Smooth operator

Living in Australia means living with a printer. There's quite a lot of printing that needs to be done: many local companies offer coupons that you have to print out yourself; you need to get maps and directions for wherever you want to go; and there're all the receipts for all the online shopping you've done because it's cheaper than buying at your local store, or you simply can't buy it where you are.

I've always been a fan of Canon printers because they are so easy to use. I had a multifunction Canon model in Singapore, and hoped to get something similar in Brisbane. I found the ideal printer in the Canon Pixma MP610.

Setting up the printer for the first time was really easy. The box came with a fold-out sheet that has pictures of what you need to do to connect the printer to the mains, load up the print head and the cartridges, and then connect it to your PC. There seems to be only one way in which everything can snap in. There were some long waits during the installation, but the 'getting started' sheet did warn that some processes would take up to 13 mins, etc. Actual printing is quite quick after that.

As a multifunction printer, the Pixma MP610 is fairly large, though not heavy and so quite convenient to move around if needed. A flap at the top flips up to reveal a 2.5" LCD screen and a dashboard with intuitive buttons like 'on/off', 'stop/reset' and 'feed switch'. The middle of the dashboard features the navigation buttons for the onscreen menu, with four arrows arranged in a circle and an 'OK' button in the middle, somewhat like that of a Canon Ixus digital camera. There is also a doughnut shaped dial in between the arrows and the 'OK' that can be moved to scroll through the circular main menu, like on an iPod. I found this very easy to use.

What took a little while to figure out were the other buttons. For example, functions displayed at the bottom of the menu screen are only accessible through the two buttons directly below them, as on a Nokia phone. I also had to learn how to use the 'Navi' and 'Home' buttons, as this is the first Canon printer that I've seen them on.

'Navi' doesn't actually navigate - it gives you wizards or more help for major printing processes like printing photos from a memory card and on loading paper. 'Home' brings you back to the main menu, which displays the basic functions of copying, scanning, and reading from a memory card, as well as more advanced work like changing the settings, printing a photo/index sheet, reprinting photos, and printing DVD/CD labels. There are also buttons labelled 'black/start' and 'color/start' which tell the printer whether to start copying or scanning in black-and-white or in colour.

There are two ways of feeding paper, so you can have two types or sizes already loaded for your use (both take 150 sheets of paper). I place the A4 sheets at the rear, which is more accessible, and glossy paper in the cassette below, as I print on glossy paper less often. In this way, I can reload A4 printed sheets which look recyclable really quickly, and protect the glossy surface of the glossy paper with the closed cassette at the same time. It's also that loading paper into the cassette is more of a pain as you have to fold up the output tray before you can get the cassette out :)

So far, printing has gone very well. I typically use plain paper and 'high' for print resolution with graphics and photos, and 'standard' resolution for plain text. Everything has turned out crisp and clear. One of the major features of this printer is its speed for starting up and for printing - 21 seconds are claimed for borderless 4" x 6" borderless prints, up to 31 pages per minute (ppm) for black text, and 24 ppm for colour text and graphics. I don't use a stopwatch, but basically don't find myself waiting very long for any of my prints at all.

I printed direct from a memory card for the first time with this printer. The memory card slots at the right side of the printer accept SD cards and CompactFlash cards among others. Once I inserted my SD card, there was a pause while the printer read the card, and then the LCD screen displayed my photos. If it's connected to the PC at the same time, the card shows up as a separate hard disk, just as if it had been in a card reader.

Printing photos from the memory card was a cinch. I could choose which ones I wanted printed, how many copies, or whether I wanted two on the same sheet of paper. You can decide if you want a border, or to have them borderless (borderless is not available on older printers), add the date, crop them, and have automatic photo correction. The prints came out fine on the sample glossy Canon photo paper pack that came with the MP610, and I liked the cropping, border and date options, but couldn't find an option to print on anything else besides 4" x 6" paper.

This printer has a rated resolution of 9,600 x 2,400 dpi for prints with 1 picolitre droplets, but so did my previous multifunction printer, the Canon Pixma MP530. I didn't see any difference in quality there. It prints faster, though :)

Scanning and copying are also straightforward, the only difference being that the target document is stored as an image in the PC with a scan, and printed out on paper if it's a copy. It scans at 4,800 x 9,600 dpi, against my previous multifunction's 1,200 x 2,400, so I assume scan quality must be a lot better. I haven't scanned any photos with the MP610 though.

The MP610 has a number of other features, such as printing via infrared, but my favourite feature is support for individual ink tanks. It's the main criterion I use to decide if I will get the printer.

When I got my first printer with individual ink tanks, I would print A4-sized pictures on a regular basis and see my cyan (blue) cartridge run out several prints before the others if I happened to be doing a lot of sky and sea shots. Or, if I were printing snaps of people, the magenta (pink) and yellow cartridges would run out first. Even if individual ink cartridges cost more than the three-in-one colour cartridges, I'd still get individual inks as they don't get wasted.

A bonus with the MP610 is that it uses ChromaLife 100 inks. The pictures printed with ChromaLife inks are said to be fade-resistant, with quality maintained for 100 years if kept in an album. While I don't think I'm going to be around 100 years hence, it would be nice to know that any pictures I print with this printer will likely look the same a few decades from now.

If I have a second favourite feature, it's duplex printing. I don't like wasting one side of my printouts, and the fact that the MP610 can print on both sides of a sheet of paper really helps to keep paper volumes down. You *can* see a little bit of what's on the other side when 80gsm paper is used, but it doesn't bleed through to become irritating.

I've had minor problems with the printer that aren't really the fault of the MP610, but others might also make the same mistakes:

I've had prints turn up on the expensive photo paper in my cassette rather than on the economical A4 paper in the rear because I forgot to change the paper source.

And I've had duplex prints where page 1 doesn't come with page 2 on the same sheet because I left the 'collate' box ticked.

If there's anything I don't like, it's the cost of buying genuine inks - but that problem is perennial no matter what printer you buy.

I would recommend a Canon Pixma multifunction to anyone who is buying a printer. HPs and Epsons are also good brands, and there may be fairly little difference in the cost of inks for all three brands. In the end it may depend on what's on sale in your area :)