Canon PIXMA iP5200

I have had this Canon Pixma iP5200 printer for 12 month or more and i have not bought any cartridges yet, all i do is buy canon ink from ebay and refill, the best printer i have had for years and i have tried them all, even if it lets me down now it has paid for itself.

The Canon Pixma iP5200 is a printer I would love to love. There is no doubt that if they solved the ink issues and had better error reporting, this would be an excellent deal.But they haven't. It guzzles ink. Fitting it with ink hose feeds is perilous, since even the official ink replacements will sometimes simply stop working. The software error reporting is next to useless, either claiming that the printer isn't on, or giving a generic 'check the printer' message. The hardware error reporting is sometimes simply wrong, flashing an almost random number of times no matter what the real issue is.Save your money, buy something more reliable.

For me, the chips on even genuine Canon cartridges fail. It is one thing to force the use of genuine (expensive) ink. It is unacceptable to have a technology which means you have to throw them away part used.Also bear in mind that this is a thirsty little beast.#

It is desperate that the Canon Pixma printers are let down by what in my opinion is greed and poor quality in its policing department.

Despite the issues I've had with my own one, it's a lovely printer. I would still recommend the Canon iP5200 if you want occasional great quality photo prints (as opposed to constant photo printing) and especially if you have lots of text to print.

The printer is an excellent solid printer that does everything you expect from Canon.

Canon has decided that we should not use cheaper ink cartridges so they have come up with these chips which means you can not get cheap version of the cartridges. This is bad news as each cartridge is about £9.99. Other printers such as Epson, you can get cheap cartridges for about £3.99.

So if you have little kids who will do a lot of printing then this is not good for you as it cost you a lot of money.

I have sold mine on eBay so I can get an Epson printer.

Bought mine the other day for £63. Had read several reviews from various websites and nearly everyone gave it full marks. I was initially skeptical of the 'lab-quality' claims. My cynicism was immediately unfounded with the first print as the quality really is Boots/Jessops quality without the obvious layers that are common on some other colour printers. It is much cheaper however to have them professionally printed in the high street (7p per copy) but use your own printer for one-offs and copies. The printer takes 5 ink cartridges which are around £9 each but it is unlikely you'll need to change them all in one go. Build quality is OK and aesthetically it looks good on the shelf. It automatically prints double-sided and straight onto Cd's too. As with all printers you don't get a USB lead. For these I would recommend you go to a high street pound shop or Wilkinson's where you can pick them up (of various quality) for £1 to £3 as opposed to £20 at PC World. Try the Canon website. They give you the opportunity to send them one of your favorite photos, which they print out on the printer of your choice and post it to you. If you're looking for a low cost, high quality printer for the home or small business you can't go wrong with this. Bargain - get one.