Customer Reviews
Fabulous Photos -Fast - high quality! 
2006-05-19
I bought this printer a year ago and am just writing a review as it has stood the test of time. I had previously only used epson printers, but as I go thru spurts of printing found that their ink cartridges clogged if not used regularly. The PIXMA IP8500 absolutly does not do this!!!!
the 8 tanks allow me to replace only the one color that is out and its QUIET!! nothing like my epsons :) It prints fast quality prints, borderless etc. I have found the best results using the canonn paper - but does well on cheaper alternatives.
I use it solely with Photshop - so can not comment on the software.
Over-all this is a great printer! beautiful prints.
**it does ok text, the basic software allows many manipulations - and for text it matters! also the paper really does matter when trying to obtain crisp lines. If you will be mostly printing text, get a cheap laser. This printer excells at images and is only decent at text.
Perfect Pictures, High Ink Costs 2006-05-02
Spectacular photo quality, extremely quiet. Intuitive yet versatile software, and the ink jets self-clean reliably. Also, fairly fast, even in High Quality mode all in an attractive package. Another very nice feature is that it does true automatic two-sided printing, though this is cryptically referred to as "Duplex" printing in the setup. Eight is a lot of $10. ink cartridges to replace, but only a few are used up quickly. Those few, especially black, are used up very quickly, to the point of being annoying. Having another, cheaper printer for black printing might be smart, but who has the space for that.
This report is after about 5 months of regular, but not intense use including both photos and business text projects. I have not dared to try non-Canon ink (after having bad luck with this in the distant past.) Non Canon paper has produced perfect photos. But glossy paper - of any good quality - really makes the sharpest looking photos.
Been waiting for a printer this good 2006-04-12
All I can say is WOW. The print quality on this printer really blew me away. I didn't think it was possible to get photo quailty this good in my own house. Prints come out better than when I send them out.
Its a little expensive to maintain (ie inks, paper) but its worth it to me as I no longer have to wait to get my pictures in the mail. If I want pictures, it takes me about 10 minutes to print out a batch.
This is the fasterest and quietest printer I have ever owned and I've owned some top of the line Epsons and HP's. If you can still get yoru hands on one I highly recommend it.
GREAT VALUE!!! 2006-04-11
I feel extremely happy with this printer. I just recently swapped tanks after more than one year of steady operation, and a lot of printing. Case in point: we printed hundreds of copies of a full color baby shower announcement and a holiday newsletter-- all on this printer (and a lot more). I get a heck of a lot of output on the tanks. Moreover, tank swapping is easy. I have three other printers, and have owned others before, and never have I had one where replacement was so easy. This model is my main photo printer and it does wonderful work. It's a terrific value.
Simply the best 2006-01-27
I just picked this printer up 2 days ago. I paid unbelievable 199.99 !!!! Canadian dollars at Henrys photo store. I already have I950 which rocks and still prints great photographs but at that price I just couldn't resist to buy the ip8500. The print quality is obviously amazing. I prefer to use the semi gloss photo paper. I connected this printer to USB 1 port and it is reasonably fast. I have been printing all my photographs for the past 4 years. First I started with canon S820 on which the print head burned out after 50 refills with non genuine ink. It still saved me 400 dollars thou. The print quality however was inferior to that of genuine inks. Also the I950 is not doing too well with non genuine inks. Those inks are good for graphics but for photographs the genuine inks will only do. Does anybody know any good quality ink refills?
The prints from Ip8500 are definitely better than those from the photo lab. I know that printing photographs is more expensive than a photo lab but it is definitely more fun, and if the quality is important to you then it is definitively worthwhile to print on your own. IF YOU WANT THE BEST THEN BUY THIS PRINTER. I can not imagine why anybody would buy an HP printer and pay 40 bucks for the cartridges while you can get separate inks for canon for about 10 bucks. One slightly negative thing about this printer is that although it prints regular text quickly and with high quality is not worthwhile to use it for that. The black ink cartridge is smaller than in other printers and it will not last long. It would have been good if canon put another black cartridge for text printing just like it did in the ip5000.
