Photo Printers: Canon S900 and S9000

Conclusion

More than ever before, the Canon 2002 product range has gone on the offensive. In desktop printers, the new S520 and S750 are good replacements for the S500 and S630. In the scanner category, the D1250U2, the first USB 2-compatible model for the general public, already sets the standard for its kind. We'll take a look at this scanner later in a 1200 dpi scanner test.

As we have seen, the S900 / S9000 are, in our view, the best photo printers around at the moment. But it's best to bear a few things in mind if you want to get the most out of them:

• Avoid monochrome photo prints. The results are lousy.
• These are not desktop printers. Used in this mode, they are slow and the characters lack precision.
• Keep a stock of Photo cartridges in light Cyan and light Magenta. They last a third of the time that the Cyan and Black ones do.
• Photo prints are wonderful and likely to deceive many people into thinking they are looking at an excellent traditional print. An experienced eye will be able to pick out a few slight defects in the tones, however.

The number of flaws could put many people off, but don't let yourself be fazed. We have listed the main problems likely to be identified by really demanding users. These models are actually high quality and very attractive. What we especially liked was the S9000, which is sold for a pretty reasonable price when you think of all that it has to offer.