Monica & Tuan

In the process of making our own wedding invitations, I discovered that not every printer is suitable for the job. My original printer was an HP inkjet all-in-one. It has a single paper tray located at the bottom of the printer. For printing on plain and photo paper, as well as scanning, it was (and is) fabulous. But when it came time to print on cardstock, this printer would eat up all my pretty paper! Try as I may, I could not get it to print on carstock (even text weight) without a paper jam occuring, streaks appearing on the paper, or slanted text and images occuring.

And so I set out to research a printer that could print on heavier paper. I perused and inquired on message boards, researched on cnet.com, and finally came to the conclusion that what I needed was a printer that could load paper from the back of the printer (that is have a back loading paper tray). And if I was going to go out and buy myself a whole new printer, than it would have to be one that prints excellent quality and colour. And one brand of printer really stood out in the reviews. The Canon Pixma series. Based on positive reviews and availability at my local electronics store I decided to purchase the Canon Pixma ip4500.

So what's so fabulous about the Canon Pixma ip4500? Well first off, it prints beautifully on 105 lb (285 GSM) paper. No paper jams, no funny streaks, and perfectly straight. It is also capable of borderless photo printing. Picture and text quality as well as colour representation is amazing, which I think is mostly attributed to its 5 individual colour cartridge system: cyan, magenta, yellow, and 2 black cartridges (1 for photo, 1 for text). Having a separate cartridge for text makes for crisper, cleaner text printing. Separate ink cartridges also saves you money.

Also for price, it cost $149.99 Canadian at Staples. It's somewhat costly for a stand-alone printer without a scanner ... but I think it was worth it. If I had had more money, I would have bought the Canon Pixma Pro 9000 ($500) but that's an investment for another day. So bottom line is if you're looking for a printer that will print on heavy cardstock, look for one that has a back loading paper tray.

Just one last note, the Canon Pixma ip4500 did print on Stardream metallic cover cardstock but certain colours look quite dull due to the sheen on the paper. Black was fine, but red and pink were washed out.

Labels: canon pixma, printer