A
Andrew Diamond
Bought mine yesterday. No one else seems to have them and I've heard dates
ranging from 12/15 for Compusa (from a canon rep who was there) to January
from other sources.
Funny thing. I have yet to talk to any field rep of canon or staples who
understands that staples apparently has an early release exclusive. Go
figure! Canon's support however does seem to know this.
IMPORTANT - Staples has a $50 rebate on it and I believe it ends TODAY (Sat.
12/4/4).
FYI, I haven't gotten though testing it yet. So far I've done the
following:
1) Installed - a minor USB 2 device driver install glitch there but
eventually I worked it out manually. Once that got installed everything
else (scanner,fax.copier) was "found" printer showed up on the printer list
and that was that. I think the USB device driver thing was supposed to show
up when I installed the apps off their CD but I guess it didn't for got
knows what reason. It sounds worse than it was. The whole thing was pretty
easy even with the mishap.
BTW, I installed this on a USB 2 add-on card (that was already in my
computer) and it works fine.
2) Printed regular, picture & graphics - works really nice. Quiet, pretty
quick, & nice colors. Configuration seems easy. I thought this printer was
going to have more than 3 colors to yield better color reproduction and
black (it having 5 cartridges) but two cartridges seem to be black. Maybe
there's more to this. Anyway, looks very very nice. It took me about 2:45
to print an 8x11 photo. Normal prints are just plain quick. Didn't time
it.
I tried the duplexer on a 3 page document and it worked (I specified two
copies and it did collate them though I never told it to). One odd note,
from what I can tell, the duplex option has to be hunted down. It's not on
the main print dialog; rather it's on the "Page Setup" tab of the
"Properties" dialog (that you can access by pressing the Properties button
on the main print dialog. Obviously, this is no big thing, but that' not
where I would've put it.
3) Scanner - Very nice. I've scanned photographs (just 300dpi) and then
printed them out and their very close even with two sources of error. I had
an underwater shot and it was very blue-green and it came out without the
green but the photos that had green plants looked fine. Go figure. My
monitor isn't calibrated but judging picture relatively to each other on the
monitor it looked like the scanner was the culprit. All other photos (that
I chose for their wide variety of colors) looked just about perfect.
I also auto-scanned multi page documents through the ADF though I scanned
them as pictures. I've tried color and b&w; legal and letter. All worked
fine. The software, an app called "mp navigator", scans the whole thing in
shows you the pages and gives you the ability to save them as images or
multi page pdf. I've only tried the multi page pdf. This also seems to be
connected to another bundled app called "Presto! Pagemaker 6" which looks to
be some kind of document DB of sorts. That's just a guess, I haven't played
with it yet. So far I just see that it seems to want CPU cycles so I just
shut it down. Maybe it's worth it and maybe it's not a real time hog but I
just haven't gotten around to playing with it yet.
I just tried the OCR feature. OCR is via the bundled ScanSoft OmniPage SE
version 2.0 application. I batch scanned in a two page document from the
ADF. In mp navigator I specified the document type as Text(OCR) but it
seems to have scanned in as images anyway. The mp navigator has a "convert
to text file" button and that launched omnipage. I guessed my way around
that. Among other things, omnipage has a button labeled 1-2-3 so I pushed
that (there's another one called OCR wizard - wonder what that does.)
Anyway, it proceeded to OCR the documents and flagged various names etc as
non-English works and asked me if I wanted to change them etc. It did this
one by one and even when I clicked the "ignore all" button it kept on asking
me. Very irritating but that's ScanSoft's fault.
Anyway, the black and white stuff OCRed fine and OmniPage allowed me to put
it into a multi-page word document. Very nice.
Odd note - some text on the document was printed in color and though it
scanned well enough for me to read it (without a second thought) it
obviously confused the hell out of OmniPage. I'm not sure what can be done
about it (scan darker?) but I'm not sure that's a big deal. All in all-
very useful and pretty easy.
It should be noted that except for the install, I really haven't read the
manuals.
One odd note there - Canon has their manuals as multi-page htmls so
searching the document for keywords etc isn't a built-in option. However,
since html is text it's easy enough to use any number of utilities to search
through the directory where the manual is stored to find the files with the
keywords and then just display those document in your browser separately.
