Canon S800 Photo InkJet Printer

I have had this now for almost 4 years and it still works perfect. I probably printed over 200 photos already and 100's of business cards without errors.

I had a cannon Multipass that was a piece of crap, way back. I took a chance on this and so far its paying off.

I like the individual ink cartridges!

At a time when technology has advanced color printing quality, customer service just has not kept up. Canon, maker of some of the finest optical equipment in the world, has used advanced technology to produce a printer capable of amazing color print quality. The photos glow. Paper selection is critical as is the use of OEM inks. Black & white printing is just not on the same par as the color. This must be a driver issue in that the black rendering on the prints looks great. I contacted Canon on this issue and got the run around. Here is where the enthusiasm gets trampled. I don't use this printer much as I have access to several laser units at work for critical and big jobs. When I do use it, I try to pool a set of color or plain text prints into one lot as this beast really sucks up the ink like an overweight SUV sucks gas. The evaporation rate on the inks is rapid as part of the quick dry feature. Canon does not warn you that idleness is costly. That being said, I have printed approximately 1 ream of paper on this, most either in draft or standard mode, and only around 35% of the pages being full page printouts. I have gone through about twenty 8 x 10 gloss photos, 1 t-shirt transfer and 6 of the new 4 x 6 Photo Paper Plus Glossy. This unit is on its 4th black ink tank, 3rd set of color tanks. The unit sat idle after our recent move to our new home for about 2.5 months. Upon setting up the unit again, I noticed a marked decrease in quality. I followed the deep head cleaning several times, regular cleaning cycle a few times, realigned the heads and adjusted everything per instructions and even installed new ink. The unit will not print anything but the faintest gray when the call is for black bold. The cleaning sucked dry the entire 69.00 ink tank set, installed new, no success. Contacted Canon who informed me to perform several more deep cleanings - sucked down 3 of the 6 tanks in the process and still no better. They are now telling me it is the printhead. But relax, it can be replaced for 100.00. Canon refused to help. So, long story short and lesson learned. Unit sucks down the ink as fast as a drunk at a free beer concert, is rather on the noisy side and has cost me more in ink to print say 500 pages and a few photos than the original cost of the printer. If I add in new tanks and a new printhead, the cost of ownership for this unit would reach 1.00 a page for black printing. This unit, after its very short lifespan, will be replaced with a HP. Canon needs to learn more about customer support and more importantly, customer relations.

The printer prints some of the finest photos I've ever printed. However, the printhead went out after two years; I replaced it and the new printhead only lasted about 45 days. I can't afford the printheads and labor charges, so I'm thinking of getting another (not S800) as I don't know if the printheads are a common problem.

My first S800 was purchased on Feb. 2002. It impressed me from the get go and every time I do a job I get the same results, "Incredible". I never get banding and the resolution & color is fantastic (I'm speaking about when I do photos, and I also always use the highest print quality settings) I liked it so much I bought a second unit the spring of 2003 for larger jobs, it was a refurbished model for $137.00 and it also prints great! I realized to get the best photos you must use the correct driver settings and paper!!! Canon paper works great and you don't need any color adjustments (except in Win.98 and ME I would set the 'brightness level' to "dark" in the 'color' tab in the 'advance dialog' on the main printer driver page, but that's it). Ilford "Galerie Smooth Gloss" works great but their "Galerie Classic Gloss" doesn't and looks lumpy in the shadow areas, similar to how the Kodak paper looks, which is terrible. All Epson papers work great with the Canon ink but the "Premium Glossy Photo Paper" seems to turn a nasty orange if you don't protect it well from UV. Same goes for Jet-Print Photo's "Professional Photo Paper", looks good but to last long you must protect it suitably from the elements. To finish up I'd just suggest that if you don't work on using the correct driver settings and paper you might as well get any printer out there because you won't get the results your looking for no matter what printer you use.

I got one for home for printing digital photos, and one for work printing both text and photos. I was leery of how the one at work would hold up. No problem with either of them. The transparent, individual color inktanks last a long time and are easy to refill. The photo quality and color agreement is great. Text is printed out fast and fine. Even photos printed on regular paper are quite impressive. Simple to connect and use.
I have used mid to high end HP, Lexmark, and Epson printers and this Canon beats them all.