Canon Pixma iP4500

Manufacturer: Canon USA Part number: 2171B002

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CNET Editor rating:
3.5 stars Very good
Average user rating: 4.0 stars out of 10 reviews

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

Bottom Line:: The Canon Pixma iP4500 is a bit too expensive for basic home users, but those who do a bit more printing than the occasional e-mail and map will be happy with its speed and quality.

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CNET editors' review

Canon Pixma iP4500

price range: $109.99 - $133.45

Reviewed by: Felisa Yang
Edited by: Matthew Elliott
Reviewed on: 10/18/2007
Released on: 08/21/2007

The good: Good overall print quality; two paper sources; PictBridge port; built-in auto duplexer.

The bad: No preview LCD or memory card slots.

The bottom line: The Canon Pixma iP4500 is a bit too expensive for basic home users, but those who do a bit more printing than the occasional e-mail and map will be happy with its speed and quality.

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The Canon Pixma iP4500 is a moderately expensive single-function printer designed for general home use. Unlike Canon's more photo-oriented single functions like the Pixma iP6700d, the $130 iP4500 lacks memory card slots and a preview LCD. The iP4500 is a step up from the recently reviewed iP3500; it offers faster print speed, slightly better print quality, and more features, including an auto duplexer. If your printing needs are minimal, however, we think you should save your money and stick to a less expensive model like the $80 iP3500, but if you print enough to justify the price, the iP4500 is a great option for general printing.

Design
The Pixma iP4500's design is simple and straightforward--the body is mainly black, with silver accents. It measures 17.5 inches wide, 11.9 inches deep, and 6.3 inches tall, and weighs 15.2 pounds. The only features in the printer's control panel are a PictBridge USB port, power and cancel/feed buttons, and an input source button that switches between paper trays.

You get two paper input options on this model: the rear input folds open from the top/back edge of the printer, and the cassette pulls out from the bottom/front. Both can hold up to 150 pages of plain paper. Canon recommends putting stiffer media such as photo paper in the rear input, as paper in the cassette is forced to bend around a roller. Both inputs have adjustable paper guides, so both can handle a wide range of paper sizes. A panel in the front of the printer folds out to serve as the output tray.

The iP4500 uses a five-ink system: pigment black for better text prints, and dye-based black, yellow, cyan, and magenta for better graphics and color blending. The pigment black costs $16.25 to replace and each of the dye-based inks costs $14.25 to replace. Canon estimates that a page of text costs about 3 cents, and a full-color page costs 4 cents to print. Both numbers are reasonable.

Features
The Pixma iP4500 offers a fairly basic feature set. The only connection option is USB, though you can network the printer using a print server. It offers up a built-in duplexer for automatic double-sided prints, though the print driver gives you the option of manual duplex print jobs. The iP4500 lacks memory card slots, but it does offer a PictBridge USB port for printing directly from PictBridge cameras and devices. The driver offers the same options as the driver for the iP3500: namely, the ability to create print profiles for common print jobs; photo manipulations options; and paper and source options.

Performance
The Pixma iP4500 is a bit on the expensive side for a general-purpose, single-function printer, so we had limited models on hand for comparison. It stood up well to the competition overall. It printed black text at a rate of 8.25 pages per minute, slower than the office-oriented HP Officejet Pro K5400, but faster than the home-oriented HP Deskjet 6940. It was much slower with graphics, scoring just 2.47ppm, a far cry from the HP Pro K5400's 6.21ppm. But the Canon excelled at fast 4x6 photo prints, clocking 2.66ppm, over a full page faster than the Pro K5400 and more than five times faster than the Deskjet 6940. The iP4500 was also faster than the less expensive iP3500 at all print tasks.

CNET Labs inkjet printer performance (in pages per minute)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

4x6 photo

Graphics

Text

HP Officejet Pro K5400

1.42

6.21

10.16

Canon Pixma iP4500

2.66

2.47

8.25

HP Deskjet 6940

0.48

6.97

Canon Pixma iP3500

1.09

2.07

6.52

Note: *No data exists for this test

The Canon Pixma iP4500 is an all-around good printer. The text prints were nicely dark, though close inspection revealed some jagged edges that could be cleaned up. The color graphics print showed pleasing saturation and sharp details in the photo elements, though the color gradients looked a bit faded and the same issue with slightly jagged edges cropped up. The 4x6 print was good overall. We liked the sharp details and general quality of the image, but the flesh tones were a bit washed out and could use a bump of warmth. Overall, the printer's quality is great for everyday home printing--we found it to be slightly better than the print quality offered by the iP3500.

CNET Labs inkjet printer quality
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Photo

Graphics

Text

HP Deskjet 6940

Good

Excellent

HP Officejet Pro K5400

Fair

Good

Excellent

Canon Pixma iP4500

Good

Canon Pixma iP3500

Good

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: 4.0 stars out of 10 reviews
My rating: 0 stars

Showing opinion 1 to 10 out of 10

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10 stars

GREAT - Fast printing, great photo prints, duplex printing

by gismann on October 12, 2007

Pros: Print Speed, duplex printing, photo prints are great...PRICE

Cons: Paper size limited to letter... but it prints full 8x10 photos. No flash card slots..but who cares, it's connected to a PC!!

Summary: Why a 10 rating? Because it does just what it was designed for and just what I was looking for. I was planning on investing in two printers...one for ...

