Canon i960 My personal review

Just picked up my new Canon i960 today. Had read a lot of reviews of
different photo printers, and decided to go with this. What follows is my
personal review:

Purchased from CompUSA cost was $199.99(US)

What comes in the box:

Printer
Printer Head
Power Cord
Driver/Software CD
User Manual
A packet (5 sheets) of Canon Photo Paper Plus (4X6)
6 ink cartridges
Paper Adapter (More on this later)

(Note: This printer comes in USB format only, cable NOT included, so you
must make sure you buy a USB cable.)

Set Up:

Fairly easy. This thing had shipping tape all over, so you really gotta look
to make sure you get them all off. Once you remove all the shipping tape,
you attach the power cord, plug it in and turn the printer on. This will
move the mount for the ink cratridges and printer head to the middle of the
access cover.

Carefully remove the printer head and insert it. It will only fit in, in one
way, so you can't accidently put it in backwards. Then you snap this litle
handle down to lock it in place.

Next, remove the safety tape and plastic from each ink cartridge and insert
them. The cartridge tray is marked, so you know what cartridge goes where.

Once you have the priner head and ink cartridges installed, you turn of
printer off. Connect the USB cable to the back of the printer, and to a USB
port on your computer. It comes with both USB 1.1 and high speed USB 2.0.

Insert the driver CD and install the drivers. You will also have a host of
additional software you can install. I installed all the options, but so far
have only used the Easy Photo Print software on my test prints.

You than have to do an automatic printer head alignment., It will print out
a test sheet with colored boxes on it. You set the alignment according to
how well the boxes look. Not as complicated as it sounds. Once that is done,
your ready to go.

Paper Adapter:

The printer comes with an adapter that fits over the paper feed slot. Into
this adapter, you can insert up to 20 sheets of 4X6 photo paper. You can
then place up to 150 sheets of plain paper into the feed tray as well. The
adpater has a knob on it marked Print/Remove. If you want to pint to plain
paper (text documents for example) turn the knob to Remove. This lifts the
adpater up and out of the feed tray. To print to 4X6 photo paper, turn the
knob to Print. This lowers the adpater down into the feed tray and will feed
only the photo paper.

This is a very quiet printer. But it blazes through 4X6 prints. I timed mine
at about 36-38 seconds per print.

Quality? What can I say...... I scanned a picture into my computer, than
printed a 4X6 photo. Compared it to the original and I was hard pressed to
tell which came from the photo lab and which came from the printer.

There is a setting in the Printer Perferences that allows you to set Auto
Power On/Off. This will autmatically turn the printer off after a predefined
time. Once a print command is sent to the printer, it turns on again. There
is also a setting for Quiet Mode. I enabeled this, and after the initial
sound of the paper loading, I have to put my hand on the printer to confirm
it is doing anything, it runs that quietly....

Easy Photo Print software:

This is the main printing software that comes with the printer. It allows
you to select images to be printed. From within the software, you can access
the set up information, allowing you to select type of paper, size, date,
and a whole slew of other information.

The Date option kind of threw me at first. This option lets you print a date
on the photo. The first few I tried this out on, showed a date from Sept 11,
1999. It took me a while to figure out that since these were digital images,
it was displaying the date the image was taken. When I tried it on scans of
photographs, it showed todays date. But you don't have to print a date on
the photo if you don't want it.

Another thing I found out is that if you have a lot of images in the folder,
it will let you print 20, 48 or 80 image index sheets, sometimes called
contact sheets.

Another nice thing with the software..... Each image in the folder is
displayed in a thumbnail version. Under each image are up/down arrow keys.
This sets the number of copies of each image to print. So if you have 50
images in a folder, but you only want to print 6 of them, you use the up
arrow key to set the number to 1 under each image you want to print. Set all
the others to zero. Only those images with a number will be printed, with
the number you select determining the number of copies of each image.

So, if you have 50 images in the folder, and you only want to print images
numbers 4, 23, 36 and 48, first click the Clear All button. This sets all
images to zero. Then up arrow images 4, 23, 36 and 48 to the number of
copies of each you want to print. Very easy.....

