Canon Pixma iP3500

Manufacturer: Canon USA Part number: 2170B002

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$59.99 - $92.60 at 8 online stores

CNET Editor rating:
3.5 stars Very good
Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 10 reviews

More product information:: Editors' review; User reviews; Specifications; Manufacturer info

Bottom Line:: The Canon Pixma iP3500 inkjet printer is a great choice for home users who have basic print needs but still want good-looking prints.

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CNET editors' review

Canon Pixma iP3500

price range: $59.99 - $92.60

The Canon Pixma iP3500 inkjet printer is a great choice for home users who have basic print needs but still want good-looking prints.

The good: Great print quality; print speeds are on a par with the competition's; PictBridge-enabled; IrDA-enabled; two paper sources.

The bad: No extra features.

The bottom line: The Canon Pixma iP3500 inkjet printer is a great choice for home users who have basic print needs but still want good-looking prints.

Read full review

The Canon Pixma iP3500 is a low-cost, single-function printer designed for home users with light printing needs. Happily, this $80 inkjet's output quality is good enough for not only general personal use--printing e-mails and directions--but it also suffices for school reports and the like. Its print speeds are average to above average, and you'll be more than pleased with the print quality. Not surprisingly, the Pixma iP3500's feature set offers nothing beyond the basics; you won't find extras such as memory card slots or networking on such an inexpensive printer. If you need networking, the $80 Lexmark Z1420 comes Wi-Fi-enabled, but it loses out to the Canon iP3500 in terms of print quality.

Design
The Canon iP3500's design is simple and straightforward. The black-and-silver printer stands 17.2 inches wide, 11.9 inches deep, and 5.7 inches tall, and it weighs 10.8 pounds. The control panel is basically nonexistent. The only features on the front of the printer are the power and cancel/feed buttons and a PictBridge-enabled USB port.

The printer has two input options. The rear input support folds out from the body of the printer, while the front input support extends out from the front face. The rear input holds as many as 150 sheets of plain paper and is good for all the acceptable paper types. The front input holds up to 100 sheets of plain paper and should be used only for plain paper. Because the path for paper fed through the front input requires the paper to bend around a roller, it's not recommended for any thick media, such as photo paper. The output area consists of a tray above the front input area. Many Canon printers offer a lever that you can use to change the distance between the print heads and the paper; normally, the lever is hidden away in the bowels of the front output area, but on the iP3500, Canon moved it to the face of the printer, making it easier to find.

The iP3500 uses a four-ink system with individual ink cartridges, a system we like because it reduces ink waste. The black tank costs $16.25 to replace and each of the color inks costs $14.25 to replace. Canon estimates the per-page costs for the Pixma iP3500 to be 3 cents for a black-and-white print and 5 cents for a full-color print. Both numbers are low and reasonable for a low-cost printer.

Features
The feature set of the iP3500 is predictably simple. The only connection option is USB 2.0. It does serve up a PictBridge USB port for connecting PictBridge cameras and other devices, but it lacks memory card slots. Users who have IrDA-enabled devices can print wirelessly from smart phones and the like.

Because the printer lacks a control panel, any changes need to be made through the driver, which is comprehensive. You can specify the paper type, change the paper source (front or rear), perform manual duplex jobs, and even apply photo treatments such as monochrome effects (black-and-white, sepia, and so forth), noise reduction, and photo optimizer. You can even create profiles for your most common types of print jobs.

Performance
The Pixma iP3500 performed well against its similarly priced competition in terms of print speeds, even taking top honors on one test. It printed black text at a rate of 6.52 pages per minute (ppm), just shy of the Lexmark Z1420's score of 6.68ppm. The Canon produced color graphics prints at a rate of 2.07ppm, which trailed the HP Deskjet D4260 (2.26ppm) but was more than twice as fast as the Lexmark. The Canon was the fastest at printing 4x6 photos, just squeaking by the HP with a score of 1.09ppm.

Inkjet printer performance (in pages per minute)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Photo

Graphics

Text

Lexmark Z1420

0.72

0.99

6.68

Canon Pixma iP3500

1.09

2.07

6.52

HP Deskjet D4260

1.01

2.26

6.03

Of the three, we preferred the print quality of the Pixma iP3500 overall. It did a good job with all the print tasks, though there's room for improvement. The black text print showed decent sharpness and legibility: we were able to easily read the text down to 2 points. The characters were nicely dark, too. Close inspection found some minor jagged edges, not particularly surprising for an inexpensive inkjet printer. The color graphics print revealed sharp details in photo elements, pleasing saturation, and good color reproduction. The color gradients had a bit of a faded quality to them, but generally we were quite pleased. The 4x6 photo also showed nice detail but was marred by a slight yellow cast over the whole picture. The colors should be warmer, particularly the flesh tones, and the image could stand to be a bit sharper. Overall, the print quality was good enough for general home use.

