****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
This review is in the context of a Mac System. I replace an aging Epson Stylus Color ink-jet printer with this purchase. I was tired of replacing a a three color ink cartridge, and picked the Canon iP3300 in part on the separate ink cartridge approach that this printer uses.We use this as the main general purpose printer for our home computer. I am very pleased with the results. Image quality is excellent. The print looks laser printer quality in sharpness. Color rendition is excellent. The printing is fast. There are two paper paths that can be set up with different papers, making printing from different media easy and automatic. The printer is quiet except for some extra noise when it rapidly loads or quickly spits out paper after completing printing. Even then it is typical for an ink-jet printer. If the rapid load noise is objectionable the printer can be set to load quietly.The drivers are just great. If you open to cover while printing it stops and an alert comes up and gently reminds you to close the top when done. The printer utility runs very well. It gives the options of automatic turn-on and turn-off, head cleaning (including standard, deep cleaning, and bottom plate cleaning), nozzle check test prints, and print head alignment. It also includes an option for quiet mode. In this mode the paper is fed more slowly and quietly than in regular mode, which really is quieter than the standard mode. It even gives the option of setting times of day when quiet mode is in force, a nice touch. The auto turn-on and turn-off is disabled by default, so if you get this printer be sure to set it up in the printer utility. Drive loading required using the included CD. The installer ran smoothly and the disk space requirement is modest. I am running 10.4.9 at this moment, and it works well. The only thing I haven't tried is the PictBridge port in the front since I don't have a digital camera. Images I tested were the background images available in /Library/Desktop Pictures.An interesting observation is that the lp utility work with this printer, but when a pdf file is printed out the text is lighter and less sharp then when the same PDF is printed by Preview. Preview also prints a PDF faster. For straight ASCII both lp and TextEdit are equally fast, but lp lost half a line at the bottom edge of a page. I do some programmatic printing using the command line utilities. Perhaps there is a driver for lp that I'm missing.You don't get automatic duplexing like the Canon PIXMA iP4300 Photo Printer (1438B002), but the iP4300 is $20 more and needs 5 color inks rather than the 3 color inks that to iP3300 uses. I expect cheaper ink costs on the iP3300. If photos are a big issue for you, research the 3 color vs 5 color issue.Anyway, great printer for a great price. 5 stars for the great quality output despite this printer being less than $100. Great text and photo output, individual ink tanks, auto-power, and nice driver.