"Greg Kamer" <gkamer@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:v42dnXe6FNKYTgWiRVn-vA@centurytel.net...
> Just picked up my new Canon i960 today. Had read a lot of reviews of
> different photo printers, and decided to go with this. What follows is my
> personal review:

Is there any software included to help calibrate the colors betweent the
monitor and the printer so that what you see (on the monitor) is what you
get (on the printer)?


--
Mike
http://www.graphtablet.com Free graph paper for students and others.

Greg Kamer wrote:
>
> Just picked up my new Canon i960 today. Had read a lot of reviews of
> different photo printers, and decided to go with this. What follows is my
> personal review:
>
[...]
>
> Easy Photo Print software:
>
> This is the main printing software that comes with the printer. It allows
> you to select images to be printed. From within the software, you can access
> the set up information, allowing you to select type of paper, size, date,
> and a whole slew of other information.

Unfortunately you forgot to mention some essential drawbacks
in Canon's software:

1) they do not accept compressed tiff's
2) software hangs often with uncompressed tiff's. I convert than
images into large (high quality *.jpeg's) to be able to print
3) software hangs on 48bit (16bit/channel) tiffs.
4) the EZ image browser scans drives and goes into subdirectories.
The way my storage is organized, huge and unusable raw files
are stored in subdirectories called R. This program tries
to reads them in, what takes on my 120Gig drive several hours
and ends with a crash because the most of them are 48bit/pixel.

Canon's software support is very slow in releasing new upgrades
and will not add essential features, such as support for
compressed tiffs.

Everything may be resolved by some additional preparations
(batch convert of images into suitable *.jpegs,) but I wish
I could use tiffs. Why to deal with jpeg artifacts at all??

Thomas

Epson are no better. I detailed to Epson Tech support a bug in their
software, and exactly how to fix it (just registry settings!), 6 months
later there is still no update to their program and the bug remains.

PS: I worked out the answer to the bug while their TS was looking into it
for me. They finally responded to me and said it can't be fixed, then I
proceeded to tell them how I fixed it myself. So much for support, more
likely just a reminded in the contact book to call me a few days later and
say it can't be fixed...

I'll never touch Epson again.

"ThomasH" <henrymot@any.net> wrote in message
news:3F99B1A1.7307F0B1@oracle.com...
> Greg Kamer wrote:
....> Canon's software support is very slow in releasing new upgrades
> and will not add essential features, such as support for
> compressed tiffs.
....

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 00:20:57 -0700, "Greg Kamer" <gkamer@nospam.com> wrote:

>Just picked up my new Canon i960 today. Had read a lot of reviews of
>different photo printers, and decided to go with this. What follows is my
>personal review:
>
>Purchased from CompUSA cost was $199.99(US)
>
>What comes in the box:
>
>Printer
>Printer Head
>Power Cord
>Driver/Software CD
>User Manual
>A packet (5 sheets) of Canon Photo Paper Plus (4X6)
>6 ink cartridges
>Paper Adapter (More on this later)
>
>(Note: This printer comes in USB format only, cable NOT included, so you
>must make sure you buy a USB cable.)
>
>Set Up:
>
>Fairly easy. This thing had shipping tape all over, so you really gotta look
>to make sure you get them all off. Once you remove all the shipping tape,
>you attach the power cord, plug it in and turn the printer on. This will
>move the mount for the ink cratridges and printer head to the middle of the
>access cover.
>
>Carefully remove the printer head and insert it. It will only fit in, in one
>way, so you can't accidently put it in backwards. Then you snap this litle
>handle down to lock it in place.



But what is the Life of the Print Head, a local chap here that worked for
Canon stated that they only have a 30 day warrantee as its classed as a
consumable item..?

This is the main think that is putting me off getting a Canon to replace my
Epson.

Yes I have seen how HP heads corrode away and do not last at all.

Greg - Can one print custom size of 8.3 x 23.4"; panoramic size?

