Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon PIXMA iP3000 Colour Bubblejet Printer

I felt compelled to review this printer because it is, quite simply, the best one I have ever owned. The Canon printer is so refreshing after using an Epson for 2 years.

The best bit about this printer is how many features it has: it can print duplexed, on CDs, has 2 paper feeds, has a quiet 'night mode' and will print borderless to name just a few. It also has a number of other nice touches like how it holds the next sheet in the printer after printing one with lots of pictures whilst 'waiting for previous page to dry'. I have never seen many of these features before in a printer for this price.

The print quality is actually very good too and the photos printed on the five sheets of photo paper bundled with the printer look amazing and vivid.

Overall, I would thoroughly recommend this printer. Quite simply there are no others that even compare in its price range. I would encourage any Epson users to take a chance and try buying a Canon - you won't be disappointed.

A few useful facts about this printer:

- like all new printers it is NOT bundled with a USB cable (there is no parallel interface on the IP3000, get the IP4000 if you require this)

- it takes four cartridges:
BLACK - Canon BCI-3eBK
CYAN - Canon BCI-6C
MAGENTA - Canon BCI-6M
YELLOW - Canon BCI-6Y

Hope this helps :)

I have owned other brands of printers and canon beats them all, images are clear, vivid with no 'flattening' of the images or telltale printer lines. 2 paper loading systems 150 sheets each (top/bottom). Photos are superb at 35 secs to print. With duplex printing (both sides), CD labelling, separate ink tanks, auto shut off (user selectable timing). All this and software to make pic printing easy even for the first time user and optimisation of printing from webpages so nothing is cut off. As a computing lecturer I have recommeded them to colleagues and students, even bought my father one (a PC newbie) with everyone happy with their purchases. in short I cannot recommend this printer enough. The next model up (IP4000) offers all the same with a second black photo catridge and wireless connectivity only

The canon has a very high print quality, as all printers in this price bracket should have. I use it for desktop publishing and photoprinting, mostly on 4x6' borderless cards, which it does very well, and with a good turn of speed (the wait is counted in seconds, not minutes).

Duplex printing and CD/DVD printing are appealing features, which add to the all round functionality of the printer, even though I doubt most people would use these features that often.

The dual paper feeds are a great feature, meaning you can keep 150 A4 sheets (or anything smaller) in the cartridge/tray at the bottom, keeping it dust free, and still load card/photopaper etc in the top without having to take out your other paper.

However, before you buy one -

1. It took me 2hours to install, as the install wizard on the driver CD would not detect my USB connection, and the troubleshooting advice on the CD and website amounted to 'try again'. I eventually had to do it through the winXP install wizard which worked fine. BUT after looking at many websites it seems that this problem has only ever happened to me, 99% of people should have no problem...

2. It looks like a big grey brick! But then most printers aren't exactly beautiful to look at, so this didnt bother me.

Verdict - for this price I think this is a great printer with a lot of useful features. I would buy it again.

Having previously owned only Epson printers I'd stupidly fallen in the trap of not keeping an eye on the competition. After having had another Epson printer clog up, then empty itself of new ink cartriges whilst trying(and failing) to clean the heads I decided it was time for a change. Enter the IP3000. I read reviews, and still I was unsure if it would be upto Epson standards. Well look no further.

The IP3000 photo prints are fantastic. Either I'm getting old or you just can't see the familiar inkjet dots on close inspection. The prints look as good as photographic prints. Not only that, but you can have them borderless too!! Also (although I've heard this isn't tru on the USA version) we have a CD printing facility. I ordered some printable CD's straight away and hey presto, lovely printed CD's too!!!...all for under £100.

Finally is the fact that all cartridges are seperate so you don't have to replace all your colours when one runs out. Canon also supplies with full tanks off the shelf, unlike epson who only gave me half full tanks. Oh yeah that's right, should (like epson) the print heads become totally defunct, you can simply buy a new print head. marvelous!

I had to give away some cheap HP photo paper which wasn't friendly with the canon ink, but that's nothing compared to the total bargainness of this excellent Printer! Go get yourself one now!

£80 gets you photo, cd, borderless, high-quality text, and super fast printing with the Canon ip3000. I really like the fact that the cartridges are all under a tenner each and you have 4 seperate ones as opposed to two meaning you don't throw away a big chunky colour cartridge if only one of the colours has run out.
The quality is really superb, having a built in enclosed cassette to store the paper is something you usually see on lasers, and duplex-printing (printing on both sides) I thought was a bit of a luxury. You can also connect your digital camera directly to the printer and print your photos, at whatever size you want, without even having to switch the computer on.
I can't believe how much Canon have squeezed in here, and thats whats so good about this printer.
One thing to also note is Canon's ip series of printers & their inks are regarded has being the best for the preservation of prints i.e. the photos that you print do not fade over time.
At this price, this is the only option, and you'd be silly not to buy it!