Canon Pixma iP90 review

If you're into remote wireless printing, Canon sells an $80 Bluetooth adapter. But without buying anything extra, you can send cord-free print jobs to the iP90 from your IrDA 1.1 (Infrared Data Association protocol)-enabled portable phone, PDA, or laptop from eight inches away or closer.

Speed
On CNET Labs' inkjet racetrack, the Canon iP90 bested the portable HP Deskjet 450wbt's lackadaisical 1.5 pages per minute (ppm). An 8x10-inch photo on photo paper took the iP90 slightly more than a minute, almost three times as fast as its predecessor's 2.81 minutes and nearly four times faster than the HP Deskjet 450wbt's 4.07 minutes to print one photo.

Quality
Like the HP 450wbt, the Canon Pixma iP90's text on inkjet paper was only fair: legible but fuzzy around the edges. The iP90 printed color graphics better; it reproduced our text document with a pale tone but nice details, smooth gradients, and fair color matching. This printer did a similarly good job with our test photo, rendering nearly accurate flesh tones and preserving much of the detail. But we also saw some worse-than-average color shifts in what should have been neutral grays, and the overall low-contrast rendering resulted in washed-out, desaturated colors.

Click here to learn more about how CNET Labs tests printers.

The Canon iP90 comes with a typical one-year limited warranty and toll-free technical support, which you can extend by two more years for a fair $95. But if you call for postwarranty support, beware of the $10 fee per call. Support hours are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. 8 p.m. ET, except on holidays. An exceedingly friendly, upbeat voicemail recording received our test call, which within two minutes led us to a live person who answered our question promptly and correctly.

Canon's Web site offers product-specific help pages that provide answers to FAQs, along with links to e-mail support and supplies, setup instructions, manuals, drivers, and the phone number for tech support. Should your iP90 prove defective, Canon will replace it within one business day during the warranty period.