Speed and operation
Each of the iP8500's colours can be replenished separately, so you need only replace the hues that a built-in optical ink-monitoring system determines are empty.
Canon describes the printhead as the world's longest, with the highest nozzle density: 768 nozzles per colour, for a total of 6,144. All those tiny nozzles allow it to spit out droplets of ink at 4,800x1,200dpi in each pass, accounting for the 3.5 pages per minute text speed and 0.6 photo pages per minute in our tests.
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Photo speed |
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Text speed |
Image quality
Overall, the Canon Pixma iP8500's output looks excellent, with a broad dynamic range and sharp detail rendering in bitmaps. It renders excellent curves and sharp text on coated paper, making this a good candidate for proofing page layouts.
We picked up the gauntlet thrown down by Canon and tested its output with photos of ripe red tomatoes, a carved pumpkin and lots of scenes with foliage. The iP8500 really does produce a surprisingly full range of tones in the reds and oranges, as well as lots of detail in both shadows and highlights in landscapes dominated by grass, trees, and other greenery.
If anything, saturation for these tends to be too brilliant; if you don't want the colours to assault your viewer, you might want to tone things down with your image editor. Skin tones are warm but acceptable and relatively accurate. Oddly, the cyan primary looks more like turquoise, while colours tend to shift slightly under different light sources.
Edited by Lori Grunin
Additional editing by Nick Hide
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Geogaddi 11 January 2009
Good: The first 9 months of owning it.
Bad: how it has performed ever since.
Comment: The IP8500 performed admirably for the first 9 months but started to age very quickly after this point. If you want to invest in a printer that will last you a good few years, then from personal experience I’d go for a high-end Epson (for print and image quality) or HP (slightly reduced print quality, but excellent build quality).
After only 12 months owning this printer, I’m now at the stage with this Canon that I was with my old Epson’s and HP’s after several years of faithful service. It’s starting to streak, requiring constant deep-cleans, jamming etc... all the typical signs that something’s in its decline. Considering the fact this printer is only a few months old, that’s pretty bad!
The other complaint I have about this printer is the sheer speed it gets through ink! As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been a Canon and HP user previously and both were fairly sparing with ink usage, especially the HP; but this printer chews through ink cartridges like they’re going out of fashion! I mainly attribute this to the fact that this printer is continually doing auto-cleans; and I do mean ALL the time, after every few pages of print, it’s auto-cleaning, a process that wastes ink and a lot of time!
The problem here is that consumer market wants everything for nothing, thereby forcing even very respectable companies to make everything out of nothing. So I don’t totally blame Canon for the build quality of this printer, but once you get past the shiny exterior and try to live with this printer for a few months, you realise you’ve bought a sheep in wolves clothing.
I’m heading back to HP, sorry, but regardless of the fact that I may be sacrificing a tiny improvement in colour accuracy, they just work! They’re reliable and because every HP cartridge comes with brand new print-heads there’s no need for continual head-cleaning.
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