In some ways, that's better. For people who aren't comfortable with that
they won't be happy.
haven't tested the fax yet. That seems to be a can of worms for me as I
have WinFax on my computer going through an external modem and really only
need the canon fax to send the occasional non electronic document that needs
to be faxed. That happens to me about 10 times a year so I wasn't that
concerned. However, you can connect the canon from your modem but I don't
understand what that's all about. From what I can tell, I can specify a
canon fax driver from my computer and have it fax out through the canon.
What I don't understand is why do I need to connect my computer to the canon
by a phone line? Why doesn't it send that info via the USB cable? Why does
the canon fax care about my modem at all? I'm sure there are wonderful and
logical answer to these questions but in the end I don't care that much.
I've used winfax to send and receive faxes from years and I'm not abandoning
it for unknown benefit and I don't see how my winfax and the canon can work
together. However, the canon has color fax and I don't think my modem does
but then what of it. I've never had a situation where I needed a color fax.
Bottom line here: I don't know enough (either how the canon fax should be
used or how competitor's fax's work in comparison) to make an intelligent
critique of the fax component.
Seems to me that for $250 (after rebate) it's a steal. Remember that it
doesn't come with a USB cable (Jesus!)
According ot the guy I dealt with, Staples apparently doesn't treat this
purchase as a xmas purchase whereby you can return it soon after xmas if you
want to. They stick to their 14 day return policy. That is just f**king
retard!
Also, officially, there's no extended warranty policy which allows you to
walk into the store carrying your broken printer where they will then give
you a new one (like compuse says it does) or possibly a loner (worst case
from Fry's electronics). You can buy a tech support extended warranty which
will fix things for you when you send them in but they will not give you a
loaner or a replacement. Given that this is a multi-function device it
would really suck if I didn't have a replacement for some weeks while it was
getting fixed.
They have a replacement plan ($39 as I recall) that does do replacments but
it officially does this on a RMA mail basis (you send them your broken one
after they send you a new one). Still, that can leave you without one for
days (and more if they get picky about allowing you to send one back.)
However, unofficially, the store says it if breaks and I bring it it I can
get a new one. I'd say ("we'll see" but I hope I never do.) Anyway, I
viewed the $50 rebate as an insurance policy against that!
I did buy the replacment policy. It's 1 year but apparently it is in force
for the warranty year also so it's really two years (that's what they told
me at least).
ranging from 12/15 for Compusa (from a canon rep who was there) to January
from other sources.
Funny thing. I have yet to talk to any field rep of canon or staples who
understands that staples apparently has an early release exclusive. Go
figure! Canon's support however does seem to know this.
IMPORTANT - Staples has a $50 rebate on it and I believe it ends TODAY (Sat.
12/4/4).
FYI, I haven't gotten though testing it yet. So far I've done the
following:
1) Installed - a minor USB 2 device driver install glitch there but
eventually I worked it out manually. Once that got installed everything
else (scanner,fax.copier) was "found" printer showed up on the printer list
and that was that. I think the USB device driver thing was supposed to show
up when I installed the apps off their CD but I guess it didn't for got
knows what reason. It sounds worse than it was. The whole thing was pretty
easy even with the mishap.
BTW, I installed this on a USB 2 add-on card (that was already in my
computer) and it works fine.
2) Printed regular, picture & graphics - works really nice. Quiet, pretty
quick, & nice colors. Configuration seems easy. I thought this printer was
going to have more than 3 colors to yield better color reproduction and
black (it having 5 cartridges) but two cartridges seem to be black. Maybe
there's more to this. Anyway, looks very very nice. It took me about 2:45
to print an 8x11 photo. Normal prints are just plain quick. Didn't time
it.
I tried the duplexer on a 3 page document and it worked (I specified two
copies and it did collate them though I never told it to). One odd note,
from what I can tell, the duplex option has to be hunted down. It's not on
the main print dialog; rather it's on the "Page Setup" tab of the
"Properties" dialog (that you can access by pressing the Properties button
on the main print dialog. Obviously, this is no big thing, but that' not
where I would've put it.
3) Scanner - Very nice. I've scanned photographs (just 300dpi) and then
printed them out and their very close even with two sources of error. I had
an underwater shot and it was very blue-green and it came out without the
green but the photos that had green plants looked fine. Go figure. My
monitor isn't calibrated but judging picture relatively to each other on the
monitor it looked like the scanner was the culprit. All other photos (that
I chose for their wide variety of colors) looked just about perfect.
