Canon Pixma iP4500 Photo Inkjet Printer (2171B002) Reviews

• Outstanding printer, great value

  
  By A34VRVI4CSI5RQ on 2007-11-01
  I had a Canon BubbleJet BJC-4200 long ago, and after that printer I was very hesitant to even consider another Canon printer. When my most recent printer died, an HP DeskJet 970cse, I needed to find a good printer that could print duplex and produce quality output. After reading many, many reviews I decided to give Canon another chance. I am very glad that I did so.
  
  The Pixma iP4500 arrived in a huge box, and as it turns out it needed the space. This is a larger printer than I expected, and as a result I had to rearrange my desk to find room for it. That's a small oversight on my part. The printer itself is an unassuming-looking box of a machine, though it resembles more of a printer when the paper trays are populated.
  
  Setup was easy and straightforward, though I do recommend using the "getting started" insert before setting everything up. Though setting everything up is relatively self-explanatory, it is helpful to see the illustration of what to do in order before making the leap. Overall, setup took maybe 20-30 minutes once the parts were all out of the box and everything was set up.
  
  Once configured, installing the drivers is simple. Drop in the CD, follow the prompts, and turn on the printer at the right time. No fuss.
  
  Once set up and powered on, the printer is ready to go to work. I print a majority of my things in duplex mode so I tweaked the driver configuration to make it the default, after which the setting is more or less invisible. Everything in the driver configuration is very easy to find, straightforward, and simple.
  
  There are two ways to feed paper into the iP4500. There is a top-loader which is the default paper source and there is a front-loading paper tray ("cassette" according to Canon's documentation). Heavier papers such as card stock should be loaded from the top-loader.
  
  So, how does this printer perform? I'll break it down into two parts, speed and quality.
  
  Speed - this is a relatively fast printer! Feeding it a print job that conists of a two-sided black and white print this printer can churn out the pages, including the dry time for the front page, in about 20 seconds. Granted, this is my experience and your mileage may vary but it's a good starting point from which to base your evaluation of the speed. My previous printer would take at least a minute to print the very same documents, and it still couldn't keep up when in draft mode. For photo printing it churns out a full-page 8.5"x11" borderless photo in roughly 45 seconds.
  
  Quality - what good is speed without quality? This printer backs it up. The text and basic image quality is acceptable, though it could be a touch better. This is not noticeable in day-to-day print jobs. On photo printing, though, this printer is an absolute showstopper. The photos it prints, on photo paper, are better than most magazine prints and could easily be used for photo studio gallery shots.
  
  It would be nice if the printer actually had a USB cable in the box, but this is a small thing.
  
  Overall, this is a high-quiality, high-performance printer that is sure to please even the staunchest of critics. It is fast, creates beautiful output, and is very easy to set up.
  
  

• Claus Wolf's MyMac.com Review

  
  By A1VLVWTLV3LVHR on 2008-02-16
  Canon labels the Pixma iP4500 as a premium photo and document printer, and when I bought it in early January my main purchasing criteria was high quality photo prints and the ability to print on DVDs and CDs.
  
  The printer itself looks tremendously stylish. Next to my iMac it looks as if the designers of the printer had been sitting in front of an iMac when coming up with the design. The printer looks great, which kind of is important as it is located together with my iMac in the living room. The only downside to the good looks is that the shiny black plastic attracts dust like a magnet.
  
  One of the many up-sites to this printer is that it has two paper trays. The bottom tray sticks out about 10 cm (4 inch), when you expand it to hold A4 paper, but that is a small price to pay, considering that this way you do not have to store paper in the top tray. The top tray easily adjusts to hold all sorts of paper sizes from 4x6 photo paper to A4 or letter size. A button on the main unit lets you select the tray you wish to use and I found this a real benefit.
  
  I like the printer driver, though I haven't a lot to compare it to. I find it easy to use and flexible enough to fulfill my beginner's needs.
  
  Photo Quality
  Comparing photo quality is really hard, as I do not have a bunch of similar printers here, for which I could compare print outs side by side. So I will just simply say that the print outs I have made on glossy photo paper look stunning. So stunning indeed that we have a few of them hanging in our living room already.
  
  The printer uses 5 separate ink tanks, which I am being told is good for photo quality, and i am happy to believe that. What it really means to me is that if one color is out, I can just replace that one color rather than an entire combined cartridge. In my opinion the environmental and bank account friendly option.
  Placing a photo print out next to pictures I had "developed" by a popular German photo printing service I must say I personally would consider the Pixma iP4500 print outs almost a bit nicer, at least the smaller sizes, though it greatly depends on the photo paper you use.
  
  The first photo paper I tried obviously wasn't of the best quality, I have to admit, and thus you end up seeing some tracks from where the printer transported the paper. That is rather unfortunate as it takes away from the otherwise superb impression the pure print-quality gives me.
  
  Of course I tried better quality photo paper as well, and those tracks weren't there. So you will definitely want to invest in good photo paper to get the best prints, but I would assume you knew that already. I also find that investing in photo paper with a higher weight per square meter makes the prints feel more like "real photos", but again I would think that you all knew that already.
  
