Happy with my Canon ink-tank printer

It was interesting to read your review of the Canon Pixma G4510 ink-tank printer in Issue 531 (page 25). I bought a Canon ink-tank printer (the Pixma G1500, pictured above right) nearly a year ago and thought you might like to hear my opinion of the results. I run a small office and needed just a printer (I have dedicated scanners) to complement my old - and superb - Canon ip4500 printers. As ink-tank printers had only just been announced, I had to buy my G1500 through Canon’s own store and it came from Holland. It has performed faultlessly and has turned out many hundreds of full-colour A4 pages.

However, there is a downside. My ip4500s take 40 seconds to print fullcolour A4 pages using the Glossy Photo Paper setting. Using the same setting on the G1500 takes 105 seconds. But the difference is that the G1500 produces perfectly good photo reproduction on glossy photo paper using the Plain Paper setting in 33 seconds with no sign of ‘striping’.

One problem I encountered was that with the commercially available photogloss paper I use regularly, the pigment black ink that is supplied with the printer would not dry completely. I solved this by replacing the pigment black with dyebased black. To be fair to Canon, their specification did say to use Canon’s own glossy photo paper, but of course that’s more expensive.

I’m very happy with my G1500 and the saving on ink is astounding. I’ve only had to refill the tanks once in nearly a year’s intensive use, and since I use (and have always used) compatible inks, the cost is minimal. Sets of four 100-millilitre refill bottles are available online for only £7.99.