Canon PIXMA MP990 Wireless Inkjet Photo All-In-One Printer

Canon PIXMA MP990

I am running an old G4 as well as an aluminum Powerbook, both on Mac OS 10.4.11. I have owned the MP990 for about a month and I thought it was time to start my review. I will follow up as I explore the different features. I spent more than 14 months researching printers, scanners and all-in-ones before I bought this unit. I will try to explain my rationale so that this review can be of help to someone who likes to know everything about a product that they can before they buy like me. I had a bad experience with my last Epson RX600 which just up and died on me one day. The Epson always seemed to get clogged again and again unless I used it very regularly. I have a laser printer that I print most of my text docs to so the Epson was too finicky for me. I was dissuaded from Canon printers and AIOs after reading many of the previous complaints about older models, the bad chip issue with the first generation ink cartridges, the dreaded U150 error that so many of their models displayed. The fact that Canon printers require you to replace an empty ink cartridge before you can use the scanner is in my opinion a major strategic flaw in their marketing plan.

I have printed about 60 4x6 prints and 4 8x10 photo prints so far with this printer as well as a few text pages using the starter cartridges. My grey ink cartridge has just displayed the "!" warning that it is getting low. The other cartridges are soon to follow except the Pigment black cart which is quite a bit larger and is used more for text printing I believe. This confirms others' statements that you should stock up on grey ink carts as they are the most difficult to find and you go through them fastest. Amazon usually has them in stock. When my grey cart goes empty I will confirm whether or not the scanner and copy functions are operable or not and report back.

Installation and setup of the drivers on my Macs was uneventful and printer setup was simple, you just have to think about it a minute and proceed slowly following the directions; I downloaded the latest drivers and application installer from the Canon website and got the unit operating on Ethernet in short order; I connected it to the Ethernet hub I have connected to my Airport Extreme and so far have confirmed connectivity from my wireless laptop via this method, I have yet to run it through it's paces though and conduct relative speed tests between Airport and built-in wireless. I did not setup the built in wireless in the printer so I can't vouch for it's function yet. I did confirm that so far I have not been able to make the scanner function work via Ethernet connection using the Photoshop 'Import' plugin nor from the Canon "Solutions Menu" software utility, but after I connected a USB cable then I was able to use the USB plugin and got some nice reflective scans. Still exploring the available Canon color profiles to find an optimal profile for converting RGB scans to CMYK. The Canon 8800f scanner was my alternate choice if I was to go with a separate scanner and printer option. I felt good knowing that the same scanner element is used in this highly rated scanner as they use in the MP990. I would tend to trust Canon's optics over Epson's in any case. I am very glad though that I did not go with the separate component option and get the HP Photosmart 7560 along with the Canon 8800f. I saved myself some serious deskspace as well as money and I am not disappointed with the quality overall of this device at this point.

Plain and simple, this printer provides stunning photographic images, especially if you use Canon Photo Pro II paper, the best of them as per my research. The Canon has a 1 picoliter droplet size, smaller than the comparable Epson Artisan 1.2Pl droplet. I can't imagine getting better photos from another printer at this price; they are lab quality and as good or better than what you would get at any of the drop-off places. Copying works nicely via the nifty front panel display which is colorful and easy to read but the printer can take a bit long to prepare to copy or print before it actually does it. Definitely not 'instant on'.

My only issues so far with this Canon technology is the Easy-PhotoprintEX software that is installed. The good part is that the interface allows you to choose and select multiple images from multiple folders on your hard drive and batch them into one big "saveable" print batch job. The bad part is that depending upon the processing options you select (smoothing, noise reduction, 'Vivid Color' enhancement, layout et al) the software has to process and create a single print file for all of your selections in the batch before it will even start printing any photos. This may take a while because the software is PITIFULLY slow. Canon's software developers may be better at building software drivers and interfaces for Windows but the Mac suite is well-intentioned but frustrating to deal with. Better to make your batches smaller. Easy-PhotoprintEX does appear to automatically select the appropriate color profile for the selected paper and results from Adobe RGB 1998 files are very good. I will be playing more with printing directly from Photoshop as both RGB and converted CMYK.


All I bought at the price $ 124.95 dollars from website amazon.

Or you may access information from this link.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002M78HX6/tipfla-20

I think Canon PIXMA MP990 Wireless Inkjet where everyone must have. I believe you will get a very good experience like me.