Customer Reviews
Love this little toy!!! 
2004-05-25
We bought this to go with us on vacation. thought it would be more fun for the kids to send postcards home that actually had them in the picture. We love this. We did have to search a bit to find the creditcard size paper tray (this add on was about 13 bucks). the pic quality is SOOO much nicer than than an inkjet. It is fun to watch it layer the colors and end up with a picture. I thought we would like it but was surprised at how very much fun it is (really fun with a bunch of drunk girlfriends!!!). Yes, there are cheaper ways to get pictures, but we really like how immediate it is. We use it with a canon A75.
Canon Card Photo Printer CP-200 2004-04-29
The printer itself is wonderful, you could almost fit it in your pocket. The problem is, you have to plug it into the wall, and you have to plug it into your camera. It cost a lot less than the battery powered canon photo printer. So for me, it is worth having to plug it in. Next, it really does print in 90 seconds, once it starts to print, but figure up to another 90 seconds to get the data from your camera into the printer. Next, you can give the photo a bath in water and it will come out just fine. But don't be tricked into thinking that a $129 printer is going to do as good as the $129,000 developing machines. Sometimes, the photos will surprise you at how good they are though.
Having said all of that, once you get it plugged in, and the photo into the printer, the party does begin. The photo goes back and forth three time, first yellow, then red, and then blue. That makes you wonder, how did they do that. How do they know just the right amount of color to use.
Then if you can get over the fact you paid about fifty cents for a print, it is sort of a nice print. On borderless prints it does flatten the photo a bit. Canon says it stretches the photo out to the border. The solution for this is to print with a border. The photo will not go to the edge of the paper, but you will not have a photo that is stretched or flattened to fit the 4 by 6 size. SLR camera of course are already 4 by 6, my point and shoot is 4.5 by 6. I would rather they cut or crop the .5 off, rather than to "stretch" or flatten the photo.
This printer it is pretty solid, it looks like it will hold up pretty good. As if Cannon is hoping to be able to sell you lots of paper and ribbons. I am sure that you will pay Cannon $500 to $1000 for supplies before this printer would ever start to get old or wear out.
They are durable photos, I am sure 100 people could handle them and they would not show to much wear and tear. This is a party trick, there is no doubt about it. If your looking for a WOW effect for your next get together, go for it. If you want to keep feeding your money into this little gem, I am sure it will keep giving you photos to pass around to your friends.
I would like to see the price of the photos come down closer to the 29 cents it cost to get digital photo's developed at the online servies where we can set up our photo albums. Or at our local Target or Walmart store. I just wonder if the WOW effect is worth paying the extra price. But I hear there are people who sell these photos out in the clubs for $10, so I suppose you could turn it into a profitable business.
The technical support at Canon is very good, if you need any help getting your cp-200 set up with your computer or camera. Their software is reasonable to work with, I have seen a lot worse photo software out there. It works with your computer just fine, if you want to hook it up to the computer.
Great for direct printing from camera only 
2004-04-04
Bought this thing before Christmas. Works great with my Canon S45 when direct printing. Tried to get it to work with my computer.....no luck. After 3 months and trying to get Canon tech. support to help (they actually contradicted instructions in the software documents on how to set this thing up), I have given up and will only use it for printing straight from the camera. What a shame.
I think another reviewer had a similar problem.
Great pictures, some hassles 
2004-03-14
I bought this printer on an impulse after taking lots of digital pictures with my Canon A80 on a vacation. There is no warning about how pricey this printer can become. It came with 5 postcard size sheets and a cartridge that would print only the 5 pictures. Once they were gone, since you hadn't been warned, it was back to the store for another ink cartridge and paper. You have to buy an ink cartridge and paper pack for the number of prints you. These are available at amazon.com at the cheapest price I've found. It costs about 52 cents a print if you buy the 36 print cartridge packed with 36 sheets of paper.
(Canon also confuses the consumer by selling 4x6 sheets of paper without ink cartridges. These are for use in other printers, not this one. So beware! There is no ink cartridge included, they are just a tetch too large to go in this printer, and they won't work in it--but they are displayed right next to these printers in every store I looked in.)
The aggravation of the paper and ink cartridges aside, the printer makes beautiful prints. My regular HP printer prints very good pictures except in black and other dark color areas. So I use this Canon printer to print those which the other printer doesn't do so well on. I had no problem getting the software installed and this printer working from my computer.
Most of my pictures will be taken with my old Canon Ae1 and printed with Kodak Perfect Touch processing but my digital pictures will be printed on this printer when I need quality prints from them.
Nice Prints But..... 2004-01-26
I just bought the CP-200 to go with my S50 camera. Setting it up was very easy when it came to the camera and printer working together, haven't yet tried it with my computer. Because I do TRUE Dye Sublimation, I thought this printer was also going to allow me to do transfers, not so. I'm a tad bit disappointed that you have to buy SPECIAL paper for this printer. No where does it tell you this. This will mean that you will always have to carry a lot of extra stuff with you if you want to be able to print while on the road etc. I haven't decided if I'm going to keep this printer or buy the HP ink jet printer. The one good thing is with this printer your pics will last a lot longer then a ink jet.
