Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon PIXMA iP4600 Printer

The quality and speed is good. The printer drains ink though and performs ink heavy cleaning cycle EVERY time you power on/off the printer (using printer power button) Canon confirmed this in a complaint I sent to them. It also performs minor cleaning cycle between print jobs, a little excessive. It is worse (according to canon stats on their website comparisson) than the previous model ip4500 in all respects except weight (sound dampening buffers removed). The new ink size is 9ml and harder to find (and works out more expensive) and there is no chip resetter for 520/521 carts to refill yourself. The old 8s were fine and are 12ml on the dye inks and work out cheaper plus the chips have widely avail restter.

There are currently investigations regarding firmware/driver issues with this printer that interfers with printing with ink monitor disabled (which voids warranty and is the only way to use most unofficial ink which canons official store is cheapest for due to no chip resetter readily available although it is cracked). There is potential anti-trust case against canon over this.

I didn't find anything about the cleaning cycles nor ink monitor disabling issue until after purchase, many reviews are full of misinformation. IMO you should get a ip4500 (canon made sure it's not widely available now so might be in for wait) or at least wait for an unofficial firmware to address the ink cycle issue. Once a chip setter becomes available this printer will work out the same as an ip4500 if you refill yourself and leave it on 24hrs/7 days (no harm in this, what I do since over 1 quarter of my ink was drained in daily power on/off in 2 weeks when didn't print anything!).

If you don't care about ink prices (and only use canon oem ink), noise, lower yield to previous model and leave it on 24/7 and cannot find a 4500 or 3500 (the 3600 suffers from same issues as 4600 btw) then it's not a bad buy. Technically it's very good but the other flaws ruin it for me. The fact earlier model was better is bit worrying, it seems the only thing this does is force you to use canon ink and refill more (due to smaller size and cleaning cycle issue the ip4500 did not sufferfrom) I'm waiting for chip resetter (to use good brand 3rd party ink without issue) or a firmware/driver update to allow cleaning cycles to be performed only when needed before I bin this, if it doesn't work out I'm just going to throw it.

I was upgrading from a rather aged HP Deskjet that had become slowly clogged through use of "compatible" ink cartridges. Also, I had not been particulalrly impressed with any printer output I'd seen so I entered the whole purchase experience with some trepidation.

I turned to trusted sources and read online reviews galore and then was further swayed by the iP4600 being a Which? magazine Best Buy and coming 2nd in Channel 5's recent Gadget Show test - praise indeed in my eyes.

So what, do I think...

Pros - the best photo results from a home printer I've ever seen - it truely is impossible to distinguish it from one printed by Jessops, very quick to print, great software bundled with it to allow quick printing of borderless photos, looks very cool and stylish in high gloss black

Cons (although none of these impact me or should put you off) - took a long time to get out of the box and remove all the protective bits and pieces, a long set up/head alignment/software installation procedure (>30 minutes), this is just a printer - no scanner or copier facility.

While trying to print some pro forma documents, the thinner back copy got stuck in my ip4500 printer. Much nashing of teeth and hair pulling because this was a very good printer, quite fast B&W documents and good photo's. It was still under warranty so I hoped for a repair. It was not to be, I got money off a ip4600 printer and looked forward to trying it out. After two months I've tried most options and can say it's no improvment on the 4500, infact its about 4 steps back.
Slow printing overall (from pressing the print OK to actually receiving the paper), poor photo(lack luster colours,)less copies per cartridge, no button to select the front or back tray (its automatic or in the print options, most annoying). It seems to take forever to make itself ready from switch on, whuring and tutting to itself as if put out you've woken it. Any one who's had a ip4500 should try and get theirs repaired if needed or wait for Canon to bring out yet another "upgraded!" printer in the hope that its as good as the ip4500 was.

This is a great value for money product, I replaced my £250 Epson R800 with this printer and the Quality of the prints is every bit as good and alot faster, it also benifits from a duplex function and cheaper ink cartridges too, A really great little printer

I initially purchased this machine because it can print direct onto cd's. I was very impressed with the price before it arrived, and boy, I am impressed now. I have used this printer for just over a month now. The prints are excellent, photos excellent, the cd's print beautifully, and the printer is fast, quiet and really quite exceptional. I love the fact that I only have to replace the different colour cartridges individually, instead of replacing the whole thing because one colour runs out!
For the money, I don't believe there is any other printer to match it out there!
I have never owned a Canon printer before, but I am definately sold n them if this is an example of their products!