Inkjet printer quality
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Photo

Graphics

Text

Canon Pixma iP3500

Good

HP Deskjet D4260

Fair

Good

Lexmark Z1420

Fair

Service and support
Canon offers a standard one-year warranty for the Pixma iP3500. Toll-free phone support is available weekdays from 8 a.m. to midnight PT and on Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. E-mail support is available 24-7 via a Web-based form. Canon's standard online support options include downloadable drivers and software, manuals, and FAQs.

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User reviews

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Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 10 reviews

Showing opinion 1 to 10 out of 10

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3 stars

one major problem

by lenarich on November 22, 2007

Pros: I do not print photos but as to quality of printed page it is fine

Cons: Paper Jam error is not true but it screws up the works

Summary: You can not print a file that contains five or more pages without getting a paper jam warning. In reality all you have to do is hit the paper jam ...

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Summary: You can not print a file that contains five or more pages without getting a paper jam warning. In reality all you have to do is hit the paper jam button and it resumes printing, However the first page after the alledged jam comes through blank. I am in contact with Canon trying to resolve the problem. Would not recommend this printer.

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6 out of 8 users found this user opinion helpful.
9 stars

Easy to use, trouble free, fast quality prints

by sigp229 on January 28, 2008

Pros: Individual inkwells, flat top works better for my clutter though i'm sure it's not an appropriate function for a printer

Cons: rather large footprint

Summary: As a low priced photo printer, this one does the job and does it well. It's adequately fast, clear, and simple enough to use. Once it is installed, everything ...

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Summary: As a low priced photo printer, this one does the job and does it well. It's adequately fast, clear, and simple enough to use. Once it is installed, everything is automatic. It is not the quietest printer available but it's fairly quiet for something that doesn't cost too much. The individual inkwells last a long time and are cheaper to replace (the color carts) since you don't have to replace all three at the same time. Works perfectly with Vista and photos print very well.

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4 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.
8 stars

It works for me.

by surcfo on January 1, 2008

Pros: Works fine so far.

Cons: Setup instructions missed installing the driver.

Summary: I bought printer 2 days ago. I set it up
and tried to print a letter size page but it
would only print 4 by 6 in the upper left

...

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Summary: I bought printer 2 days ago. I set it up
and tried to print a letter size page but it
would only print 4 by 6 in the upper left
side of sheet. So I called the Canon help line and was relived to hear they knew what the problem was. I needed to install a driver from the installation disk. I then proceeded to print out about 200 pages from a camcorder manual with only one minor jam.

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3 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
3 stars

Does not feed. Jams frequently

by gmason1052 on January 11, 2008

Pros: Picture quality very good.

Cons: It is nearly impossible to get it to feed.

Summary: I bought this printer because I only occassionaly print a picture, mostly a calendar every year. I wanted something to print receipts, emails etc. The thing that made me switch ...

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Summary: I bought this printer because I only occassionaly print a picture, mostly a calendar every year. I wanted something to print receipts, emails etc. The thing that made me switch from HP was the strong recommendation that this printer got. I am just about to just throw it away. It can go minutes spinning its wheels not feeding paper and when it finally does feed it may jam.

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2 out of 2 users found this user opinion helpful.
1 stars

do NOT buy

by Barfinator on February 6, 2008

Pros: cheap price

Cons: bad printer driver

Summary: I've been a fan of canon printers for a long time. I've owned several generations, and I've put up with little annoyances in the printer drivers every ...

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Summary: I've been a fan of canon printers for a long time. I've owned several generations, and I've put up with little annoyances in the printer drivers every time, just because the print quality was worth it.

Not so with this printer. It's supposed to run with Vista, but the driver does things like prints half a page and then spits it out. This wastes TONS of ink, and that gets expensive. DO NOT BUY THIS PRINTER. I'm sad to say that, because I've been a big fan of Canon, but now I feel obligated to warn other consumers. Sad, but true.

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2 out of 3 users found this user opinion helpful.
4 stars

Poor ink management and poor software

by rexlperrry on June 24, 2008

Pros: printing quality for a budget printer

Cons: locks up easily and expensive to operate

Summary: The print quality is acceptable for a low-cost printer, but the printer software easily locks up. If a color ink cartridge is low, it will not print with just the ...

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Summary: The print quality is acceptable for a low-cost printer, but the printer software easily locks up. If a color ink cartridge is low, it will not print with just the black ink regardless of the printer settings. This makes this budget printer an expensive paperweight until you buy new color cartridges.

