( 20 reviews )
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Posted: 04-23-2009
One could argue the PIXMA line of printers are made for solely printing digital photos, and it does so exceptionally well. The colors are nice and the photos come out looking great. If you're looking for a printer that prints just digital photos, then you'd be happy with this one. If, however, you're looking for a basic printer to print and scan documents (emails, receipts, etc.), you'll be sorely disappointed. The main issue here with the PIXMA MP500 is with the ink cartridges, and believe me there are plenty! You have your typical CMYK colors plus an extra black for cartridge for black & white printing. Count them. There are five cartridges to purchase, and they're not cheap. And they're small cartridges (except for one large black cartridge) that go down so fast you'll swear you're changing out a cartridge or two once every 20 print jobs. It's painfully obvious printer manufacturers are making their money from these expensive cartridges, and you will fork out a fortune to keep up with your printing needs. It gets worse. The PIXMA MP500 has some dumb, frustrating logic programmed inside it. If one of your color (CMYK) cartridges runs out, you won't be able to print black & white using your black cartridge (remember, there are two blacks: one for B&W printing and one for Color printing). One would think as long as you're not printing color, you should be able to print B&W, but the PIXMA MP500 is so smart it won't let you print anything unless all FIVE cartridges are full. It gets better: Not only can you not print if ANY OF THE FIVE cartridges are empty or reporting an error, but you cannot even scan documents! That's ridiculous! Also, the printer is buggy. I have a near new magenta cartridge I just put in a couple weeks back, and the thing is sometimes reporting it as empty and the other times reporting it as being a duplicate color! Ugh. That means until I replace that cartridge, I cannot use the PIXMA MP500 to print, copy or even scan! THE BOTTOM LINE: I don't believe I'll purchase another Canon PIXMA printer/scanner. I give this printer a very low two stars, because although it does a great job printing color photos, it's too expensive to operate with its five pricey cartridges that run out of ink way too often. And when a cartridge runs out the printer/scanner is rendered useless because it won't operate until you replace the cartridge.
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Posted: 01-16-2009
Having switched from an HP printer I would never turn back. Canon is the best.... I've owned this printer now for over 3 years and have had NO PROBLEMS with it in the least. The printer has a built in scanner, built in LCD display for viewing options and scanning, built in memory card slots for pictures, is bluetooth capable with accessory and the best thing is that it uses multiple color ink cartridges. My HP used one cartridge for color and I had to replace it when only one of the colors ran out. Not with the Canon, you only replace the color of the ink that runs out. Plus the cost of the ink is cheaper too with the Canon as well. Another really nice feature is that the Canon does duplex printing. This means that is will print on both sides of the paper during the print job if you choose that option. This really cuts down on the paper waste. The printer prints quickly too, even at high quality compared to the 3 previous HP units I use to use. The colors are really nice too as I've printed pictures and was really impressed with the quality of the prints. I use a laser printer at work and I still think the Canon MP500 has nicer looking colors than the expensive laser printer at work. Customer service from Canon is the best too. The techs down there are not trying to nickel and dime you. I used them twice and neither time did they charge me. The first time I fed a paper into the feeder by mistake that was partially sideways, my fault entirely as I tried to stop it from going in during a print job. Anyway, the tech on the phone helped me remove the back and bottom covers, really was easy, and spent 15 minutes on the phone with me making sure everything was ok. NO CHARGE.. he said he'd call it something else.....Another time I lost the installation CD and wanted another instead of downloading from the driver page, NO CHARGE.. I asked the guy on the phone are you sure?? He said yes, we want our customers to be able to use our products as long as possible and we don't think charging you for the installation CD is necessary. Boy was I impressed. Try that with Lexmark or HP. If I could think of a con it would be that the European model allows you to print directly to a CD and the American one does not. That is of course unless you buy the European CD tray attachment and download the European drivers setup drivers. If you can find this unit buy it. I though about buying a spare for the day I wear this thing out but my wife would kill me if she found out.