  When printing a normal photo at A4 (about letter size) I notice a minute amount of striping in one area, but I need to get within a few inches of the A4 print in order to see the striping and it is only noticeable in an area of grey clouds. Looking at the image from a normal distance, I cannot see much of a difference. I printed that image last night and the first thing I am going to do is buy an A4 frame, that photo is going to hang in my office.
  
  Black & White
  We used the printer to print the inlays and envelopes for our wedding invitations, while black and white only, the speed with which these print outs were completed was purely amazing and the quality was perfect for my impression. Our friends and family were impressed to have professionally printed, yet personalized invitation cards.
  
  In my opinion the result was extremely good and I would be hard pressed to find any fault with the output. Comparing it to my three year old laser printer, I would say that the quality was better and the print outs happened much quicker.
  
  Speed
  From a pure specification point of view the printer can deliver a 10x15 borderless photo in 9600x2400 dpi in about 21 seconds. Documents can be printed with a speed of up to 31 pages per minute (b/w) and 24 pages per minute (color).
  Printer speeds are hard to really achieve, as they are measured under very specific conditions that we endusers normally don't see. I would think they are more a guide value than anything else and my impression of this printer is that it is quick, very quick.
  
  Did I sit next to my printer and have it print a 30 page document to measure its speed? No I didn't. Did I stop the speed of printing a 4x6 borderless photo? Yes, I did, it took about 35 seconds, which is considerably slower, but when do you start to measure? When you push the print button, or when the printer makes its first noise of transporting the paper? I did measure from pressing the print button to finished photo and I don't think that speed is anything to complain about.
  
  PictBridge
  A nice feature is the ability to print directly from my digital camera. I have a Canon A700 which is PictBridge compatible and I plugged it into the printer just to see whether that would work. I was pleased to say the least - the print outs just worked and while I don't think I would trust my Mom to print a high quality photo from within iPhoto, I think that she'd have no issue getting it done this way.
  
  This isn't going to be a feature, I am going to use every day, not even every week or month, but I definitely can see its usefulness.
  
  Printing on CDs & DVDs
  One of my requirements for buying this printer was that it should print on CDs and it does. You get a little plastic tray, in which you place the CD/DVD and you fire up the CD Label Print Application to design the label you would like to print.
  While the print outs are of decent to good quality, I have a bunch of gripes about this particular feature.
  
  The biggest complaint I have is the software not allowing you to adjust the inner circle to be smaller. The DVDs I bought have a fairly large printable area (see photo), but the software cannot adjust to this larger printable area and thus leaves you with a large white inner circle. I already adjusted the circle as much as was possible to reduce the remaining white area, but it is still rather disappointing to get your DVDs, see that they really look good, but still have that white circle in the middle. There is also a bit of white space at the outer edge, which is less than a millimeter and doesn't bother me too much.
  
  What you see here is that it tells you that the inner circle cannot be smaller than 17mm, but I can only get it to be 33mm. So text and reality just do not match up resulting in the following print out:
  
  The software unfortunately is also not quite intuitive, no tool tips for icons for a starter. My first attempts at printing a DVD saw me resize an image to cover the entire disk, but when I printed this image to disc, the software seemed to have magically reduced the image and printed it much smaller than what it was showing me and thus left a very ugly white space on the disc. So while the software is pretending to be WYSIWYG, it really is more like what you see is what you might get (WYSIWYMG).
  
  If you set a background image that problem isn't there and t works quite well, you get additional design elements like text, rectangle, circles and the lot - but all in all the CD Label Print software leaves me wholly unimpressed as "old fashioned" looking, difficult to use, not quite ready for more complex label designs and most importantly not quite flexible enough, where it does count.
  
  All in all
  I think it is tremendously difficult to evaluate a product you have purchased yourself. After all, if you bought it you want to make yourself believe that you made the right decision, objectivity can be hard to come by. I have tried hard to be as objective as possible, but I might be a bit harsh in my verdict.
  
  All in all I am very happy with the printer. The print outs that I have shown to friends and family have impressed, I personally like both the photo and standard print quality. I am sure there is better, but I know there is worse.
  There is that issue with the CD Label Software not being flexible enough and this I find annoying as it was one of the main reasons for purchasing this printer.
  
  On the whole I am really happy with the printer and would recommend it to others. Is there room for improvement, yes there is a little, and I hope that Canon will address it as much as is possible with software updates. From a reviewer rating point of view - this is a very decent product, but also look at the competition.
  
  If you were to buy this printer, I am sure you wouldn't regret it - thus I am happy to award:
  MyMac.com Rating: 4 out of 5 [...]
  
