Is the Canon iPF 5000 wide format pigment printer ready for prime time?

[Asher Kelman]

Here's the question, those of you who have had exeprience with the Canon pigment printers, are you now ready to say, yes, get this, it is relaible and Canon will stand behind the produce?

To me the Canon printers, like the HP printers, are so important as there is now a developing market place where we they have to compete for our money!

So, if you had to order a new printer, where would the Canon printers come on your list?

Asher

[Aaron Strasburg]

Is the iPF5000 ready for prime time? Maybe, but there's one big issue to consider. The iPF5100 has been announced to ship this summer. It uses different black inks (not backward compatible) and has some builtin calibration capabilities. I don't believe this is the same as the HP z2100/3100 autoprofiling solution, I think the Canon solution is more a way to relinearize the printheads rather than a way to generate profiles. This announcement means our iPF5000s are already orphans. By itself that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy one, but it's something to be aware of.

Now I've had pretty good luck with my iPF5000. It's been reliable and does a great job. The software is still lacking and I'm concerned that Canon's efforts will be focused on the 5100/6100. There's still no Universal plugin available for Intel Macs which is rather pitiful considering how long PSCS3 has been available.

Canon has only recently announced that some printheads ($600/ea) will be covered under warrantee. There is some justifiable suspicion that this small step only occurred after Michael Reichmann suffered a failure and Canon didn't really want to deal with that negative publicity. He carries rather more weight that us at the wiki.

I'm pleased with the results from mine, but I would definitely not recommend it to someone who's not very technically savvy and given the mediocre support from Canon I'd hesitate to recommend it, period. Maybe Canon can redeem themselves with the new printers but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Aaron

[Asher Kelman]

Aaron,

Thanks so much for sharing this information. I was waiting to decide which 17" printer to buy and then which large format printer to get after that. It's a problem that certain reviewers sing the praises of the printer of the moment.

In the disclosure, we don't hear about any discounts given.

Some people are saying the HP printers are the best now and others still go for the Epson printers.

I find that the Canon WIKI group has been very responsible in putting together all the experience on the Canon printers. You have, IMHO, far more clout than you admit!

Thanks,

Asher

[Aaron Strasburg]

Great results, poor Canon service pretty well sums it up. You can get an iPF5000 for $1300 with the roll feed from colorhq.com (where I got mine, no complaints). I've purchased ink and paper from shadesofpaper.com, who have a similar price, with good results. Booksmart Studio is another well regarded vendor. Adorama seems to be the worst.

$1300 is the same as an Epson 3800 which isn't nearly the printer in some ways (probably smaller gamut, no roll feed, no vacuum) but is likely to have better support and is physically much smaller. I think the HP B9180 is in the same class as the Epson.

HP has been admirably responsive on z2100/3100 issues and their warrantee is better. I'd miss the cassette, but the autoprofiling hw seems like a great idea.

I think it would be tough to say outright which printer has better image quality. They all have strengths and weaknesses. HP's got print longevity over Canon and Epson plus the profiling capability. The Canon is great for its absence of clogs, which seems a widespread Epson issue, plus both cassette and roll.

If I were doing primarily large prints I would probably go HP today, but I do a lot of 8x10s that would be a huge pain.

I don't regret buying the iPF5000. I knew what I was getting myself into. As long as your eyes are open it's a heck of a deal, but I would want to be sure anyone I might recommend it to understands the risks.

Aaron

[John Hollenberg]

Tough question to answer. Mine is purring along now with nary a hiccup. Print quality very good, although I believe the change in black inks for the 5100 is related to some bronzing problems. A large number of the issues have been resolved, but some remain:

1) Print Longevity not nearly as good as HP, on par with Epson
2) Warranty for printheads is mediocre, and calculated cost of printheads by warranted lifetime is 24 cents per ml (vs. 3-5 cents per ml for HP heads). The Canon heads are $600 each (X2 = $1200 total), while the HP heads are $50 each (X6 = $300 total). If you are a lower volume printer, the warranty will expire before you get to the 10 trillion drops (approximately 2.5 liters).
3) Very poor software support, with known bugs/problems reported more than 6 months ago. They may eventually be corrected is all Canon will say.
4) Unknown whether the defective roll feed units are still being sold, so there could be significant hassle getting the problem fixed (though it will be eventually)
5) Very poor documentation

On the other hand, the HP is still very much in the teething phase, with firmware updates, reports of printheads failing, papers not available from HP or having quality control problems on the paper.

My guess is that the iPF5100 will probably clear up most of these problems, with the exception of the high cost of the printheads, especially compared to their warranted longevity.

None of the current alternatives (Epson, Canon, HP) sound really attractive to me--but all for different reasons.

--John

[Asher Kelman]

Thanks, John,

Good information. Can you say anything about printing with different papers and any flaking?

Asher