Canon Pixma MP530 Office All-In-One Inkjet Photo Printer
by Canon
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List Price: Our Price: $160.00 You Save: $137.92 (46%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: CE See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon Pixma MP530 Office All-In-One Inkjet Photo Printer
Customer Review: Highly Recommended!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
I researched this printer on the web like crazy before purchasing. I almost went with the MP830, but saw too many complaints about how much ink it used, and the MP530 seemed to have better reviews on it's photo printing capabilities. Since the MP830 had extra features like card slots and a viewing monitor that I really didn't need (I edit all my photos on the computer before I print them), I went with the MP530 instead. Boy, am I glad I did. This is a heck of a lot of equipment for the money. I was replacing old Epson equipment that had stood the test of time without fail (2 printers including a photo printer, and a scanner), but my new home business required something with more up to date capabilities. Having worked for Epson myself for over 12 years, I would have liked to have bought an Epson again, but they didn't make anything like this with an ADF.
Anyway, back to this fantastic AIO. This unit was super easy to setup and caused no issues with my Windows XP system at all - I didn't even have to reboot! I thought for sure with the tons of equipment I already have installed that it would screw up something, but it was no problem at all. The controls are easy to understand and you could probably figure out how to do everything with it without even picking up the manual. The scan quality is perfect for a home business like mine and I was quite surprised that it prints photos just as good as my Epson high level photo printer. And it prints quiet and fast. I have not used it to fax yet, but I fax through my computer anyway so I can save everything on disk, so I won't use this feature much. The duplex printing and copying really does work great, but for scanning you have to put the pages in twice for duplex - no biggee for me, but it might matter to someone who scans duplex a whole bunch.
The software that came with it was great too; nice little photo printing package that REALLY fixes red eye, and has some nice print layouts. As an amateur photographer, I really wanted a unit that could print a decent photo, and this unit didn't dissapoint me (and I'm kinda picky about photo quality).
Only a couple words of concern to anyone buying this - anything put in the paper cassette will be printed on the "down" side - something I found out the hard way after printing on the wrong side of photo paper. It would have been nice if they labeled the tray with that info, but it's a small freckle on an otherwise perfect unit.
So far I have been playing with this for a few hours and have tried almost all the functions except faxing. Everything is working great with it. I can't believe I am actually going to be able to replace my office inkjet, my photo printer, and my scanner with this, but I really can. And I got the ADF scanning and color copying capabilities I needed for my home business on top of that. And all for less than I paid for either of my old printers or scanner individually. Thank you Canon! You just made my desktop a whole lot more spacious.
Customer Review: Excellent All in One Printer
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent product, and is a bargain. I looked at personal/home office models from Canon and HP with automatic document feeders and this was the best. Obviously there are large expensive machines which are much faster than this - but you can't put them by your desk.
1. It looks good. It is fairly compact. When not in use the paper output tray and scanner and paper input trays can be closed up and put away. This is really important if you want something for your home office and you want something that looks good because you'll leave out, or is easy to hide way.
2. It seems to do a good job printing in black and white and color. I don't know how long the ink lasts.
3. It scans well - but I'm not a photographer, I scan primarily business documents, but everything else looks pretty good too. The scanner's Presto Page Manager 7 software package is excellent. You can put a stack of paper in the scanner's automated feeder and it will scan everything for you. It might take some time - but it does the job and you can do something else. You get a excellent package of software which you install on you PC that allows you to manipulate the files from the scanner. I could not figure out how to scan directly to PDF. However you can have the built in software turn your scan in to a compressed and uncompressed PDF. The compression makes the scan small enough to e-mail yet high quality. This is the key feature for me - for my work I needed a way to convert paper documents on demand into PDFs to send to people. One useful benefit for most people is that you can sign documents, scan them in, and then e-mail them and save them on your PC. You don't need to keep the paper file or use faxing. I need to OCR the PDFs sometime. Don't depend on the software package to do a perfect job - unless the document is very simple. It will a very very high percentage of the text though on forms. Get something like ABBYY Finereader to do the job if you're not satisfied - and even that isn't perfect. Another missing feature is that it doesn't do double sided scanning - I have to turn the pages over and scan them again and then organize the page so they're in the right order. It is possible I should have bought the MP830 - which is bigger and not as good looking.
I have not tested the fax features.
The all in one printer's built in menus and keys work really well too. Largely I control my printer from my PC.
It is easy to install and use. I'm pretty technical - but this is still straightforward I think.
It doesn't come with a USB - so order one from amazon. I got the Tripp Lite USB 2.0 Cable USBa/USBb Gold Connectors (10 FT) for $10 which work fine.
It is amazing you can get all of these features for so little. There are some features it would be nice to have - and I'd probably pay more for double sided scanning. But all the built in features work well, and it is a really nice package.
Customer Review: Excellent All-In-One printer
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had this Canon All-In-One for about a week now. It was very easy to set-up with my Windows XP machine due to the clear, easy to follow instructions. It's desktop footprint is surprisingly small and it takes up less space on my desk than the printer and photocopy machines it replaces.
Print quality overall is very good, while the printer is quiet and fast. Text is clear and crisp and color photos are printed with surprising quality on photo paper. Maybe not quite as good as a dedicated photo printer but, never the less, good enough for this professional photographer as quick proofs.
