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Details at a glance
Max 9600 x 2400 dpi
Max paper size: A4
Ink: 5 tanks
Dimensions: 419x299x160mm
Weight: 6.5kg
PictBridge
We clicked with
Full of features, excellent print quality, CD printing, price
Shots in the dark
Ink costs
Links
More Canon information
www.canon.co.uk
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The Pixma 4200 is supposed to be an entry level photo printer but if you read the feature list you'll find it does much more than you expect. Duplex printing, two paper trays, CD printing and borderless printing too - all for under 60 quid.
Appearance and features
Open up all the paper feeds and the Pixma looks pretty much like you would expect. What isn't immediately obvious is that the printer has been cleverly designed to be as compact as possible. This has been achieved in a number of ways. First of all, it's pretty rectangular which means it should fit quite nicely with all the other stuff on your desk. All the buttons and tell tale lights are located on the front so that you can access them easily. Best of all - you don't need the top feed tray. There's a second paper feed tray at the front just underneath the output tray. Close the top down and you can push the printer right underneath a shelf or have a handy flat surface to put some of the other junk from your desk on - or a cup of coffee, or another Pixma.
The list of features make this printer look like a joke - but in a good way. I really don't understand what they could put extra on the higher ranged printers to make them worth the money.
I've already mentioned the dual paper trays. You could use the bottom one for plain paper for printing letters and use the top one for photo paper. Or one for gloss and one for matt. Or close the top one down - either way it's very nice to have the options.
The Pixma 4200 has proper duplex printing. Tell it to print double sided and it will print double sided without you touching the paper again. It pulls the paper in, prints it, turns it over and prints it some more. Just like an office photocopier - except for a lot less money.
You can also print CDs and DVDs (as long as you use suitable ones). There's another feed flap on the front of the printer into which you can drop a tray (included) with a printable CD on it. (This feature was removed for the US market.)
Advanced Features
Borderless printing is getting pretty common on inkjet printers now. It slows the printing down and the edges of the print are often not quite as good as the middle but it's a handy feature to have. It saves you trimming the paper and if you are using expensive photo paper it ensure you use the whole sheet you paid for.
The iP4200 also has PictBridge printing. Connect a compatible camera and you can print directly without using a computer. There's no screen on the iP4200 to show you what you are doing and most cameras can be very fiddly to get to the PictBridge options but again it's a nice feature to have.
Software
As you'd expect, you get all the software you need for great prints. Easy Photo-Print allows you to do some limited picture editing as well as having “magic fix” options to enhance your images.
CD-Label Print does what it says and allows you to print sticky labels for CDs. I found this the best way to get nice prints directly on CDs. I laid out the disk in Photoshop, saved it as a jpeg and just dropped it onto CD label print and told it to print on a CD. This seemed to work much better than the bundled software that is designed for printing on disks.
The software is available for Windows and Mac users and there appears to be a driver for Linux systems though I wasn't able to test this.
Quality
Budget printers are getting silly. I produced edge to edge A4 prints on a Pixma 4200 and showed them to people - most of them thought they had been done at a mini lab. Looks closely and you can see that the fine detail doesn't quite hold up to examination but it's really something you have to go looking for. From the test of this and the Epson R220 I wouldn't personally buy a more expensive printer - either of these printers is great for casual prints and if I want something long lasting or with more detail I can use a mini lab.
CDs and DVDs also print well though the printer occasionally gets “confused” when you print multiple disks. Soemtimes it wants a button pressing to feed the next disk and sometimes it doesn't.
Areas for improvement...
Really not too much. Print quality exceeded my expectations. There was a little blocking in the shadow areas but nothing I wouldn't put up with even from a more expensive inkjet.
Duplex printing is rather slow and the 29 black ink pages per minute printing in the spec is optimistic to the point of fanciful. I'm sure they comply with an industry standard for coverage but on real world documents it was less than 10 pages per minute (still a lot faster than the Epsons).
It's time for my usual complaint about the price of inkjet ink. I know there is a huge amount of R&D in printers and I know that manufacturers sell their printers cheaply and recoup their profits on ink. The iP4200 ink cartridges have a patented chip that allows your computer to warn you when the ink is running low. Since it's patented, 3rd party ink is not currently available from any source so even if you want to use non Canon ink you can't. I find it a little shocking that a new set of ink for this printer is roughly 90% of the cost of the printer. I understand the economic and business reasons for that but I am concerned about the environmental impact of having “throw away” printers. In case you're wondering, the iP4200 comes with a full set of ink (5 cartridges all full) so when your ink runs out you can buy a new set of ink for £52 or a new set of ink, new print heads and a whole printer for £58.
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If you want a budget home printer then the Pixma iP4200 is likely to have every feature you will ever need and gives great prints at an attractive price - just prepare yourself for a shock when the ink runs out. It's really a very close run thing between this and the R220 - you are unlikely to be disappointed with either.
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