Despite its name, the Canon i850 Photo Printer ($200 street) isn't so much a photo printer as it is a general-purpose printer that does photos extremely well. It uses four colors, unlike most photo printers, which use six. You won't find such photo-related features as slots for camera storage cards, a connector for plugging in a camera, an LCD screen for previewing images, or menus that let you print photos without a computer. What you will find is an impressively capable printer that combines fast printing with high-quality output and an option for borderless printing.

The i850 is a bit wider and heavier than a typical desktop ink jet printer. It also has a more solid feel to it and a tasteful gray-beige-and-silver design that shows the fine hand of an industrial designer. Setup is simple and follows the usual steps for most Canon ink jet printers: You install a print head, then snap in four separate ink cartridges. Because you can replace each cartridge independently of the others, you don't have to throw out all your other unused ink when one color goes dry.

Both speed and output quality for the i850 come in large part from a new print-head design that delivers ink drops as small as 2 picoliters and resolutions as high as 4,800 by 1,200 dpi. The combination provides fine control over the placement of ink on the page, which lets a rounded object in a photo—an apple, for example—retain the subtle shading that gives a sense of dimensionality. The fine droplets and high resolution also ensure that even the thinnest lines, like the white numbers on a black clock face in one of our test photos, remain sharp and clear. The 1,600 nozzles keep the printer going at a fast clip, even at the smallest drop size and highest resolutions. On our tests, image quality was excellent overall, with crisp, highly readable text, brilliant colors in graphics, and true photo quality for photos.

The speedy i850 was nipping at the heels of laser-printers on our performance tests. It printed a 10-page Microsoft Word document at 6.6 pages per minute (ppm), taking just 1 minute 31 seconds, and a 30-page document at 5.7 ppm (5:18). Speeds for our test photos were also impressive. On plain paper in default mode, the i850 printed an 8- by 10-inch photo in 35 seconds. In best quality mode, the photo took 1:37. 8- by 10-inch images on photo paper and printing at the highest resolution took under 2 minutes 30 seconds each. And on 4- by 6-inch photo paper, the time dropped to less than 1 minute.

All told, the Canon i850 Photo Printer delivers a lot of printer for the price, whether you want to print photos or are just looking for a high-quality, general purpose printer. And at $200, you can't go wrong.