Thanks. Frank

"Greg Kamer" <gkamer@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:v42dnXe6FNKYTgWiRVn-vA@centurytel.net...
> Just picked up my new Canon i960 today. Had read a lot of reviews of
> different photo printers, and decided to go with this. What follows is my
> personal review:
>
> Purchased from CompUSA cost was $199.99(US)
>
> What comes in the box:
>
> Printer
> Printer Head
> Power Cord
> Driver/Software CD
> User Manual
> A packet (5 sheets) of Canon Photo Paper Plus (4X6)
> 6 ink cartridges
> Paper Adapter (More on this later)
>
> (Note: This printer comes in USB format only, cable NOT included, so you
> must make sure you buy a USB cable.)
>
> Set Up:
>
> Fairly easy. This thing had shipping tape all over, so you really gotta
look
> to make sure you get them all off. Once you remove all the shipping tape,
> you attach the power cord, plug it in and turn the printer on. This will
> move the mount for the ink cratridges and printer head to the middle of
the
> access cover.
>
> Carefully remove the printer head and insert it. It will only fit in, in
one
> way, so you can't accidently put it in backwards. Then you snap this litle
> handle down to lock it in place.
>
> Next, remove the safety tape and plastic from each ink cartridge and
insert
> them. The cartridge tray is marked, so you know what cartridge goes where.
>
> Once you have the priner head and ink cartridges installed, you turn of
> printer off. Connect the USB cable to the back of the printer, and to a
USB
> port on your computer. It comes with both USB 1.1 and high speed USB 2.0.
>
> Insert the driver CD and install the drivers. You will also have a host of
> additional software you can install. I installed all the options, but so
far
> have only used the Easy Photo Print software on my test prints.
>
> You than have to do an automatic printer head alignment., It will print
out
> a test sheet with colored boxes on it. You set the alignment according to
> how well the boxes look. Not as complicated as it sounds. Once that is
done,
> your ready to go.
>
> Paper Adapter:
>
> The printer comes with an adapter that fits over the paper feed slot. Into
> this adapter, you can insert up to 20 sheets of 4X6 photo paper. You can
> then place up to 150 sheets of plain paper into the feed tray as well. The
> adpater has a knob on it marked Print/Remove. If you want to pint to plain
> paper (text documents for example) turn the knob to Remove. This lifts the
> adpater up and out of the feed tray. To print to 4X6 photo paper, turn the
> knob to Print. This lowers the adpater down into the feed tray and will
feed
> only the photo paper.
>
> This is a very quiet printer. But it blazes through 4X6 prints. I timed
mine
> at about 36-38 seconds per print.
>
> Quality? What can I say...... I scanned a picture into my computer, than
> printed a 4X6 photo. Compared it to the original and I was hard pressed to
> tell which came from the photo lab and which came from the printer.
>
> There is a setting in the Printer Perferences that allows you to set Auto
> Power On/Off. This will autmatically turn the printer off after a
predefined
> time. Once a print command is sent to the printer, it turns on again.
There
> is also a setting for Quiet Mode. I enabeled this, and after the initial
> sound of the paper loading, I have to put my hand on the printer to
confirm
> it is doing anything, it runs that quietly....
>
> Easy Photo Print software:
>
> This is the main printing software that comes with the printer. It allows
> you to select images to be printed. From within the software, you can
access
> the set up information, allowing you to select type of paper, size, date,
> and a whole slew of other information.
>
> The Date option kind of threw me at first. This option lets you print a
date
> on the photo. The first few I tried this out on, showed a date from Sept
11,
> 1999. It took me a while to figure out that since these were digital
images,
> it was displaying the date the image was taken. When I tried it on scans
of
> photographs, it showed todays date. But you don't have to print a date on
> the photo if you don't want it.
>
> Another thing I found out is that if you have a lot of images in the
folder,
> it will let you print 20, 48 or 80 image index sheets, sometimes called
> contact sheets.
>
> Another nice thing with the software..... Each image in the folder is
> displayed in a thumbnail version. Under each image are up/down arrow keys.
> This sets the number of copies of each image to print. So if you have 50
> images in a folder, but you only want to print 6 of them, you use the up
> arrow key to set the number to 1 under each image you want to print. Set
all
> the others to zero. Only those images with a number will be printed, with
> the number you select determining the number of copies of each image.
>
> So, if you have 50 images in the folder, and you only want to print images
> numbers 4, 23, 36 and 48, first click the Clear All button. This sets all
> images to zero. Then up arrow images 4, 23, 36 and 48 to the number of
> copies of each you want to print. Very easy.....
>
>

You can adjust magenta, cyan, yellow, and black to get very close. I
calibrated my monitor first (which is a must) and then fine tweaked the
c,y,m,b until I got it as close as possible. It isn't perfect but very
close. I don't use any of the auto settings or effects and that seems to
help me get what I want.



