Canon MP480 All-in-One Photo Printer

this printer does many different things. photo prints come out great. the copy is good. i have printed cards. i have been having so much fun with my printer. it is easy to install. does not use a lot of toner. i have had many printers in the past years, this is the best.

I was looking for an inexpensive photoprinter for a member of the family and purchased this printer, having always been satisfied in the past with Canon products. I found the Canon MP480 to function quite well in both scanning and printing. Installing it was no problem. Very glad I purchased iot and the price cannot be beat. David

The title just about says it all. The quality of this printer is fine. Ive owned many printers in my life, but this is by far the biggest ink hog I have ever had.

This is a wonderful printer for the price. It has a stand alone feature where you can use your memory card from a digital camera and print without being connected to your PC. The entire system workes great with Windows Vista, which is a plus. The ink cartridges are the easiest to install of any printer that I have had. I really had to have a preview window screen and could not find another printer with all these features at anywhere near this price.

The printer itself is decent. Its relatively attractive and easy to use. The quality of copies and photos is fine. Its noisier and slower than Id prefer, but I can live with that. What I cant live with is a printer that goes through ink so fast that I surpassed the cost of the printer after the third ink refill, and I buy the XL size refills! I find myself being extremely judicious about printing anything to try and conserve the short life of these cartridges. Dont buy it. No printer is worth this much inconvenience or money.

Overall, this is an incredible piece of technology for the price. Its an excellent scanner, and a *generally* very high quality printer and copier. The interface is adequate, if not incredibly convenient, and the ability to read directly from a variety of cards is very useful. There is only one weakness of this printer, and that is the fact that photographs can tend to streak towards the end of the print. This is pretty common with ink jet printers, and unfortunately this one is no different. Its only apparent in photographs with large areas of the same tone, and it doesnt always happen--its a function of random partial clogging of the jets--but you should be aware that youre not going to get the kind of quality out of this that youll get from having photos printed professionally. (In fact, its usually cheaper to do so.) However, for the occasionally instant gratification photo printing, you cant beat this printer and the price.

Initially the printer wouldnt work at all. I did not have the CD but I presevered. Then out of the blue it started to work properly after about 3 weeks. I cannot say what I did precisely but to this day, it works beautifully. No complaints.

I had to replace the printer head after one month. I had the identical printer for 6 years and never encountered this problem.

I have been a HUGE fan of Canon printers for many years. In fact I have only bought Canon for my own computers, having listened to complaints and problems about every other brand from all of my friends. The price alone on this MP480 (I paid $49.50 for it, with a $20 mail in rebate-making the total cost less than $30!!!!) makes it an incredible value, but it is also the best one yet for printing speed, quality and functionality. I LOVE the fact that it will print, copy AND scan all in one very compact machine! Goodbye stand-alone HP scanner, I never cared much for you anyway. And the fact that you can print photos from your camera and make copies without the computer even being turned on, is just awesome. Not only does it support pictbridge (plugging your camera into the printer) but it also has slots for your memory cards and a pop-up screen with a very functional menu to take care of almost any printing need, sans computer! It was a snap to set up, installed without a single glitch and, unlike the other reviewer who had difficulty with what they perceived as an antiquated, unhelpful print-head alignment program, I also found that process to be simple, fast and easy. PLEASE NOTE: If this is your first USB printer, you will need to purchase a USB cable because it doesnt come with one. So, why not 5 stars? I do have two complaints: 1. The best thing to come along with printers in the last 15 years was Canons innovative use of separate cartridges for each color. They last 10 times longer and save money by ONLY having to replace the single color that is out. There is only one possible reason why Canon has decided to stray from that smart technology - MONEY. Less ink in a more expensive cartridge means more money in Canons pockets. Still, these cartridges are cheaper than comparable ones for Epson or Lexmark printers and I have NOT found that the ink disappears any faster than other brands with a similar quantity of ink (buy the XL replacement cartridges for a better value) 2. I loved the auto-shut off feature of my ip2000. I never had to turn it off or power it back up. When I needed to print, I simply hit the print key and it did its thing. The MP480 either needs to stay on all the time (the menu screen does turn itself off after 5 minutes of non-use) or you have to turn it on and let it go through its lengthy routine every time you want to use it. That said, the quiet mode is quiet, the print quality is superb and the footprint on my desk isnt much more than my ip2000 and the multifunction MP480 allowed me to get rid of my bulky scanner, so even with its two drawbacks, this one is a definite keeper!

I like my printer very much. The quality of print is great and color is excellent. It does a good job on envelopes including feeding multiple envelopes. It does seem to use a lot of ink, but I guess thats the price you pay for the quality printing.