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Summary: Why a 10 rating? Because it does just what it was designed for and just what I was looking for. I was planning on investing in two printers...one for text documents and the other for photos. However, this printer does both...extremely well.

Print Speed - compared to other photo printers...this printer is FAST!. The iP4500 has a seperate black ink cartridge that is used for text printing...and prints text at a lower resolution(but still laser quality) in order to increase speed. I can get a full letter size page in 2 seconds. 4x6 photos in about 40 seconds when set to "Best" quality.

Photo Quality - I printed 36 photos at my nearest Walgreens the day before I purchased this printer. The next day I printed the same pics on the Canon iP4500. The print quality is the same. The only way I could tell which was which was by the watermark on the back of the photo paper.

Duplex Printing - this feature was a must for me. Why waste paper....I print a lot of multi-page documents (emails) and I get tired of wasting paper. The printer also prints on two sided photo paper without swearing the print.

PRICE - It's hard to believe this printer is less than $150!! I bought mine on sale for $99.

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10 out of 10 users found this user opinion helpful.
9 stars

Best one for the money

by no_floaters on December 12, 2007

Pros: Excellent prints,duplex printing,seperate paper sources

Cons: Slow startup,ink cartridge have chips

Summary: The iP4500 was an upgrade from a i850 for me. I got the printer for $99 and this is well worth the price just for the photo printing quality alone. ...

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Summary: The iP4500 was an upgrade from a i850 for me. I got the printer for $99 and this is well worth the price just for the photo printing quality alone. The duplex printing is an added bonus. The only complaints I have are the slow startup from sleep mode and the fact that the ink cartridges have chips installed on them. One of my catridges' chips failed to be read after only 3 weeks and it was still nearly full. I wrote an email to Canon support and had a new replacement cartridge in less than a week.

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7 out of 7 users found this user opinion helpful.
9 stars

Best printer in its class

by Callistra on January 11, 2008

Pros: fast, great photos, very good text

Cons: chips on cartriges can fail, slow startup

Summary: I am so impressed with this printer. Canon?s set-up instructions are very clear and detailed, the provided printing software makes it a breeze for any level of user, and ...

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Summary: I am so impressed with this printer. Canon?s set-up instructions are very clear and detailed, the provided printing software makes it a breeze for any level of user, and the photos just look gorgeous! This printer is also the fastest I have used. What's truly remarkable is that it prints great text too. No need to buy a separate printer for your every-day use. For the price, there is no better printer.

I have had some problems in the past with bad chips on the cartridges so they can't be read. However, Canon is awesome and just ships you out a new one free of cost. Also, despite printing quickly, it is very slow to start-up. It also makes some unsettling clicking noises at startup that my last Canon did not make. I hope this is not just my machine.. Oh well, for now I?m blown away at the quality for this price. I previously had a MP500 printer. This prints better and is smaller. Quite frankly, the MP series are a waste of space because their scanners are horrible. They are completely not usable for photo scanning, imo. Canon needs to get this together. I know they are capable of making a good scanner because I am happy with my 8800F. I do not know why Canon cannot seem to put a decent scanner in a multifunction printer.

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

Great Bang for the Buck

by harryhide on November 13, 2007

Pros: Fast print speeds,great photo prints,duplex printing

Cons: None that I found

Summary: This is my second Canon printer. I had a Canon I900D which was a great printer but alas it was very slow. The IP 4500 has two paper sources, one ...

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Summary: This is my second Canon printer. I had a Canon I900D which was a great printer but alas it was very slow. The IP 4500 has two paper sources, one for copy paper and one for photo paper. This is a great plus. All you have to do to change sources is press 1 button. I can't understand the CNET review. They rated as a con no preview LCD or memory slots. I have had 2 photo printers previously that had those features and I never used either one. To me that is just a feature that adds to the cost of the printer. And CNET also stated "The Canon Pixma iP4500 is a bit too expensive for basic home users". What was she smoking! This printer sell for just over $100.00 .. As the previous reviewer did, I printed out several photo's that were printed at my local Sam's Club and compared them with the same that I printed on the IP 4500. They were equally as good maybe even a bit better. Bottom line if you are looking for a good photo printer and don't want a copier or a fax you can't go wrong with the Canon IP 4500. Now, why a 9 rating? Because nothing is perfect, but this is close.

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

A Stellar Performer

by doodlydood on June 10, 2008

Pros: Cost, Quality, Simplicity - Not Over-Engineered

Cons: Card Reader interface to PC would be nice

Summary: Readers,

This product has compelled me to write up a review. I have owned most recently an Epson Stylus R380, R580, Brother, and Canon printers usually in the $200 range.

...

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Summary: Readers,

This product has compelled me to write up a review. I have owned most recently an Epson Stylus R380, R580, Brother, and Canon printers usually in the $200 range. I purchased this for $99 at Futureshop.ca

The printer is blazingly fast.

It has dual trays so I can keep letter-size photo paper and 4x6 paper in at once.

It does direct DVD-CD printing.

The quality is stellar. Easily matches what you get from online finishers and with a long-life ink, as well.

The Macintosh (Get a Mac!) interface is good, although the print utilities are buried in the menus.

For the money, and for those who want a printer that won't disappoint, this is the one.

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1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

Canon Pixma iP4500

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