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1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.
4 stars

Got a bad unit and returned it

by shoppinggreen on January 10, 2008

Pros: Did not get a chance to use it since it had problems

Cons: The unit was defective. Only the yellow and black printed on the test page

Summary: Tried to hook the printer up and it only printed yellow and black. Even the test print page would only print these two colors. Called Canon support and after two ...

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Summary: Tried to hook the printer up and it only printed yellow and black. Even the test print page would only print these two colors. Called Canon support and after two hours of trying to fix the problem, they got disconnected "by accident". Cut my losses and returned the printer. I might have just gotten a bad unit, but I will not try again on this printer.

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2 out of 4 users found this user opinion helpful.
3 stars

Paper jams and PDF issues

by mglingg on July 31, 2008

Pros: Fastest inkjet ever when it works.

Cons: Forces you to use the rear paper tray.

Summary: This printer fit perfectly into a cubby in my computer desk, as long as I chose to use only the front paper tray. Frequent paper jams from the first day ...

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Summary: This printer fit perfectly into a cubby in my computer desk, as long as I chose to use only the front paper tray. Frequent paper jams from the first day were just the beginning. Whenever trying to print an Acrobat PDF file, it claims to be "out of paper" until you pull the printer out, put paper into the rear tray, and press "Resume". Customer support said "This can be evident if the
overall settings for the driver are used by most applications except the
one in question". So it's Adobe's fault? PDF is when of the most common file formats on the planet and Canon couldn't write the driver to work correctly with Acrobat? Don't offer me two paper feed trays and tell me one won't work. Support went on to say that I would need to go into the Acrobat "print properties" and tell it (again, every time) to print from the front tray. This my first and last Canon printer.

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4 stars

Horrible Photo Printing

by TekSavvy on June 20, 2008

Pros: Prints text extremely well and fast...

Cons: Photo printing is abysmal

Summary: I have an older Canon i860 and wanted to upgrade to something a bit newer and a bit faster. The store that I went to did not have the ip4500 ...

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Summary: I have an older Canon i860 and wanted to upgrade to something a bit newer and a bit faster. The store that I went to did not have the ip4500 in stock, so I took the ip3500 home and gave it a try. The text was fast and crisp. However, I tried printing a 4x6 photo and it had a horrid yellow tone to it. I downloaded the latest drivers and had hoped that this was the answer. It was not, the drivers made no difference.

I then plugged my 4 year old Canon i860 into the same computer and printed the same image and WOW, was the color accurate and the photo was crisp. I immediately took the comparison photo's and the printer back for a full refund.

Just thought you might want to save yourself the time and frustration.

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2 stars

I hate this thing.

by chflynn on April 11, 2008

Pros: Decent quality and speed when it works.

Cons: Constant paper jams.

Summary: The paper will not load evenly no matter how careful you are and constantly results in paper jams. You can only print 1-2 crooked pages before it completely jams.

Summary: The paper will not load evenly no matter how careful you are and constantly results in paper jams. You can only print 1-2 crooked pages before it completely jams.

0 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

Showing opinion 1 to 10 out of 10

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Specifications

Manufacturer: Canon USA
Part number: 2170B002

General
Printer Type Photo printer - Ink-jet - Color
Width 17.2 in
Depth 11.9 in
Height 5.7 in
Weight 10.8 lbs
Localization Australia
Printer
Inkjet Technology Canon FINE (Full-lithography inkjet Nozzle Engineering)
Ink Palette (Colors) 4-ink
Minimum Ink Droplet Size 2 pl
Ink Cartridge Configuration 4 individual ink tanks
Print Speed up to 25 pages/min - B/W, up to 17 pages/min - Color
Connectivity Technology Wired
Interface USB, Direct print USB
Max Resolution ( Color ) 4800 dpi x 1200 dpi
Printer Features Borderless printing
Printing
Color 4-ink
Media Handling
Media Type Plain paper, Cards, Semi-gloss photo paper, Two-sided photo paper, Glossy photo paper, High resolution paper, Photo stickers, Matte photo paper, Photo paper, Iron-on transfers, Envelopes
Max Media Size (Custom) 8.5 in x 14 in
Media Sizes 8 in x 10 in, Letter A Size (8.5 in x 11 in), 5.12 in x 7.1 in, B5 (6.93 in x 9.83 in), 4 in x 6 in, Legal (8.5 in x 14 in), A5 (5.83 in x 8.25 in), 3.9 in x 7 in, A4 (8.25 in x 11.7 in)

Canon Pixma iP3500

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