  

• Never a more frustrating printer experience

  
  By A29LVMZTU24CC2 on 2008-02-28
  I fight with this printer all the time just trying to get it to recognize printer cartridges. Canon decided to try to thwart 3rd party cartridge use by wasting all of our time and money adding security features on the ink carts themselves and in the printer software. This gives me headaches weekly even if I am using Canon's own cartridges. Sometimes it just doesn't want to recognize them and the only fix seems to be to "reset" by completely unplugging the printer and waiting TEN MINUTES. Very convenient, Canon.
  
  Also, the printer's ink-level feature seems to have no notion of how much ink is actually in the cartridges. I wasted at least 3 perfectly good and very expensive cartridges until I figured out this must be based on some average use figure Canon invented that doesn't seem to favor your wallet. When I finally do get it to print the quality is fine but not worth all the frustration.
  
  Canon seems to have decided to make printers in their best interest and not the consumer. This is the last Canon printer I will ever buy. What an anti-consumer nightmare. Shame on you, Canon.
  
  
  
  

• Watch out for the bad chip in ink tank.

  
  By AHS6PX6H22WW1 on 2008-01-03
  My review is for IP4300. But the problem could be applied to IP4500 since IP4200, IP4300 and IP4500 all use the same ink cartridge.
  
  ***********************************************************
  History: I am very happy with my previous Canon S750 inkjet printer. Specifically, Canon inkjet has been one of the most easy-to-refill printer. The inkhead is wearing out under 3 years heavy use. So, I bought the IP4300 to replace the S750. Starting from IP4200, Canon added chip to each ink tank to prevent the printer from using any user-refilled ink tank. There are work-around for people to still use refilled ink tank with IP4200/IP4300 (not sure about IP4500).
  
  Problem: For my brand new IP4300, after 1 month of use, the printer started to complain that cyan ink tank (not refilled, the original one that came with the printer) was not recognized. So, I had to open the lid, take out the cyan ink tank and put it back to the tank slot again. The printer would then recognize the cyan ink tank. After 1 more week use, the printer just could not recognize the cyan ink tank anymore. Took the cyan ink tank out and put it back would not work.
  
  Investigation: I searched the Canon web site, but could not find any useful infor to solve this problem. I then searched the web and realized quite some people had the same problem with IP4200 or M500. Based on other people's feedbacks, it seems the chip on the cyan ink tank is defact. So, I call the Canon support. The tech support "seems to familiar with" this kind of problem. He quickly proposes that the cyan ink tank may be bad. So he send me a new cyan ink tank with fedex 2-day shipping. I put the new cyan ink tank in and the printer works fine now.
  
  Asssessment:
  Pro: I am happy with IP4300's performance, it prints fast, it does duplex printing automatically, it gives out great photo print, it has two seperate paper trays to ease the loading of plain paper and photo paper, it has 5 different ink tanks that can be easily re-filled and there are quite some vendors to supply IP4200/IP4300/IP4500 inks for refilling.
  
  Con: It's too bad that the printer just stops if not all 5 ink tanks are installed.
  I still don't know how often the chip in the ink tank will go bad (reliability issue?).
  
  *****************************
  The is an incremental update after owning IP4300 for 3 months (IP4300 and IP4500 are similar). Canon adds chip to each ink cartridge to scare people away from refilling the cartridge. However, it's fairly easy to work-around that chip. I have successfully refilled the ink cartridges and I am able to disable the printer from complaining about the refilled cartridges . The biggest surprise: The 3rd party ink produces beautiful photo prints also (really can not tell it's not from Cannon's own ink). Well, this credit should go to the ink provider, not to Cannon though.
  
  Given that I am able to control my ink cost by refilling ink for my IP4300, I definitely recommend this powerful IP4300/IP4500 printers to friends.
  
  
  

• An excellent printer

  
  By A3IB2QQ9NTYJC0 on 2007-12-03
  A previous reviewer has covered most of my impressions about this printer, so I will only highlight the main ones. Overall, this is an excellent printer. It is a little large, when all the trays are fully extended (h=13.5", depth = 21', width 17.5"), which could be a problem for users with limited space. However, one does not need to use both trays (at least not at all times), so it is possible to reconfigure it so that it can fit better into limited space. Having two trays is handy, since it makes it easier to switch between paper of difference sizes or qualities.
  
  Setting up the printer is fairly straightforward, though somewhat time-consuming, in part because it spends about 12 minutes calibrating itself as part of the setup. The instructions are ok, but the accompanying informational book is only fair. Some aspects of the printer use are not addressed, so one has to make educated guesses to have the printer do certain things. Once operational, the printer is fast, capable of two-sided output, and produces high quality printing. Text on plain paper is very good, though on close inspection one can see a little bleeding of the ink. It's about as good as any nonlaser text I've seen, be it HP, Canon, or Epson. Photographs are spectacular, with brilliant colors, and very high resolution. Overall, this is an excellent choice if you are looking for a good general purpose printer, capable of producing fine text and photographs at high speed.
  
  
• Good printer for the price
  By A26624KSJ3FBMZ on 2007-11-15
  After much deliberating between brands and features, I decided to go with a medium priced printer for my general purpose printing and some photo printing.
  
