Luvly design, good print quality, good price.

This review is written after one week's use.

Background: I bought this printer to print high-quality A4 photos.
For the last 4 years my desktop and photo printer has been an EPSON C46 which still prints OK but the quality of text and particularly photos has begun to deteriorate.

When looking for a replacement printer, I considered:
- Photo print quality
- Price of ink cartridges
- Dimensions
- Design
- Paper feed mechanism
- Price
- Performance: Not really bothered about speed

Here's what I've found after a week's use:

-Photo quality: Beautiful colour, a bit disappointed in sharpness-no better than EPSON. Note: I use a 12Mpixel camera. Tip: I used Morrison's Professional Photo Glossy Inkjet Paper (£6 per 20 sheets) *and* Canon Photo Paper Plus Glossy II (£11 per 20 sheets inc postage). Result: Morrisons paper is better and a lot cheaper.

-Thirst: After printing about 30 A4 photos, the ink status indicator shows the colour ink tanks are just under half full, the black ink tanks still show full.
This is much more economic than the EPSON.

-Dimensions: Quite a chunky beast, but fits perfectly in my desk pedestal, helps to measure first!

-Design: Gorgeous and stylish looking-if you like shiny black and silver. It's well put together also. One small fault-the front flap clicks shut via 2 sprung plastic ball bearings. After only a few days of use, the flap will only stay shut with a piece of Blutak. Minor point but surprising.

-Paper feed mechanism: Traditional feed tray at the back, but what I love is the front-loading cassette which takes about 100 sheets. It means no more groping at the back of the printer to stuff paper in -just pull the cassette out of the front (or leave it in), load it, and stick it back in. 2 other advantages of the cassette are that the top of the printer can be closed permanently keeping out dust, and allowing me to stick my spare paper on top of the printer right where I need it. I haven't tried loading photo paper into the cassette, maybe you have to use the rear tray? Not a big issue. I haven't yet found a way to reverse page printing order -Easy with the EPSON.

-Price: Amazon price at least £15 cheaper than the usual high street big stores.

-Performance: Fast! compared to what I'm used to, both for photos in high quality mode, and much faster for text. Text quality in standard mode on bog standard inkjet paper is very very good (almost equal to EPSON in high quality mode) and very fast compared to the EPSON. I think high quality mode would be easily good enough for formal document printing.

-Other: Setup: straightforward-the quick start quide worked perfectly. (The reviewer's not a rooky tho'!).

Conclusion:
Immediate reaction was to send it back but its grown on me. It's printed some beautiful photos, and text printing is very quick and high quality even on cheap paper, looks economic too. Easy to use. Good price. Nice design.

I'm gonna keep it!

my 2nd Canon printer

I am delighted with the results. Yes it is rather a biggy, but never mind, I now no longer need to find space for a seprate scanner!

I have owned a Canon iP5000 for the last 3 1/2 years and I was very pleased with it. It was the best so far. Unfortunately, my new PC has Vista home premium 32 and although the photo print results improved enormously after I had downloaded the correct drivers (The initial results before, where dreadful with Vista) the photo printing was still not up to what I had been used to. I shall keep the iP5000 to use with my lap top in another room, just for text etc.

The MP610 is fairly easy to use for standard work, and is very fast, but if you want to use the various cropping and photo editing facilities, which are extensive, then there is quite a lot to learn.

The photo printing results could be described as magazine quality - to me at any rate. I would thoroughly recommend it, always assuming it will fit on your desk !!

It's not taking in paper

I'm gutted. Although it only cost me £21 with the £20 cashback I cannot believe it has just decided to stop taking in paper.

The ink is really expensive. Make sure you put the ink settings on the lowest quality. I'd spent over £100 (no joking) in the first month.

What now? I understand from other reviewer I'll need to send it via courier for repair. Hardly worth it, now I'm left with ink to sell.

Anyone want to buy some ink carts for a MP210. Canon originals.

Decent Printer

A good looking, easy to set up and use printer. Having not tested all functions and printing qualities I am holding back on giving the printer 5 stars. For the functions I have used I am very impressed. Have always been a Canon fan for cameras and printing accessories. Easy to change cartridges and fairly cheap.

HP Slipping in Quality

I picked 2 of these printers up from my local wholesaler at £69.99 each, based on the previous reviews I'd read.. BIG MISTAKE!

The 1st, I attempted to install on my brand new Quad Core machine running Windows Vista. The installer wouldn't pick up the printer when I plugged it in, instead Windows reported that the device wasn't recognized, and had malfunctioned. I searched the Internet looking for possible solutions, all to no avail.

The 2nd, I tried installing on a Laptop running Windows XP SP2. Everything seemed to install correctly, and the test page printed fine."Great!" I thought. Until it came to wanting to print a document, and it just wouldn't.. The print job seemingly wasn't even loading. Again, I looked for possible solutions online and nothing worked.

