Canon S820 Photo Inkjet Printer

I bought this printer based on its very good reviews. It delivered outstanding prints -- but not for long. The printhead clogs if the printer isn't used regularly. With effort, it can be cleaned. However, what's really wrong with this printer is the printhead electronics. Within a year, the printhead was dead. Diagnostics, various websites, and Canon all concurred that the printhead was dead and a new one for $80 *might* fix it. From the number of posts out there, it seems like this is a common flaw, but Canon refuses to do anything more than sell a new printhead. Unless you're getting one for free, choose a different brand.

I had this printer for about three years. It printed great photos for the first 18 months or so. I loved it, and would have given it five stars. Then it started to get a little fuzzy with heads that wouldn't align properly. The pictures then looked bad, and even text wasn't very legible. I eventually got rid of it.

If you find one for a low price, snap it up and ride it 'til it dies on you. Don't count on it to last forever, though.

When it is working, it works very very well.

BUT there are some caveats. In order to get photo-quality prints, you MUST use Canon photo paper. Now before all you experimenters jump on me, try a package of genuine Canon paper and the photo-printing software Canon included with the printer. I tried 6 different brands of photo paper and only Canon paper did the trick. Now, I could get decent results with non-Canon paper and setting the printer for Draft Quality on Transparency media. Decent ... but not like the Canon paper (which the local Staples has on sale all the time). Face it, there's something different about Canon paper (and other brand printers don't seem to like Canon paper oddly enough).

But the real problem (or blessing depending on your point of view) is, as Ducky points out, the printhead. In order to maintain proper alignment on multi-cartridge designs, one must generally resort to a printhead which holds ink cartridges. In Canon's case, if one is not printing photos on a regular basis, eventually the printhead will clog and one must go through numerous cleaning (ie, ink-eating) cycles to get going again. And if that weren't bad enough, the printhead itself is only designed to last a couple years at most (assuming average use - maybe a ream a month) and it is darn expensive to buy -- figure on $100 or more delivered to your door -- if you can find it at all. They would have been a lot smarter to price this puppy about $25 and market it right along with the ink cartridges.

To be honest, I love this Canon S820 but now that the printhead is gone, I am going to switch to Expson so I can print directly on CDs.

In summary, use Canon photo paper (Staples when on sale) and Canon ink (www.adorama.com is my source) for best results. When printhead finally quits, re-evaluate your printing needs and go.

P.S. Hey, Duckie. You only got a zillion error messages because you were trying to bypass the window telling you to replace the ink cartridge. It doesn't react well and will fight tooth and nail until you replace the ink cartridge. I know it sounds dumb but they need to make sure there is always ink in the pipeline so the tiny ink passages don't dry out; and we all know what a pain that can be. :-)

I had one of their older bubblejet models from the mid-90's. Was a workhorse, extremely frugal on ink, quiet, and well built.
Several years ago I moved on to a Canon S300. Seemed cheaply built, flimsy, had a loud, long, and irritating warmup cycle. It worked OK for a while but after I replaced the ink it started to print streaky text and generally became unusable after a short period of time. Also it had chronic paperfeed issues I was told by experts that because I used non-Canon ink and non-Canon paper this was the cause of my woes.
Ok so I need a new printer, theres a great deal on a Canon S820. So I buy one. I use only Canon paper and only use Canon inks, I'm being very careful this time. The printer feels fairly substantial and appears well built. The only knock on it is that it prints black very slowly. Also it doesnt seem to sip ink like previous Canon models, I always seem to need to buy some ink or another.
Well fast forward about a year, and the darn thing has the exact same symptoms my S300 had. Despite cleanings, print-head alignments, and new Canon ink the thing starts printing text streaky again. I've been told that this is probably a print-head problem and unlike HP which has the printhead in its ink cartridges, my Canon has an expensive replacement printhead.
Well that is unacceptable, 2 Canon printers that break within a year of use. Never again Canon.

They simply are not designed right, the top paper feed system is outdated and has many flaws. Over time dust and dirt causes problems, theres a good chance foreign articles like a paperclip or staple or something could fall in the top-loader and ruin the printer. Also whereas the Deskjets I've used rarely have paper feed issues, there often seems to be problems with the Canon top-loaders. Then theres the printhead issues whereas HP uses printhead in the ink cartridge, Canon uses a seperate printhead that is prone to problems. If your printhead has problems on a Canon you might as well throw the printer out rather than buy a $100+ printhead. Whereas in a HP you buy a new Ink cartridge, you tell me whats the better solution?

Canon is good for scanners, and digital cameras, but their printer division is terrible, I will never buy another Canon printer.

Great printer, but unless you use it every week, the printhead will clog.. I only occasionally printed color photos, and 2 of my inks are clogged badly, 2 more partially..

This after just printing a perfect color test page out of my grandmothers HP deskjet that I guarantee hasn't printed a page in 5 years!

I buy for quality, and would be angry if consumer electronics die after even 5 years, Much less the 18 months this product lived... My Canon powershot S110 has lived a long and productive life (though it is broken in 2 places, it still works), I wish this printer had lived half the life of my camera.

Of course, I discovered my s820 is dead after buying 60$ of canon ink and paper. Quite the scam, an inkjet printer that you have to run many dolars worth of ink cartridges through to keep working.. or buy a new $$$ printhead.

Now I'm off to try and cut my losses and breath life into this thing by soaking the print head, or making some 'cleaning' ink tanks out of my old ink- hope it's not a total waste of my time.