  When the printer arrived I was a little surprised too at how big the box was but the printer still fits nicely on a standard stand.
  
  Setup is a snap. Install the Printer Head, he Cartridges, install the driver and plug it in. That's it. I am happy to see that Canon provides 64bit drivers for most of their printers now so it was not problem on my Vista 64 bit machine.
  
  The driver naturally automatically installs selections for most Canon papers and printing a Borderless 4x6 using the Canon 4x6 Glossy Plus Paper resulted in pretty good colors in comparison to my calibrated monitor. I do not recommend to have the driver manage colors, let the Software do it (like Photoshop) it's just doing a better job at it.
  
  Overall, I think it's a great value and a good and fairly fast printer.
  The added bonus of having 2 trays (I use the cassette for plain paper) saves me time in switching paper around.
  
  
• Canon Photo Pixma 4500 Great Photos Fast
  By A1XBEHNPWT1WA8 on 2007-09-17
  I received the Printer very fast from the Vendor (3days) at a Great Price. This is my second Photo Printer and I have to say the Best I have ever used. Set up was super easy, within 45 minutes I was up and Ready to Print, I grabed 2 pictures and Printed them as 5x7 Prints. They printed in 40 seconds WOW Very sharp and Clear with no running or smearing of colors, I am amazed at the speed and the quality of the Prints for a little over 100.00 This was a Great investment for a Color Injet Printer. Look no Further and Buy this one You will not be disappointed!!!
  
  
• Canon ip4500 is excellent
  By A2FXIX7BAVKQI on 2007-10-30
  This printer is amazing. It is fast, produces accurate color and is easy to use. I like that it turns off automatically when not in use. It has many features, such as automatic calibration, that I expected to find only in much more expensive printers.
  
  
• Canon Pixma IP4500
  By A2CKR7APRGHUIA on 2007-10-26
  Great Printer. Prints very high quality pictures and documents.
  Default settings for Duplex (double sided) printing are very slow though. The printer waits about 45 seconds for the ink to dry before printing on the other side.
  
  To fix this you need to go to Printer properties / Maintenance / Custom Settings and slide the Ink Drying Wait Time all the way over to Short.
  
  
• Amazing printing for $100
  By A2EVSUGZG3K4DA on 2008-02-12
  I don't normally write a notes to people about a product but I just have to tell you all about my new Photo Printer.
  After months of research and reading reviews and product testing etc. I settled on a new Canon Pixma iP4500.
  After printing Two photos I am truly in awe and amazement at the Power of a $100 inkjet printer.
  I own a few other Canon products, a Canon CanoScan 8400F, and a Canon MiniDV Camcorder. I have not owned a Canon Pinter however since the early 1990's when I used a Bubblejet printer.
  
  The iP4500 retails for $130 but I got it on sale from Amazon for $99. It came with free shipping and Its amazing I placed the order Feb 2nd and It was delivered on Feb 6th. It has 5 individual Ink Tanks. I had been leaning towards an Epson RX595
  all-in-one printer for the last 6 months but I kept being drawn to the new Canon line every time I visited Staples. I really did not need a Printer/Scanner/Copier thinga-majig... I just needed a decent photo printer. There is the standard C, M, Y. and then a black, and another Black which is Pigment Black. I learned later the other black is Dye Black. All I know is that the two Blacks are used for different things, the Dye Black is for great Photos and the Pigment Black is for great sharp quality text. I had leaned towards the Epsons because of the 6 ink tanks: with the CMYK and then Photo Cyan and Photo Magenta. But I have to tell you that this printer does a darn good job with the colors it has. One very cool feature I did not know about is the iP4500 has two paper paths. There is a Rear tray that can hold up to 50 sheets of paper and a Cassette tray that can hold 150 sheets of paper. I decided I would use the Rear tray for photo paper and the Cassette for Plain paper. I can switch with the push of a button on the printer itself or with the software.
  
  I have been using a HP Deskjet 960C forever. It was used primarily for business graphics but I often tried to print photos with it but never got the best results I had hoped for. It took a lot of tinkering to get a decent Photo print from the HP. I am sure HP's newer printers are great but I am tired of all the 2 cartridge printers, I hated running out of blue and having to replace the whole tri color cart. Even if these Individual Ink tanks may not hold as much ink, at least when Blue runs out, I can just go buy blue.
  
  About the photos... I found two pictures of my new kitties. I had edited these pics for 4x6 size and set print res to 266dpi. I adjusted the curves and played with the saturation to try and make the odd colors level out. I own a Nikon Coolpix digital camera which I've used for 6 years, although its showing its age, it still takes decent photos. I did some basic sharpening and got rid of the red eye. I use Adobe Photoshop CS (v8) and set the image to print. Using the Canon IJ Print Utility I set the pic to high quality photo glossy paper. I have some 4x6 photo glossy paper I got last Christmas, not Canon brand, but it works. I put the paper in the rear tray and set it to print in Photoshop. Here is the most amazing part... A FULL COLOR 4x6 Photo was printed in LESS than 20secs!!!! I could not believe it. My old HP would take 2-3 minutes for a 4x6 Photo especially with Glossy paper. The Image was dry already and did not smudge. The ink drops are so tiny. I had to pull out a Loop and look through it to see the pixels. They are that small... I normally am used to pixelated photos. But this photo at just 266dpi res showed NO VISIBLE pixelation!
  