Both printers are now boxed up, waiting to be taken back. The printer itself looks very pleasing to the eye, but the drivers and hardware just don't live up to expectations.. I'm now looking for replacements, but everywhere I go I seem to be reading the same opinion that HP are slipping in quality. Great shame, because my 940c DeskJet is still running strong and is a fantastic printer!

Fantastic printer!

I've been using this all-in-one for about a year now, and have not once regretted buying it.

It's very economical, especially if you buy the large black cartridge. The range of prints it produces are all done with fantastic quality.

The scanner works very well, as does the bundled (with mine anyway) OCR software.

Copies are quick and of good quality.

Great wireless network printer!

I took delivery of my HP deskjet this morning. It has taken 1.5 hours to get everything up and going. Which in my book is pretty good! I have installed it using the ethernet cable into my wireless router, and then wirelessly onto 2 Windows Vista PCs, one XP PC and one XP Laptop. All 4 computers are connecting to the printer and working fine.

The build and print quality look really good too.

I have had Epsons for the last 20 years but got fed-up of replacing them an an almost annual basis! So this is my first HP printer, and so far I am impressed with the ease of use and setting up on my wireless network.

Had a quick look at ink cartridge costs too, and they appear to be cheaper than the Epson ones.

Vista compatibility/ hp POOR support

Like many other reviewers, HP do a great job when you first buy this. Unfortunately after a while things go wrong and the support from HP is extremely poor to say the least. All they needed to do was send us a disk to update the drivers (like they have done for all US customers) rather than the download which does not work. Your money is better spent elsewhere if you don't want to spend 20 hrs trying to get this working. Seriously all the good reviews from this printer are when people have just purchased, look 6 months down the line of the reviewers who are throwing this out rather than those who have just purcahsed. DONT PUT YOURSELF THROUGH THIS PAIN.

Double check the specs!

This is a good quality simple to use, no nonsense photo printer and at a good price. However there are a few things to bear in mind! If you have a camera with an XD memory card you may will need to buy an adapter for it to work and make full use of the options!.......this can be expensive for a XD to Compact Flash adapter, the XD to Smart Media adapter on Amazon is a lot cheaper and hopefully will fit and work in the SD card slot.
Other wise you fill have to use your cameras USB cable to connect it up and print using the lcd screen on the camera, but losing the printer options. Although a bit more expensive the CP750 allows you to crop and adjust the colour settings which this model doesn't.
Overall a good easy to use printer with great results, but think twice of you have an XD or Micro memory card that will need an adapter, and if this model had the trim and crop option it would have made it a 5 star rating and just might be worth the extra for the CP750 for some.

Fun but fragile and do not have too high quality expectations

Hi,
I just received 2 pogo's today (one is a present for my sister) and have had a play with them. The innerworks is very fragile. I accidently softly dropped on and the metal plate inside that keeps pressure on the paper got loose, which took me some time to fix again. The actual print quality is ok, the colors are not very accurate but the end result is a fun sticker, which was much smaller then I expected.

My desk is now full of funny pictures stuck to the wall, so I am enjoying the device.

To print to it was very easy, picbridge by connecting my digital camera to it worked fine, but also the bluetooth mode by just sending it a file from my laptop or phone worked great. (no need to set it up as printer), just send it a file.

Canon Pixma MX310,

I use this printer working from home for general printing, scanning and copying. I have a separate printer for photo printing. For small business use its pretty good. It replaced a Hp office jet J5780 which went in the bin after the scanner gave up and the software fixes rubbished my laptop. The Cannon is better alround. Quick printing,good software interface. Only 4 starsbecause strangely the copy button is on the left of the panel and the colour/black and white select button is on the far right. Can not comment about the ink use/cost. I suspect it will be about the same as its competitors, grossly expensive, but thats why the printer is realitively cheap.

Surpasses expectation - ideal for family tree enthusiasts

This is a fabulous product at a fabulous price. I wanted to scan old family photos, some dating back to the early 1900s that were not in good shape. The scanner is not only easy to use but the results are excellent. There are slide cases, too, for scanning slides, which I haven't tried yet. I scan from Photoshop. Just go into Photoshop and select File - Import - Epson V500 and it's done, or you can simply press the scan button on the front of the machine. Scanners I have used in the past have been confusing and complicated - not this one. The machine wants to scan at 100%, but you can easily adjust the pixel amount in the Customize menu. This is great for my old photos, some of which are quite small. I have a great photo of a Victorian family gathered under an oak tree, complete with big mustaches and wasp waists. The picture is sadly fading, but the scanned image is a great improvement and has brought back a surprising amount of lost detail simply with Auto Contrast. You can also scan documents - if you are into family trees, this means wedding certificates etc - and you can even scan useable text. The quality of this scanner is great. Unless you are a professional photographer, why spend more?

