canon did not stop there, they incorporated their new FINE print head, second paper tray and a built-in duplexer.

The iP4000 features Canon's ContrastPLUS 5-color ink system. In addition to the normal Cyan, Magenta and Yellow inks Canon has added a dye-based photo-grade black ink tank for photo printing to deliver improved image contrast and sharpness when used on photo paper. And it also includes a pigment-based black ink tank to produce crisp, fast, high-quality black text. As with all Canon ThinkTank printers, each of the iP4000's five ink tanks are individually replaceable which avoids the necessity of throwing out a multi-color cartridge when only one of the colors is exhausted.

Direct photo printing is made possible without a computer thanks to the front-mounted PictBridge USB port. PictBridge is an industry standard for digital printers, digital cameras and digital camcorders that allows the direct printing of images from PictBridge compatible digital cameras and camcorders to a PictBridge compatible printer, regardless of brand or manufacturer, without need of a computer.

Compatible with both Windows and Mac platforms (Windows 95, 98, 98SE ,NT, XP, 2000, Me and Mac OS (9.x) and Mac OS X v 10.2.1 to 10.3.x.), the iP4000 photo printer also includes the Easy-PhotoPrint (Windows/Mac), Easy-WebPrint (Windows only) and PhotoRecord (Windows only) imaging and printing software.

Pixma iP4000 Major Features:

• ContrastPLUS 5-color ink system: CMY inks plus photo-grade black ink for photos and pigment-based black ink for high-quality text

• Dual paper path with built-in duplex (two-sided) printing

• Fast printing: 4 x 6" borderless photos in about 36 seconds

• FINE high-performance print heads (Full-photolithography Inkjet Nozzle Engineering)

• 1,856 nozzles for exceptional speed and quality

• 2-picoliter MicroFine ink drops with 4800 x 1200 dpi resolution

• Borderless printing in 4 x 6", 5 x 7", 8.5 x 11" sizes

• Individually replaceable ink tanks lowers your printing costs

• Computer-less PictBridge Direct USB printing

• Both USB and IEEE 1284 Parallel printer interfaces

Mechanics & Performance

The iP4000 is a stylish looking, blue-gray and silver colored printer that will turn your workspace into a high-performance print shop. This is a fairly compact (16 x 11 x 7 inch) and lightweight printer that can even be placed up against a wall thanks to it front-loading and front-exiting paper path.

Setup is straight forward and can be accomplished by following the steps outlined on the included big page of directions. You first install the removable print head assembly, unwrap and install the five ink tanks, install the driver software, connect the input cable and turn on the printer. Installation on my Windows XP machine went without a hitch even connected through a USB hub. It took a total of about fifteen minutes to unpack, setup and be ready to make the first print.

The iP4000 has two paper paths; a top-mounted auto sheet loader and an internal cassette in the bottom. Both the upper and lower paper trays can support up to 150 sheets of letter-size plain paper as well as 4x6" photo paper, 5x7" photo paper, letter-size photo paper and #10 envelopes.

You can load different media in the top and bottom trays and then select it with either the printer driver or front-mounted pushbutton. Both top and bottom trays can be loaded with plain paper, it can automatically switch between them when one runs out of paper.

The ultimate paper saver - the iP4000 features a built-in duplexer. It can easily print on both sides of plain paper or 2-sided photo papers. This will cut your paper waste in half when printing out web pages and documents and allows you to create your own "ready to be stapled" photo albums, newsletters or product catalogs.

The iP4000 features both a USB and IEEE 1284 bidirectional parallel printer port which means in addition to supporting all of today's popular operating systems, it can also be used with Windows 95 and NT computers as well.

Located on the front is the PictBridge USB port for direct printing from many of today's digital cameras and video camcorders.

Users with a PictBridge-enabled digital camera connect to the printer using their standard USB download cable. Compatible digital cameras are now available from Canon, Casio, Fuji, HP, Konica, Kyocera, Minolta, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, Pentax, Ricoh, Samsung and Sanyo.

When the camera and printer are connected, the camera's color LCD is used to select the image(s) you want and what options to print them with. Usually it's as simple as select the photo and press the camera's OK button. (Shown here are the PictBridge menu screens on a Canon Digital Rebel SLR).