  Now the main thing I did not like about this iP4500 is the lengthy Print head alignment process. It took me 3 sheets of paper wasted and the Alignment used a bunch of blue and black ink. I do not know why, but it took over 15 minutes for the printer. The 2nd thing I did not like is the CD that comes with the printer allegedly has some good software on it but It won't load on my Mac. The only thing that my Mac saw on the iP4500 CD was the Printer Driver and an Electronic Manual. So if you are wanting a Printer combo software pack, you won't get anything with this printer.
  
  Of course, I have come to expect that USB printer cables do not come with Printers now a days. But I just don't understand why for a few bucks more these companies cannot put a basic cable in there. These Printers should be good to go right out of the box. Luckily my old HP had a USB2.0 cable which I connected to the USB2.0 port on my Mac and then the Mac OSX saw the printer right away. I am using OSX Tiger 10.4.11 on my main Mac a MDD Dual G4. I wish my Mac mini could hook up to the iP4500 as well. But I do 95% of my photos and graphics with the G4.
  
  Sorry for a lengthy review. But I was just amazed and hoped telling someone they might consider a Canon printer.
  
  
• Ink Catridge Problem
  By A3JW843NOAOJ7O on 2007-12-05
  When you read this, please keep in mind all of the other reveiws. I bought my printer this past October. This is a great printer. I'm glad I got it. I'll keep it for a long time because it does what I need. I print 4x6 photos in standard mode and they look very good. The printer used little ink compared to the old Canon i850 I had. I can print documents on both sides and save paper.
  
  I've printed prints and documents with no problems unitl this week. I had a problem with the yellow ink cartridge. I got an error message and the "15 flashes" error code. That means the printer could not read the cartridge's chip and if it can't read the chip, the printer will not print anything.
  
  I reseated the catridge several times with no luck. I installed a new cartridge and it worked fine. The old cartridge is still 3/4 full of ink.
  
  I'm mad. I send an email to Canon support explaining what's happening to my printer. Within hours, Canon sends me an email apologizing for the problem and tells me a new yellow cartridge is on the way; UPS 2-day Air. And if this doesn't fix the problem, the printer is covered under an "Instant Exchange" warranty. I can't be mad anymore. Problem solved. It still calls for 5 stars.
  
  
  
  
  
• Softwar problems with Canon iP4500 printer
  By A2E8W09TI2E6NC on 2008-02-13
  My new Canon iP4500 printer works great -- with the Canon software that accompanies their product. It fails miserably, however, with my Photoshop CS2 software. My third print with the Canon iP4500 displayed a series of parallel lines across the surface. After testing several prints from different photos with the same results, I e-mailed Canon technical help, twice. First, I was instructed to realign the printer head. I'd done that, per their software directions when I set up the printer, and doubted head alignment was the problem. Nonetheless, I followed their instructions and realigned the print head, twice. The problem remained unresolved. I contacted e-mail technical help a second time and was instructed to remove the ink tanks, unlock and remove the print head, then replace the head and the ink, realign the head, and try again. No difference. I then called technical support, expecting a voice from India and little help beyond something simple and ineffective -- that was my previous experience with Hewlett-Packard. Instead, I heard an American voice and was walked through a procedure that ultimately identified my Photoshop CS2 software as my problem. I had no such limitations with Hewlitt-Packard and am still discouraged at this, for me, serious limitation.
  
  The resulting Canon prints are superior to the HP Photosmart D7360. In fact, the Canon black and white prints are VASTLY superior to the HP. The iP4500 also is markedly faster and loads both regular letter-size paper and photo-paper that can be accessed from two separate trays. My HP, for example, required I remove one kind of paper and manually load the other when I needed to switch papers. The iP4500 takes five inks, two black. My D7360 took six inks, one black. Replacing ink in the iP4500 is less expensive.
  
  I love the results from the Canon iP4500. The software Canon provides out-performs what HP sent with their D7360. I strongly recommend the iP4500.
  
  
• Printer Setup Problem
  By AM35WRC7G5ZZV on 2008-03-04
  During printer setup I encountered the printer's 'output tray closed' error message accompanied by three flashes of the printer's amber warning LED. The iP4500 will not align the print head or print while this message is displayed; so I was prevented from completing setup.
  
  Some investigating showed that my printer's plastic housing mechanically interferes with its output tray, preventing the tray from opening fully. The problem is made worse when the printer's paper cassette is in the housing. Removing the cassette allowed me to see the interference and learn to maneuver the interfering plastic so that the output tray can be fully opened and the printer operates as intended.
  