Paper jam problem after 8 months

Worked fine for 8 months. print quality is Ok. Cartridges are expensive and do not last long
After 8 months the printer keeps jaming the paper in the machine
Followed HP support instructions. Paper still jams in printer
Last printer was a Canon which was no problem at all

NICE FEATURES - if only they'd work properly ...

as with other negative reviews below ... nice printer if it works fine, if it doesn't good luck.

have it hooked up to our router & works fine wirelesly for everything but scanning and uploading the scanned image ... can't figure out what the problem is, have downloaded & reloaded drivers & software several times ...

worst part of it is the non-existant customer"support" ... gave up after weeks of trying ...

would love to give it a great review as hate to think I purchased rubbish, but it is what it is - ....

Solid all-rounder

Installation takes a while, including two reboots; however, other than the reboots and switching between two CDs it's automated so you can leave it to work while doing other things. Lack of a paper manual seems odd in a scanner of this price, but the documentation on the CD was enough to get scanning a few minutes later.

Document scanning is decently fast, taking less than a minute per page at 300dpi, and the 'Scan to PDF' feature is very useful. The 'Digital ICE' seems very effective at removing dust and small scratches while scanning negatives, but with it enabled at 1200dpi each negative takes several minutes to scan. That's as much down to the scanner 'warming up' before scanning every single negative as the time taken to do the scan itself; I hope that's effective at increasing the lifespan of the scanner, because otherwise I'd have thought the software should be smart enough to keep it powered up when it knows it has a dozen negatives to scan. On the plus side, the negative scanning software is very good at finding the individual negatives on a strip, so there's minimal adjustment required.

The Epson scanning software is a bit bizarre, sometimes it forgets that you have an option enabled and you have to disable and re-enable it again to make the software notice it's on. Similarly, when you scan negatives, it doesn't apply the current settings to every negative in the strip, you have to manually apply them to each one. I may have missed some configuration setting to force defaults, but I haven't found one yet.

I bought the scanner to scan in old photos, documents, etc before I emigrate so I won't need to take them with me; therefore I was slightly disappointed that it has a UK-only power supply, since most electronics these days seems to take 110V and 240V. However, as it's just a small external supply hopefully it won't be difficult to replace.

Scan quality is generally good, though scanning negatives at more than 1200dpi does seem to introduce some artifacts; however that may be due to the film itself rather than the scanner. Certainly I'd say it's probably better than the 50,000 pound scanners I used to use at work a decade go, at a tiny fraction of the price! Photo scans often seemed a little overexposed, but not enough to be problematic.

Overall though, while these issues are a little annoying at times, none of them are a reason not to buy it. Even the fairly slow negative scanning is only really a problem if you have a need to scan a lot of negatives in a short period of time, since the scanning software will happily work in the background while you're doing other things; you can start it off and come back half an hour later when it's done. It's not quite a five-star product, but it's a solid four.

Great picture quality, fast and quiet.

I'd owned an HP inkjet for about 8 years which had provided fantastic service, and although not actually dead was suffering from creaking old age. As it had been so reliable I was keen to buy another HP.

Although this is quite a large printer, it's clever design means it can sit on a bookshelf (the paper tray juts out) as the paper is fed in and out through the front.

Set up was simple and straight forward. Print quality is excellent and on normal mode with ordinary paper photographs are surprisingly crisp with good colour. Print speed seems fast compared with my old printer and it is quite quiet. It has a mode to make it even quieter but I have not needed to use this feature.

Printing 200 copies I had a minor paper feed problem, time will tell if this is an issue. I am conecting it via the USB and running Windows XP Home. After two months I am extreemly pleased with this printer which just sits on my bookcase doing its job quietly and efficiently. Unlike my Magicolour 2350 EN colour laser which is a beast.

Typical Epson

The printer performed well initially but like most Epson printers has a very short lifespan and consumes the ink at an incredible rate. After a month or so of use it failed to re-produce colours, especially skin tones, with any accuracy and no amount of calibration and head cleaning seems to be able to remedy it. Ok if you want larger prints on a budget and can sacrifice quality.

Transparencies

This unit is supposed to be an all purpose printer but it does not print on OHP transparency film including Epsons own special transparency film.

I am taking it back - wifi on printer goes to sleep after a day.

This printer is the cheapest multifunction printer/scanner/copier on the market that has integrated Wifi.

The integrated Wifi was my reason for buying the device, as I live in a small place and wanted to locate it in a cupboard using no wires.

I have not had the same difficulty setting up the wifi on the machine as others in caparative reviews. I used the software and its relatively plug and play and works first time.

BUT the Wifi stops working after a day so you are left with having to connect to the device using the USB socket, its getting difficult now because its in the cupboard!

I tried countless times to reconfigure the printer but when I did it worked fine that day but the day after it stopped working. Strangely enought, it lost none of the security settings of the router even if the power was cycled. It just stopped accepting print jobs over wifi leaving them stored in your printer spooler.

The software that accompanies the device is large to install and isnt friendly in normal operation. Mine tried to communicate back to hp to update itself on a regular basis but didnt work properly on my machine.

Quick and easy?

not as straight forward as the instructions state - needs some careful handling. Once aligning frame is stuck to film, very difficult to re-align without damaging print. Finish on canvas is brilliant.