CNET editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Very good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 08/03/2006
- Released on: 08/23/2005
The media card reader is hidden behind a door and accepts most common card types. You'll need an adapter for the xD-Picture card, MiniSD card, and Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Duo Pro cards. A PictBridge USB port on the front allows you to print straight from PictBridge-enabled cameras and camera phones, while the IrDA port lets you print wirelessly from infrared-enabled camera phones. You can also purchase an optional Bluetooth adapter to use with the USB port, which will let you print from Bluetooth devices. The flatbed scanner can scan originals up to 8.5 inches by 11.75 inches--roughly the measurements of A4 paper. The lid lifts to accommodate thicker originals up to 0.75 inch.
The control panel is fairly basic for an all-in-one printer. You can adjust the angle of the 1.9-inch color LCD according to your viewing conditions, and although it's small, it's easily readable. The panel has buttons for toggling between tasks, navigating the menu, and printing a photo index sheet. Two start buttons (one for black-ink only and one for color), a stop/reset button, and an on/off button round out the control panel. The menu is easy to navigate, and your options are represented in both text and graphics.
The Canon Pixma MP450 uses four-color ink: one black tank and one tricolor tank (it ships with the high-capacity tanks). You can access the tanks by lifting up on the control panel; a plastic support bar flips down to support the lid, much like a piano lid or a car hood. The tanks are a cinch to replace. The high-capacity black tank costs $29.99 and the high-capacity tricolor tank costs $34.99. Canon estimates the cost per page for this printer to be about 4 cents for a page of black text and 11 cents for a page of color graphics. For comparison, the Pixma MP500 offers more ink flexibility: three separate dye-based color ink tanks, a black dye-based ink tank, and a black pigment-based ink tank.This printer has the normal range of options for one in its price range. When copying, you can reduce and enlarge, make borderless copies and borderless color prints, create stickers, and repeat an image multiple times on a single sheet of paper. With the media card reader, you can print individual photos from the card, or print an entire index sheet. By marking the appropriate bubbles on the index sheet and placing the sheet on a scanner, you can print multiple photos of your choice in one fell swoop. You can also print borderless photos on this printer. You can initiate scans from the printer's control panel, which allows you to save the results to your PC, save it as a PDF, attach it to an e-mail, or open it on your PC. Alternatively, you can start scans using the bundled MP Navigator software, which includes Easy-PhotoPrint for printing photos, ArcSoft PhotoStudio for editing photos, and ScanSoft OmniPage SE, which uses optical character recognition to convert a scanned document to text. You can also scan from any TWAIN- or WIA-compliant application.
The Canon Pixma MP450 fared well on our tests, keeping up with the Pixma MP500 in nearly every test but copying. It printed black text at a quick 6.78 pages per minute (ppm) and an 8x10 photo at a rate of 0.58ppm; it scanned a grayscale document at 5.19ppm and a color scan at 4.88ppm. All those numbers were right in line with the numbers for the MP500. Copying was a different story: the MP450 copied at a pokey 2.41ppm, while the MP500 nearly doubled that rate, with a score of 4.25ppm. Continue readingMost helpful user reviews
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Where to buy
Canon Pixma MP450:
$299.99
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Amazon.com Marketplace
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$299.99 | Yes |
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