Canon PIXMA MP980 all-in-one printer – £279 upfront, hundreds in ink and paper

Daniel Sung Computers, Peripherals
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Do people still print out their own photographs? Well, according to Canon, they do and apparently that’s why they’ve announced the release of the PIXMA MP980 all-in-one printer today tucked in behind a barrage of SLRs, compacts and other printers as well.

All-in-one in this case refers to printing, copying and scanning – didn’t that term used to cover faxing as well? – all for the fairly expensive but not at all unreasonable amount of £279.

The printing itself is taken care of by six separate ink cartridges including grey, which is to prevent graininess in the images, and it’s all laid down over 9600 x 2400dpi. If you’re using Canon cartridges and Canon photo-quality paper, then the claim is that you can printy a 10cm x 15cm picture in under 20 seconds.

On the scanning side, the white LED responsible for the work should mean almost no warm up time and the CCD sensor is meant to be Canon’s best yet picking up 4800dpi of detail.

The whole shebang comes with a 8.8cm colour TFT display to navigate all the relevant menus, it’s memory card compatible and you can connect it up via Ethernet, Wi-Fi and can even print out from CD and DVDs as well.

When they say “all-in-one”, fax aside, they do seem to be telling the truth. If you really do want a great big lump in your home that’ll cost you a fortune in ink cartridges and expensive paper, then be my guest. The Canon PIXMA MP980 is out in October and looks as good as any other. Alternatively, grab something compact and cheap and get someone else to do your photo printing for you. They’ll probably do it better and I’ll bet it costs you less.

Canon

Related posts: Epson Inkjet | Polaroid PoGo Bluetooth printer

Daniel Sung
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5 comments

  • I’m not sure you fully understand what this is all about. The grey ink is for producing black and white prints without a colour cast, which in itself tells you that this is not intended to be the most cost-effective method of printing snapshots (as you rightly said). However, for a photographer printing up to A4 at home, the specs for this device are superb (1pl droplets, excellent scanner resolution with neg holder, etc.) and far outclass the Epson. If you need a general, everyday printer, though, it’s not for you.

    I have a rather old Pixma 3000 which still does a great job but may now find itself replaced by the MP980.

  • Although the Canon is not available yet I have ordered one on spec., At present I have an Epson Photo R800 and am continually having to clean the cartridges, on average only one out of three pictures printed is worth keeping (on Epson paper and genuine cartridges). I have always had Epson (this is my fourth)but not any more the cost and frustration of continually re-printing photographs, replacing cartridges and wasting expensive paper has got to me.

  • I think all “all in ones” have printer, copier, scanner. “4-in-ones” also include a faxzzzzzz…..

    sorry I must have bored myself to sleep for a second there!

    So which is better: this or the Epson Stylus SX600FW you checked out last week?

    • Well, “sexy” as the Canon looks, I’d go with the Epson. There’s no way in the world that the the Canon is worth the £100 extra. Not a chance, The Dave.

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