14 DAY TRIAL // We're one week away from the moment a lot of photographers are eagerly looking to, namely the moment when PMA08 officially starts. Thus, it's no wonder that every major name in the industry is preparing a little something for this event, including Canon, which, among numerous other products, has also released two Pixma printers, namely the iP2600 photo printer and the MX850 All-In-One model.
The iP2600 Photo Printer is based on the Canon FINE (Full-Photolithography Inkjet Nozzle Engineering) print head technology, thus being able to deliver microscopic ink droplets as small as two picoliters, at up to 4800x1200 dpi color resolution. Furthermore, the printing speeds attained by the iP2600 are not too shabby, either, namely around 55 seconds for a 4 x 6 inches color photo, 22 pages/minute (ppm) for monochrome, and up to 17 ppm for color documents.
Moreover, the iP2600 also includes the Auto Image Fix feature, which automatically analyzes and categorizes the scenes in photographs and optimizes print output for each individual scene in accordance with the scene type, such as Portrait, Scenery, Snapshot, etc. It's also important to mention the fact that the PIXMA iP2600 Photo Printer employs the Canon ChromaLife100 ink system, for more vivid and durable prints.
While the iP2600 targets mostly students and other type of users on a budget, the PIXMA MX850 Office All-In-One (AIO) printer has been designed for homes and small offices, and this is the reason why it combines a wide array of features, ranging from printing, copying and scanning to faxing capabilities and an Ethernet port for networking.
Thus, the PIXMA MX850 Office AIO printer provides users with an automatic document feeder (ADF) which can copy or scan both sides of a document automatically. The Auto Duplexing feature permits two-sided copying/scanning of letter-sized documents, without the need to manually turn over pages and re-feed the document, while the unit even has the ability to scan and print at the same time, which can lead to an optimization of the workload around the office.
The device uses Canon's five-color individual ink system with a resolution of up to 9600 x 2400 color dpi, while the improved printhead technology helps Canon print a borderless 4" x 6" photo in approximately 21 seconds. Moreover, the peripheral provides several photo-printing options, namely direct photo printing from select memory cards and PictBridge ready devices, while the CIS scanner allows for high-speed scans.
The printer also features a large 2.5-inch TFT display for easy viewing of images or printer menus and a color Super G3 fax that includes features allowing users to receive up to 250 incoming pages in memory, one-touch speed dialing (eight numbers) and a coded speed dial function that can store up to 100 locations.
As they target some pretty different market segments, the prices for Canon's new printers don't have anything in common. Thus, the PIXMA iP2600 printer has an estimated retail price of $49.99, which makes it one of the most affordable such products available on the market, while the MX850 (built with the SOHO segment in the crosshairs) will sell for around $279.99 (also quite a sweet deal, if you ask me).
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