The scanner is not of the highest quality, but seems to scan well at medium resolution and with fair color fidelity. Not quite a dedicated professional photographers scanner but perfect for normal home and home business uses. The software is easy to use and in advanced mode, quite flexible, enabling the user to dial in manual settings to make the best scan possible. The auto settings seem quite satisfactory for basic home users and should make scanned images look colorful and sharp.
I have not had a chance to see if all the Fax functions work as advertised and I have not yet explored all the ways in which this flexible machine works. The 2 paper trays is a great idea - I store normal paper in one and glossy photo paper in the other - one push of a button on the front control panel and the paper source can be chosen, eliminating the need to swap out paper types.
I will also have to see how economical the MP530 is with ink cartridges, but having spent the 1st 2 days printing everything I could as tests, the software reports that the ink cartridges are pretty much full.
The MP530 looks great, performs very well and is a good price. So far I am very pleased.
Update on 9-26-06 : I have had some time to use more of the many functions of this printer.
The Fax function has now been tested and works fine with my telephone/answering machine. It sits in line with the phone and only cuts in to pick up the fax if there is an incoming fax, otherwise the answer phone does it's job unhindered. Perfect!
I have had also a chance to print some photo business cards, quite a few high resolution 8x10 photos and the normal daily B&W text printing. Print quality overall has been very good and the Duplex print (as well as the duplex copy) functions have been very much appreciated and used continuously, as has the web print software. According to the ink cartridge software, the cartridges seem to be still fairly full. The ADF (auto document feeder) works ok if what you feed into it is uncreased, unfolded and of the standard letter size.
The overall build quality is great and I have had nothing but compliments from people who have seen this printer and its output.
Customer Review: Superb Output Quality & Built Like A Tank
Summary: 5 Stars
Being an illustration major and having never owned a printer, I recently became in desperate need of one and set out looking for the best value and quality. After lots of research, I settled upon the MP530. Following the 'scarcity' comments of the reviewers below, I too had problems tracking one of these down to see in person, but eventually found one.
The build quality of this machine is incredible. Everything pulls and shifts into place with a chunky, satisfying *click*, and all components are very thick (plastic document feeder, front panel, input buttons, etc.). As superficial as it may be, this particular model is also one of the best-looking multifunction devices I happened to see. The pictures do not do justice to how substantial this machine is (it is quite large, though streamlined). It has that 1980's, 'boxy' appeal while being contemporary at the same time.
Aside from superficial observations, I was admittedly naive as to what an ADF (Automatic Docment Feeder) was prior to purchasing this machine. On the MP530, you can actually stack a sheet of documents, such as a term paper, on the ADF tray and the machine will begin an automated process of scanning (or copying, if you choose) the documents without the user having to do anything. Also, you are able to fill the bottom cassette tray with paper, while keeping the auto-sheet feeder full of another type (or additional of the same type) of paper. I've filled the cassette with 4x6" glossy photo plus paper (5 sheets are included with the printer) for printing photos, while keeping regular 8.5x11" paper in the auto-sheet feeder.
I've tested the color quality (monochrome is practically laser quality, though the blacks are never as rich as the toner used in laser printing - very sharp text) on some fairly high quality, medium dpi photographs, and it is as good as lab quality. I will only be getting negatives developed from now on! The scanner is CIS-based, which is obviously inferior to CCD, so I will use my Epson 4490 for serious archiving and scanning jobs.
Also, the printer requires a USB printer cable, which is NOT included. With these things in mind, I couldn't be happier with this machine.
Customer Review: Excellent All-in-One
Summary: 5 Stars
I can't say a lot about this printer as I have only had it a couple of days, but I did print out a 4x6 picture and a text document and made a couple of copies. I was very impressed with the quality of the photo (just as good as a photo-finishing lab) that I printed out on Canon's sample pack of Photo Paper Plus (glossy). The colors seemed to be accurate and there was absolutely no graininess that I could see in the picture.
I wasn't quite as impressed with the quality of the text document. Characters in the print were not very crisp in "standard" printing mode, but were pretty good in high quality mode (although still not as sharp as a laser printer).
The copies I made were pretty good in high image quality mode, but I had to adjust the exposure up a step or two to make the copy just as dark as the original. I also did a couple of B&W test scans, but those did not turn out as sharp as I expected (they did not appear to be 600dpi). I'll have to do a little more experimentation to find the ideal settings.
Even though I haven't had much experience with this printer yet, I would say that so far I am pretty pleased. The prints are pretty good, the printer appears to be well-made, and the front panel is nicely laid out. It's also fairly quiet (my former printer, a Brother HL-1040 laser, was very noisy). I'm looking forward to many years of use with this printer and am pleased to finally have a printer that can scan, copy, fax, and print beautiful photos. The automatic document feeder is a bonus, too.
One last thing: The printer is quite a bit larger than I had expected and it takes up a big portion of my desk space. Make sure you read the dimensions and realize how much space it's going to take up before you buy it.
**Update: I just found the secret to printing excellent quality B&W text documents. BUY GOOD QUALITY PAPER! I recently purchased some HP Color Inkjet paper and the print quality is much better than before (near laser-quality). I am very pleased with this printer's output now and would highly recommend it to anyone that is looking for a good All-in-One. If only Canon could make it a tad smaller... :)