Glad I Didn't Buy It 
2008-03-27
This printer was a gift for my high school graduation. I got a digital camera too to go with it. It was nice because I could print pictures without a computer. The quality was pretty good and the pictures came out relatively fast. It was really small too, so I was able to put it in a drawer when I wasn't using it.
I would've been able to say more, but my relationship with this printer was short-lived. I stopped using it for about 8 months (I'm not big on taking pictures anyway) then I decided to dust it off and start using it again. I plugged it in and put in the paper and the tray just like I did before. This time the paper would go in about an inch then it would beep at me, as if it was jammed. This really shocked me. There was nothing in the way of the feed and I could pull it back out easily. I also tried feeding it by hand (without the tray) and it still "got stuck". I tried blowing air into it and rotating the rollers but the paper would never get through.
I'm glad I didn't buy it myself because I would've been very upset.
Go to Canon USA's Website for Drivers! 2005-02-12
This is a good quality printer with 2 major restrictions. First, the printer, printer paper & cartridge packs, and additional paper trays for labels and such are expensive. Second, the largest it prints is 4"x6".
SETTING UP
A number of earlier reviewers commented on how difficult it was to print from the computer. Expect setup to take about an hour if everything goes right. Printing from the computer requires a USB printer cable, which doesn't come either with the printer or with Canon digital cameras. But if you dig through the stuff that came with your computer, you might find one. Otherwise you can either buy one or DirectPrint from your camera by connecting your camera to the printer with the same cable that connects your camera to your computer.
The CD that comes with the printer is useless. The ZoomBrowser EX that's on it is outdated, and the driver that allows your computer to interface with the printer isn't digitally signed. But all you have to do is go to Canon USA's website, and look for the consumer support page and find the CP-200. Canon provides current versions of ZoomBrowser and other software and drivers for whatever version of Windows or Mac OS you use. Download what you need, unzip the files you've downloaded, then go to your computer's Add A Printer and specify the location to which you unzipped the driver. Then the printer installs.
Printing from Zoombrowser is extremely simple. You may not need directions, but if you do, Canon's website has a pdf file which takes you screen by screen through printing.
Some reviewers said borderless printing distorted their pictures, but the current version of ZoomBrowser crops photos instead of stretching them. If you don't want edges cropped, print with a border.
Printing is fun to watch; the colors go by layer by layer. Aparently the picture stands up to a lot once it's dry, but I didn't test it.
The supplies for this printer aren't cheap. Your drugstore and Ofoto print at about half the price. If you want to print entire albums, this may not be worthwhile. However, if you only need an occasional picture, it's incredibly convenient not to have to go out, and the prints are very good. Then when you're not printing, the printer can go in a drawer.
Spectacular results 2005-01-12
For me (Windows XP Home edition), everything worked perfectly out of the box. Within 15 min of opening the box, I had pictures that easily beat the 1 hour photo machines in both detail and color. (I have a 6mp DSLR.) I used an SD card reader to transfer files from the camera to the computer, then used the Microsoft print wizard in MS Photo Manager to quickly size and send the print. This is a great tool to have for getting beautiful snapshots quickly. It is a little pricey as noted in earlier reviews because special paper and dye-sub materials are required but the quality easily beats my Epson C84 IJ and Lexmark Z805 IJ. I will probably use one of the on-line services for bulk printing because they are much cheaper but I always have the capability for something right away when I want it.
It can be fast. 2004-10-12
I used this printer with my Digital Rebel. It fed the paper almost immediately and started the printing process. Photos were done quickly. I find it valuable when visiting friends and family. I am able to leave photographic memories immediately. As for the price of photos, I don't print every photo that I take, only ones that I can't wait to print before I get home on my computer. This is definitely a nice little tool that can even be put in your camera bag. Don't expect to find cheaper replacement ribbons on the third party printer cartridge sites.
convenience vs. price 2004-06-04
so what if you pay a little more for the prints?!! i usually have get togethers on the weekends and for the convenience of sending a photo home with my guests, it sure is worth it!! my guests don't have to wait UNTIL to receive a copy of the photos taken!! for just regular prints, i take in for developing, cd, or connect my canon powershot to the computer and print there. the manual says that an ink cartridge must be replaced with each new pack of paper. so, i plan ahead. people, quit complaining about a simple inconvenience!! we live in america, do you really have anything legitimate to complain about?? but i digress. this little printer is sure handy dandy!! i received both for my bday!! ( we upgraded technologically this year ) VERY COOL!! LOVE IT!! have had no trouble whatsoever!! ENJOY!!!!
