Canon i950 Inkjet Printer Review
If your looking for a great photo inkjet printer then you must look at the Canon i950. It gave us a nice surprise with its moderate cost per page and the quality of its office printing, much better than that of the earlier S900. Graphics are bright, color blocks even and all the characters perfectly legible. Its photos are definitely superb.
Canon i950 inkjet Printer Review
High-quality pictures for photographers on a budget
As successor to the popular but discontinued Canon S900 photo printer, the Canon i950 doubles the S900's resolution and halves its dot size. The result: this photo printer is quick, compact and attractively priced. Most importantly, however, it delivers high-quality pictures for photographers on a budget.
The Canon i950 a new breed of economical photo inkjets
The six color Canon i950 was designed with photo printing in mind. Photos are printed very fast indeed and the quality is fantastic. No grain, smooth color gradients and good color accuracy will endear this printer to anyone looking for performance at a reasonable price.
The Canon i950 is much less suited to regular office printing. It prints text at a stately 2 pages per minute (ppm). Text and graphics prints look good but not great. Text displays visible aliasing, while diagonal lines and curves are somewhat jagged.
Canon has been writing some good drivers these days. The i950 driver offers several settings that can automatically correct, enhance or add effects to your pictures. Effects include simulating an illustration; creating duotones (reformatting the picture in various shades of a single colour) in any of 120 colours, with presets for sepia and, oddly, pink, green and blue; and pumping up the colours while maintaining natural skin tones.
The major gripe with this printer is the photo paper is not protected, the colors do not last well. Basically you have to keep your prints under glass or plastic such in a photo album. Another related problem is that the ink soaks into the paper making double sided photo prints impossible.
Here are the specifications:
- Speed (actual not claimed): 4" by 6" color photos 2.7 ppm, 9 ppm black text
- USB port interface
- Total Input Media Capacity 150 sheets
- 4800 x 1200 dpi (enhanced resolution) color
- 6 inkjet cartridge design
Canon i950, fast high quality photo prints
This 6 cartridge design is very economical for photo printing. While text and color graphics on copier paper are acceptable I don't think this printer is the right choice for that in the long run. You'd be better off with a laser printer.
I would classify this as a photo printer since that is where it's performance shines. The speed of printing is amazing considering the quality. Again what disappoints us is the lack of longevity that inkjet printed photos have. While the quality is equal with your local Fuji Image Plaza you must be so much more careful to keep your inkjet prints dry and away from sunlight.