  At this time (printer has been in use for one day) the output tray still binds on opening, but bending the tray slightly while opening provides a workaround. Also, my printer's location allows me to leave the tray open when not in use, making it easy for family members to use the printer without the risk of breaking the tray. If the interference doesn't loosen with time, I will trim the plastic with a knife or small file.
  
  Now that I have a workaround for the output tray problem, I hope the printer will perform as well as its reviews indicate. In contrast, my experience with Canon support is that they were not helpful, even when I explained that the tray was not opening far enough to trigger the tray's sensor. At the time of my support call, I was unable to print without applying continuous hand pressure on the output tray, bending it and running the risk of breaking the plastic. The Canon support rep agreed that the printer probably had a hardware problem. However, the rep also told me that Canon does not do warranty work on the iP4500 and that no new printers are available to exchange for defective iP4500s. Instead Canon support offered to replace my new iP4500 with a refurbished printer, but I declined to make the exchange.
  
  Reading this review may help you avoid similar difficulty during printer setup and may alert you to the fact that, at this time, Canon will not repair or replace a defective iP4500 with a new unit. Instead a refurbished printer will be offered in exchange.
  
  My rating is based on: 1) the iP4500 is not a low-tier product. Canon support should include competent repair or new replacements when repair is not practical 2)customers should not have to work around or re-engineer the printer's mechanics to make the printer operate.
  
  
• great printer
  By A3PIXMXIY4YBU on 2007-11-01
  I ordered this printer after researching printers using Consumer Reports...Although they did not review this model,(perhaps it was too new)I found that they really liked a previous model,that I could no longer get (naturally). I checked as many other sites as I could and found very few opinions on this particular model...However, based upon opinions of the Cannon brand, and as I said, previous models I decided to give it a shot....I am pleased...I mainly use it for standard black and white and color printing (not as much photos). It prints well, and once started, prints quickly, although it seems a little slow to get started. This and the small amount of paper it holds, are the reasons for marking it down a star. Otherwise LOVE it.
  
  
• Canon Pixma iP- 4500 a winner
  By A7RPKJEFYYG66 on 2007-11-17
  Great product-for the money, this is one of the best printers available.
  The only problems found: (1) Ink too expensive
  (2) Uses too much ink
  (3) No excellent generic product available- Canon saw to this by reprogramming their chip
  
  
• CD Tray & Ink Refills
  By A96SQY96WM076 on 2008-01-06
  This is our second Canon. We ruined the first one (ip3500) our fault.
  
  1. This printer is capable of printing directly on CD's. Go to ebay & do a search for Canon CD Tray. There is guy there (for years now) that has the trays, a link to instructions for activating CD Printing, & a link for instructions on how to set up your Canon IP4500 for CD Printing. It is very easy, & you can revert it if you change your mind. No worry about hurting your printer. You used to be able to buy the CD Trays on Amazon???
  
  2. Ink refills: We use high quality ink refilling on our Canon. If you get ink from a RELIABLE dealer, you have NO problems. Do NOT use a 'generic' all in one ink refill kit. They WILL mess up your printer!!!
  
  3. inkjethelper dot com for general nfo.
  4. inkjet dot cfriends for your first refill kit.
  5. inksupply dot com for just ink after you already have a refill kit.
  
  You can also get newer/updated drivers & easy photo print OR easy photo print EX from the European Web site. The guy on ebay has the links for you.
  
  The very first Canon we bought was defective, & Amazon replaced it even before we got the defective one mailed back to them. The replacement has been working fine for years now. Amazon made it extremely easy to do the exchange. Sold by Amazon from Amazon are good ones to watch for, even if the price is a few more dollars, it is worth it.
  
  Canon 4 Cartridge printers & up are great. The IP3500 had to have the 'Prevent Paper Abrasion' turned on all the time, but not this one. If you have problems, it is more likely a defective printer. If you get one that is not defective, the colors & printing are Excellent.
  
  
• Great Printer
  By A5PD9XS1RXS1X on 2007-11-05
  I bought this to replace my Canon i950 that refused to print in anything but black an yellow. The iP4500 has a wide swath high speed black print head and regular heads for Black C, M, and Y. I haven't done any high res photo printing yet to see how it compares to the i950 but I'm sure it will be fine, even with out the photo Cyan and photo magenta. It's really fast when it's printing, although with my 6 year old computer it sometimes takes 2 minutes to process the data before printing. The i950 never had this problem. It does duplex (both sides automatically) printing which will save paper. It has two paper trays, one in the back and one on the bottom, so I can use two different types of paper at the push of a button. Generic Ink cartridges are only a buck fifty each at mega toners dot com. That's a big reason to go with Canon. I would buy again.
  
  
• For the money... great.
  By A9ULQD6B0DVSU on 2007-11-24
  Bottom line: for what it costs now, great product. Dependable fast prints, simple profile and easy to use. Great buy.
  
