Canon Pixma iP4600 Photo Printer

Just like its little brother, the iP3600, there's nothing wrong with this photo printer. You can count on it to absolutely give you great-looking prints. But...for its size, perhaps an all-in-one would be just as good? Or, perhaps if you just need a photo printer, you can opt for something a bit more affordable.

Again, another excellent photo printer from Canon for well under $200. Like the cheaper Pixma iP3600, the iP4600offers two paper input options (a paper tray in front and a feeder in back) as well as duplex printing.

Warming up this printer took a bit of time, though once warm it printed quickly with a large PDF file taking an average of 23 seconds per page (with first page out in 24 seconds. Color graphics from a PowerPoint presentation came out faster than with the iP3600. A 4x6 color photo came out in only 21 seconds.

Printed pages looked great. The color graphics pages were sharp even when using cheap copy paper, and large type showed that the printer gave sharp images with no bleed. When printing a 50-page document using the built-in duplexer, there was only one paper jam.

Color photos look wonderful, especially when using Canon's Photo Paper Plus Glossy II 4x6 paper (included with the printer). The photo came out dry to the touch with a sharp image and colors that were deep and rich.

As mentioned in the review of the iP3600, these printers seem rather large for photo printers. They're almost as big as some of Canon's all-in-one printers, which also do good work on photos. There's also no LCD for on-board editing, though it's PictBridge compatible so you can print directly from a digital camera.