I also auto-scanned multi page documents through the ADF though I scanned
them as pictures. I've tried color and b&w; legal and letter. All worked
fine. The software, an app called "mp navigator", scans the whole thing in
shows you the pages and gives you the ability to save them as images or
multi page pdf. I've only tried the multi page pdf. This also seems to be
connected to another bundled app called "Presto! Pagemaker 6" which looks to
be some kind of document DB of sorts. That's just a guess, I haven't played
with it yet. So far I just see that it seems to want CPU cycles so I just
shut it down. Maybe it's worth it and maybe it's not a real time hog but I
just haven't gotten around to playing with it yet.
I just tried the OCR feature. OCR is via the bundled ScanSoft OmniPage SE
version 2.0 application. I batch scanned in a two page document from the
ADF. In mp navigator I specified the document type as Text(OCR) but it
seems to have scanned in as images anyway. The mp navigator has a "convert
to text file" button and that launched omnipage. I guessed my way around
that. Among other things, omnipage has a button labeled 1-2-3 so I pushed
that (there's another one called OCR wizard - wonder what that does.)
Anyway, it proceeded to OCR the documents and flagged various names etc as
non-English works and asked me if I wanted to change them etc. It did this
one by one and even when I clicked the "ignore all" button it kept on asking
me. Very irritating but that's ScanSoft's fault.
Anyway, the black and white stuff OCRed fine and OmniPage allowed me to put
it into a multi-page word document. Very nice.
Odd note - some text on the document was printed in color and though it
scanned well enough for me to read it (without a second thought) it
obviously confused the hell out of OmniPage. I'm not sure what can be done
about it (scan darker?) but I'm not sure that's a big deal. All in all-
very useful and pretty easy.
It should be noted that except for the install, I really haven't read the
manuals.
One odd note there - Canon has their manuals as multi-page htmls so
searching the document for keywords etc isn't a built-in option. However,
since html is text it's easy enough to use any number of utilities to search
through the directory where the manual is stored to find the files with the
keywords and then just display those document in your browser separately.
In some ways, that's better. For people who aren't comfortable with that
they won't be happy.
haven't tested the fax yet. That seems to be a can of worms for me as I
have WinFax on my computer going through an external modem and really only
need the canon fax to send the occasional non electronic document that needs
to be faxed. That happens to me about 10 times a year so I wasn't that
concerned. However, you can connect the canon from your modem but I don't
understand what that's all about. From what I can tell, I can specify a
canon fax driver from my computer and have it fax out through the canon.
What I don't understand is why do I need to connect my computer to the canon
by a phone line? Why doesn't it send that info via the USB cable? Why does
the canon fax care about my modem at all? I'm sure there are wonderful and
logical answer to these questions but in the end I don't care that much.
I've used winfax to send and receive faxes from years and I'm not abandoning
it for unknown benefit and I don't see how my winfax and the canon can work
together. However, the canon has color fax and I don't think my modem does
but then what of it. I've never had a situation where I needed a color fax.
Bottom line here: I don't know enough (either how the canon fax should be
used or how competitor's fax's work in comparison) to make an intelligent
critique of the fax component.
Seems to me that for $250 (after rebate) it's a steal. Remember that it
doesn't come with a USB cable (Jesus!)
According ot the guy I dealt with, Staples apparently doesn't treat this
purchase as a xmas purchase whereby you can return it soon after xmas if you
want to. They stick to their 14 day return policy. That is just f**king
retard!
Also, officially, there's no extended warranty policy which allows you to
walk into the store carrying your broken printer where they will then give
you a new one (like compuse says it does) or possibly a loner (worst case
from Fry's electronics). You can buy a tech support extended warranty which
will fix things for you when you send them in but they will not give you a
loaner or a replacement. Given that this is a multi-function device it
would really suck if I didn't have a replacement for some weeks while it was
getting fixed.
They have a replacement plan ($39 as I recall) that does do replacments but
it officially does this on a RMA mail basis (you send them your broken one
after they send you a new one). Still, that can leave you without one for
days (and more if they get picky about allowing you to send one back.)
However, unofficially, the store says it if breaks and I bring it it I can
get a new one. I'd say ("we'll see" but I hope I never do.) Anyway, I
viewed the $50 rebate as an insurance policy against that!
I did buy the replacment policy. It's 1 year but apparently it is in force
for the warranty year also so it's really two years (that's what they told
me at least).