  
  
  
• wonderful printer
  By A3UYZHAYRUHQEE on 2007-12-09
  This is the first time I have felt compelled to write a review and I have bought probably 75-100 items on amazon.com over the years. This is a great printer. I researched for several days, read the non-profit consumer reviews, etc. I finally decided on this printer. I didn't want to break the bank (any printer will be obsolete in no time) and I was looking for something that would do great 4x6 pictures but not be limited to that size. I also wanted it to be just a good general inkjet as well. I just printed out about 15-20 pictures. I chose the "vivid" color option. I am telling you, my pictures look like postcards. My husband said they looked better than the real thing. I agree 100%. I have pictures of Pike's Peak that look better than a postcard. I hope I still feel this good about this printer when it comes time to buy ink!
  
  
  
• Nice, but too big and too expensive
  By A2HNH4PKE5DPSI on 2007-11-12
  Great printer, nice color, nice speed. The two printer trays are an added bonus along with the duplex features. I could not find any reviews on this printer before I purchased and all other previous models seemed to have been sold out or discontinued, although I now see the iP3500 is now back on sale. I would have maybe purchased the iP3500 instead just for the lower price.
  
  Another great feature is the dual voltage. My previous canon S750 did not have that feature.
  
  
• Great print outs!
  By A3B4NIHRMPS70H on 2007-12-13
  I've always been an epson printer fan until my Epson c84 clogged it's print head, thus ruining the printer. (I know there are ways to take the printer apart and clean out the nozzles, but who has the time for that?)I like the fact that I can replace the print heads on this canon printer. I just ordered some canon photo paper, but have been doing photo prints on epson paper(leftovers). The results? AMAZING! I wish we had this printer much sooner. Photo quality rivals photo store printouts. Canon's software makes printout choices extremely easy (i.e. credit card, 4x6, borderless, etc..). Another great thing is that if the printer thinks the paper isnt fully aligned.. it will sometimes feed back and forth a few inches, then start with the print job. I gave it 4 instead of 5 because it doesn't print instantly. It takes about 20 seconds to process the data after you click the print button. Otherwise, I'm ecsatic about my new printer! :)
  
  
• Excellent Printer - Excellent Support
  By A1WY9559A63WTK on 2008-03-04
  This is an outstanding printer. Switched over from a color laser that was died and have not been disappointed. Setup was easy and fast. Printer performs as advertised. Auto duplexing lets you print on both sides of a sheet of paper, saving trees and money. Photo quality is phenomenal. Easily equals or beats any commercial printing service for standard prints.
  
  We had an issue where the printer kept jamming, and needed warranty service. The support we got from Canon was excellent. Called on the phone, zero wait to reach an English speaking representative. The replaced my printer with no trouble at all. I was up and running again in two days. The support representatives know their products, and are easy to communicate with.
  
  Overall a great printer from a company that will stand by you and help you out if you get into trouble.
  
  
• Allow ink refill in some way
  By A28525P0S5ZVJ3 on 2008-04-29
  I had emailed and asked Canon many times to allow user refill the ink. They did not respond to that. This printer in some way allowing the ink being refilled. You still have to void the warranty of the printer head. After that, it will allow most the ink cartrige refilled. However, it does not do that to all the ink cartriges. Some times, you still have to check the ink level, then wait for the warning message saying no ink in tank (you actually have a full tank refilled ink in it), then push the continue button on printer to let the printing continue with the refilled inks.
  
  I don't know why Canon have to pull so many stops for people using refilled ink. Otherwise, this will be a wonderful printer. If you are using ink cartrige without refill, it is actually cheaper just buy a new printer on Amazon when the ink is out, since buying a whole set of inks costs more than a whole new printer with full set of inks.
  
  
• Very Pleased
  By A1DB9L8K5VT9YC on 2007-10-25
  I couldn't be more happy with the product.
  The service was very fast & I am able to do my printing again.
  
  
• Can't use vellum paper or thicker photo paper with machine
  By A3G8GW7GJ3ZNGL on 2008-01-07
  Sure it's cheap at $99 and is fast too, but this printer will misfeed thick matte photo paper every time and the same is true with vellum. Even putting in one sheet at a time didnt' work well. It works fine on regular photo paper, but if you want to do any kind of artsy projects you'd be better off with a more expensive printer.
  
  
• Excellent Printer
  By A2E0VSJ5NJAD7A on 2007-12-14
  Great photo printer. I don't see the difference without the photo cyan and photo magenta inks my old Canon S900 had. Very fast text and photo print speed. The pigment black ink drys a little slower than using the dye based ink, but excellent quality.
  
  
• Great Bang For The Buck
  By A2CB7PH4FED5C2 on 2008-01-02
  This is my second Canon printer. I had a Canon I900D which was a great printer but alas it was very slow. The IP4500 has two paper sources, one for copy paper and one for photo paper. This is a great plus. All you have to do to change sources is press 1 button. I owned two other printers that had a LCD screen and card readers, butI never used either one. I printed out several photo's that were printed at my local Sam's Club and compared them with the same that I printed on the IP4500. They were equally as good maybe even a bit better. Bottom line if you are looking for a good photo printer and don't want a copier or a fax you can't go wrong with the Canon IP4500.
  
