PRICE: RM1020.00
Product summary
The good: Inexpensive; high quality prints; fast print speeds overall, particularly quick with photo printing.
The bad: Scans should be improved; can't use the PictBridge port to connect USB storage devices.
The bottom line: The Canon Pixma MP600 occupies the sweet spot between quality and price. It's one of our favorite photo all-in-ones for home users.
Specs: Office Machine Functions: Copier,; Printer,; Scanner; Printing Technology: Ink-jet; Scanner Optical Resolution: 2400 x 4800 dpi.
Reviewed on 11/20/06
The $200 Canon Pixma MP600 is the mini-me to the gargantuan $300 Pixma MP810. Its smaller form factor and price have no bearing on the print quality or print speed, though we found this printer to be reasonably fast (lightning fast, even, with photo printing), and the print quality impressed us. The only major feature you lose out on is the negative and slide scanner. It doesn't come with a fax either, but a fax generally is found on more office-oriented printers, such as the $200 Canon Pixma MP530. Given the price vs. performance calculation, we actually prefer the Pixma MP600 to the Pixma MP810, and we definitely like it better than its competition from HP and Epson. If high-quality scans are a high priority for you, though, skip the Canon Pixma MP600 and check out the office-oriented Pixma MP530
Design
The Pixma MP600 looks as though someone hit the MP810 with a shrinking ray: same body, same layout--only smaller. It stands 17.5 inches wide, 15 inches deep, and 7.5 inches high. It has the same two paper inputs (cassette in front and auto sheet feeder in back) and a flip-out panel for output. Two memory card slots reside behind a door and the PictBridge port sits under that door.
The control panel is embedded in the scanner lid, and the MP600 also uses the new scroll wheel design found on the MP810. The menu options are shown on the 2.5-inch color LCD that's nestled into the underside of the control panel cover. We like the tactile click response from the scroll wheel, and although we'd always prefer a larger LCD for previewing photos, the one found on the MP600 is bright, colorful, and easy to read.
The Pixma MP600's flatbed scanner can hold up to A4 size originals; if you need to scan legal size sheets, you're out of luck. This model lacks the negative and slide scanner found on the more expensive Pixma MP810, and it offers only a USB connection. If you want to network it, you can avail yourself of a variety of third-party routers or print servers that will do the job for you.
The MP600 uses the same five-ink system the MP810 employs: dye-based cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks, plus a pigment-based black for better text prints. Canon estimates 4x6 photo prints cost a competitive 29 cents each and color documents cost a mere 3 cents per page--both numbers are at the low end in the industry.
Features
The Canon MP600 offers the same feature set available on most Canon multifunctions (see the Feature section of the
With photo printing, we found the features we expected to see. You can reprint photos by scanning them and outputting them as normal photo prints or in a sticker print. If you're printing straight from a memory card, you can print all, print only selected photos, or print a photo index of all the contents of a card, by date range, or just the last 36, 72, 108, or 144 pictures taken. We find this last option to be really useful for people who tend to just add to their memory cards without offloading older images first.
If you'd like to print wirelessly, you have two options. The first is to use the built-in IrDA port with your IrDA camera phone. The second is to purchase an optional Bluetooth adapter to plug into the PictBridge port. Using the Bluetooth adapter, you can print from a variety of PDAs and cell phones. You can also print from a PictBridge camera using the PictBridge port. We like the wide array of options, but would also like to see the ability to use the PictBridge port as a USB port (or even a secondary USB port) to connect a USB storage device, such as a flash thumbdrive.
Performance
The Canon Pixma MP600 may be smaller in stature than the MP800, but it keeps up in performance. It printed text at 7.88ppm, just behind the MP800's 8.43 pages per minute (ppm). What really impressed us, though, was its lightning-fast photo print speeds--an impressive 2.33ppm for 4x6 prints, the fastest photo printer we've seen in the Labs by far (even faster than more expensive Pixma models). The next fastest was the 1.88ppm posted by the Pixma MP810. It was a bit slower at scanning, but not shamefully so: 4.36ppm for grayscale scans and 4.44ppm for color scans.
he print quality of the MP600 was impressive. Text quality was excellent, especially for an inkjet printer. We saw only very minor jaggedness on the edges of some characters. The color graphics print showed similar high quality: excellent saturation in color blocks, sharp detail, and impressive color reproduction, both in graphics and photo elements. We also liked the 4x6 photo prints, but we would've liked to see richer, warmer colors. Still, the photos are good enough for snapshooters and amateur photo hobbyists.
The grayscale scan didn't fare as well. Both ends of the grayscale were overblown, resulting in loss of details in both highlights and shadows. The color scan exhibited a similar problem, with light areas overblown. Also, details were fuzzy and the scan had an overall unfocused look to it. The scanner also had problems dealing with the vertical lines of a barcode-style pattern. If you're looking for excellent scans, this is not the printer for you. The Canon Pixma MP530 offers excellent scan quality, but as it's an office-oriented all-in-one, it lacks built-in memory card slots and a preview LCD. In order to get all of these features--memory card slots, LCD, and high-quality scans--you'll probably have to pony up a bit more cash for a model such as the Canon Pixma MP800.
Service and support
Canon provides a one-year limited warranty for its consumer printers, as well as a year of free, toll-free phone support Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. PST. You can extend the warranty to three years for $95. You also can get tech support via e-mail, and Canon says it will respond within 24 hours. Canon's site has FAQs, a troubleshooting tool, downloadable drivers and software, and PDFs of product and software manuals