Wonderful, Amazing 2006-01-23
Includes: Easy-PhotoPrint (Win/Mac), Easy-WebPrint (Win), PhotoRecord (Win), print head, 8 ink tanks: cyan, magenta, yellow, black, photo cyan, photo magenta, red, & green, power cord, 4" x 6" paper sample pack, & more. Canon PIXMA iP8500 Photo Printer - This printer features an 8-color ChromaPLUS ink system that utilizes 8 separate ink tanks. This gives you life-like detail and stunning color reproduction for your personal photos. It also features 6,144 print nozzles, which lets you print your highly detailed photos and super-fast speeds! The PIXMA iP8500 can print a borderless 4" x 6" photograph in approx. 21 seconds!! Paper Sizes - Letter, Legal, Credit Card (2.13 x 3.39), 4 x 6, 5 x 7, & U.S. #10 Envelopes Connects to a PC or Mac via USB 2.0 (backwards compatible to 1.1) Minimum Requirements Windows XP - Pentium 300MHz/128MB RAM Windows 2000 - Pentium 133MHz/64MB RAM Windows Me - Pentium 150MHz/32MB RAM Windows 98 - Pentium 486MHz/16MB RAM Mac OS X v. 10.2.1 to 10.3.x - PowerPC, G3, G4, G5 / 128MB RAM Mac OS v. 9.x - PowerPC / 20MB RAM Unit Dimensions - 17.8 (w) x 11.5 (d) x 6.7 (h) Unit Weight - 15.4 lbs.
Canon PIXMA iP8500 Photo Printer 2006-01-17
- Easy to setup both hw/sw
- Great quality photo with Canon Paper Pro
PIXMA iP8500 printer 2006-01-16
Great quality, easy to set up, and use
Extremely happy with this product (UPDATED) 2006-01-14
So far my experience (over the past three months) has led me to the conclusion that I have bought the best photo printer I could have for the money. I did extensive research, read all the reviews, and settled on this model only after careful consideration.
It all paid off when I installed this beautiful machine on my computer and printed off the first picture. I used the low speed USB connection, although it has been noted that a USB2 also exists. I was unsure if my computer would handle the USB2. Anyhow, I found the printing speed to be excellent even using the normal USB. The software installation proceeded smoothly, the setup of the printer was intuitive, and the output was extremely high quality, exceeding my expectations, on the very first try.
I have been using the printer frequently since I first installed it. I normally use the Canon Photo Paper Pro, and have been consistently delighted by the results. I have not run out of any ink yet, but I must be getting close by now. People who see the photos I have printed remark that they look like processed photographs.
I should point out that I use Photoshop to clean up every photo before I print it, and I try to go with a resolution of at least 600 dpi to achieve photo-quality output. Any higher than that, and the storage size of each photo gets pretty huge. The color balance has been superb; no overweighting of any particular type of ink.
One of my pet peeves of inkjet printers, and I have owned many, is that the nozzles tend to clog over time and the output starts to have horizontal lines in it. I have not noticed that at all with the Pixma. The ink pots do NOT have the print heads in them, as HP and many others do. Instead there is a separate, replaceable print head. I like this, because it keeps down the cost of each ink pot, and allows the user to easily replace the print head when it really needs it. The printer seems to have a cleaning cycle that is very frequent, which must account for the fact that I have never had to initiate a cleaning cycle manually and why I can walk over to my computer and print a photo without having to worry about whether or not I will be wasting high-end photo paper on mediocre output.
There are 8 separate ink pots. I like this because you only need to replace them as they run out, rather than replace a single, expensive, multi-color cartridge that costs an arm and a leg.
This is also a very nice looking printer, unlike most I have seen. The design is sleek enough that you would not mind having it prominently visible in your office. It is fairly quiet in operation, and I have had no problems of paper misfeeds or jams whatsoever.
One comment, which probably goes without saying, but if you're not a print expert you may not realize it: You would not want to use this as your only printer. Keep your cheapie for normal text and the like, and reserve this for photographs only. You will waste precious high-quality ink and wear out the print head needlessly if you try to make this your sole printer.
If you are interested in outstanding quality photo prints for a very reasonable price, I highly recommend you take a look at this printer. I cannot find anything to complain about yet!
UPDATE 4/21/06: I have now been using this printer regularly for about 6 months. I am extremely impressed by the quality and reliability of the unit over that time period. It has never dried out like all my other inkjet printers, never had to be manually re-primed, and never had to be rebooted. I continue to rate this item FIVE STARS especially for the money.
Amazing quality printer 2005-12-28
Very impressive 4x6 color photo prints!!! They look even better than prints I get from standard film developers (couldn't find any pixels off with magnification). It will be interesting to see how efficient it is on the use of 8 different ink tanks. The cost for the 8 pack of new ink isn't cheap, currently coming in at $75.
Data I have seen from test labs show the total cost per 4x6 color photo print at .57 cents and that includes the paper (www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,119573,pg,6,00.asp) For basic every day printing you don't care about the quality on, it might make sense to keep another cheap printer around, but for home printing of photos you want to have a terrific memory of this printer does the job and so much more!!!