  
• Everything good
  By A4Y8DJIML56UQ on 2008-01-18
  So far, its been everything good the review said it was. The photo print quality is superb. I've had half a dozen Epson printers in the last ten years, but decided it was time to try something else. If the Canon's ink use and cost matches the rest of its good features, I won't be going back.
  
  Ray
  
  
• ip4500 does NOT print on CD/DVD dics
  By AY31QRK0WD9XN on 2008-01-30
  have had the printer for a few weeks now, it works great and prints great, but it will not print directly on CD/DVD discs directly. canon support even suggested it is best not to print on the paper labels. did not say never do it, just suggests not to. will have to try sometime later to print on the labels. have not tried the lower cartridge to load with paper, but I would rather print with the rear paper to print directly on the paper as if it was photo paper. the 1 big odd advantage it has over printers I have had in the past is that it prints even at the slowest speed less than a minute for 8x10 pictures and printing multiple pages front and back, it will print without having to turn the paper over or around. after it prints so far and finhes, it will pull the paper back in and start printing the other side. compared to other printers draft mode, the IP4500 is actually told to slow down to print but is still extremly fast to print. it is still an excellent all around printer.
  
  
• Canon iP4500 and HG10
  By A9H6ZJBYY5UM5 on 2008-03-29
  First, let me say that I'm using both the HG10 and the iP4500 printer within an All-Mac environment (10.5.) I was ecstatic about the hi-def movie results from my HG10 camcorder. But the results from printing the photos from my HG10 to my new iP4500 printer are sick! I had an HP Deskjet for a couple of years (it was never good for much besides printing B&W plus the occasional google map, and even that took minutes to get printed.) This thing is insane--I printed 8.5x11 pics from iPhoto and the results are stunning. I've never seen anything like this except from a Pro studio!! Believe me when I say all I did was point the HG10 at the scene and shoot the picture, then print it (I'm not a camera Pro, but I know what "good" looks like.)
  
  A brief word about the HG10: The pics coming out of this thing are nothing short of miraculous in resolution, depth, clarity, and ease-of-use. It makes me look like a much better photographer than I am :) I had previously bought into the "megapixel myth" ("it MUST be a better camera! Look how many megapixels it has!). This 3.0 megapixel camera makes my other 8.0 megapixel camera look like it was shot by a five-year-old with a very bad drugstore disposable camera!! The resolution and clarity of the HG10 are breath-taking! I suspect it has something to do with Canon's proprietary video chipset.
  
  The full-page prints (hi-res) came out of the printer in about 12 secs! But I'm really torn about which is my second-favorite feature: 1) having a printer that can do duplex (two-sided) prints for under $150 OR 2) having two paper feeds (one hidden cartridge for everyday plain B&W printing and one rear tray for hi-res photos).
  Some other compelling features (that really do work well) are: power-saving mode (turn the printer off until it gets a job, then it turns itself on and happily prints your work), quiet mode (the printer sits right outside my son's room, and the Canon iP4500 allows me to select certain hours in the evening when it's required to be quieter than usual--I have to mention that it's whisper quiet already, but this makes it so you have to physically look into the printer to see if it's even printing because it's so quiet!!!)
  
  I used Canon's driver (from the CD); I could have used the built-in driver from Apple (the iP4500 is listed in 10.5's "supported" list, but I've heard--particularly with Canon Pro Printers, that there's a dramatic difference between the Apple and Canon drivers.)
  
  What I haven't tried yet:
  --I'm not using the printer plugged into an Airport Extreme/Express port (though I own both.) I just share it through my desktop Mac Pro tower to everyone else in the house (thereby ensuring that the Canon drivers are used, and that picture quality is phenomenal.)
  --I also haven't tried the PictBridge function (printing directly from the camera.) I'm not a good enough photographer yet to get away with assuming my pictures are always in-focus and there's no "red-eye." So, I review the pics in iPhoto and print the ones that came out well. I have to admit, this says more about my mediocre photography skills than about either the printer or the HG10.
  
  My overall impressions are that Canon (whom I've never bought a single thing from) makes such fantastic products that it will take a lot to pry me away from their photo line. Rock on, Canon!!!
  
  

• Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II, 4 x 6 inches, 100 Sheets (2311B023)
• Canon All Occasion 4 x 8 Inch Photo Cards 50 Count (1029A069)
• Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II, 5 x 7 inches, 20 Sheets (2311B024)
• Canon CLI-8Y Yellow Ink Tank
• Canon CLI-8 4-Color Multipack Ink Tanks

• Canon CLI-8 4-Color Multipack Ink Tanks
• Canon PGI-5 BK 2-Pack Pigment Black Ink Tanks
• Canon 4x6 Glossy Photo Paper Plus, 120 Sheets (PP-101)
• Belkin Pro Series USB 2.0 Device Cable (USB A/USB B, 10 Feet)
• Canon PGI-5 Pigment Black Ink Tank