"Mike" <mike_eve@yahooyahoo.com> wrote in message
news:8v4mb.17474$HS4.61080@attbi_s01...
> "Greg Kamer" <gkamer@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:v42dnXe6FNKYTgWiRVn-vA@centurytel.net...
> > Just picked up my new Canon i960 today. Had read a lot of reviews of
> > different photo printers, and decided to go with this. What follows is
my
> > personal review:
>
> Is there any software included to help calibrate the colors betweent the
> monitor and the printer so that what you see (on the monitor) is what you
> get (on the printer)?
>
>
> --
> Mike
> http://www.graphtablet.com Free graph paper for students and others.
>
>

When I bought my Canon i950 at CompUsa they had a warranty deal that was
pretty nice and I think they still have it. I am not one for buying extended
warranties but this was a good deal. It cost $39 for two years and you get
$25 worth of free ink. So it cost me $14.00. If anything happens to the
printer for up to two years, including the print head, CompUsa will replace
it with whatever the newest like model is at the time. In two years I will
probably want a new printer anyway, so I don't have to worry about anything
going wrong.




> But what is the Life of the Print Head, a local chap here that worked for
> Canon stated that they only have a 30 day warrantee as its classed as a
> consumable item..?
>
> This is the main think that is putting me off getting a Canon to replace
my
> Epson.
>
> Yes I have seen how HP heads corrode away and do not last at all.
>
>

Yes I purchased a Canon S820 from Staples on 9/14/02. Well the print
head is bad (getting 7 orange blinking lights) and I had purchased 1
year extended warrenty through Staples. Canon also give 1 year. So
the first year coverage is from Canon and then the extended kicks in.
All I had to do is call Staples warrenty number and they are sending
out a Staples replacement check to purchase a new printer.

Debbie



On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 23:29:30 GMT, "BF" <bfor@adelphia.net> wrote:

>When I bought my Canon i950 at CompUsa they had a warranty deal that was
>pretty nice and I think they still have it. I am not one for buying extended
>warranties but this was a good deal. It cost $39 for two years and you get
>$25 worth of free ink. So it cost me $14.00. If anything happens to the
>printer for up to two years, including the print head, CompUsa will replace
>it with whatever the newest like model is at the time. In two years I will
>probably want a new printer anyway, so I don't have to worry about anything
>going wrong.
>
>
>
>
>> But what is the Life of the Print Head, a local chap here that worked for
>> Canon stated that they only have a 30 day warrantee as its classed as a
>> consumable item..?
>>
>> This is the main think that is putting me off getting a Canon to replace
>my
>> Epson.
>>
>> Yes I have seen how HP heads corrode away and do not last at all.
>>
>>
>

Yea, they had the same deal when I purchased mine, so I took advantage of
it.... I looked at it kind of like insurance. You hope you don't need it,
but if you do, you breath a sigh of releif that you have it...


"BF" <bfor@adelphia.net> wrote in message
news:uNYmb.132402$qj6.8841775@news1.news.adelphia.net...
> When I bought my Canon i950 at CompUsa they had a warranty deal that was
> pretty nice and I think they still have it. I am not one for buying
extended
> warranties but this was a good deal. It cost $39 for two years and you get
> $25 worth of free ink. So it cost me $14.00. If anything happens to the
> printer for up to two years, including the print head, CompUsa will
replace
> it with whatever the newest like model is at the time. In two years I will
> probably want a new printer anyway, so I don't have to worry about
anything
> going wrong.
>
>
>
>
> > But what is the Life of the Print Head, a local chap here that worked
for
> > Canon stated that they only have a 30 day warrantee as its classed as a
> > consumable item..?
> >
> > This is the main think that is putting me off getting a Canon to replace
> my
> > Epson.
> >
> > Yes I have seen how HP heads corrode away and do not last at all.
> >
> >
>
>