Canon PIXMA MP490 Inkjet Photo All-In-One Printer (3745B002)

This is the third Canon Pixma printer we have owned. The first two were blown out by power surges (we have extraordinarily unreliable and variable power in the islands).
The first Pixma printer we bought is something of a legend for it's inexpensive cartridges which could be purchased retail (OEM) for less than $10 apiece. When we bought that, we already had several other printers in the house, at least 1 unused. The issue we had with each of the others (a Dell, an HP and an Epson) was that the printer cartridges cost as much as, or more than, the printer itself. If you already have a printer, you know that the manufacturers are using the Gillette razor model; pricing the printers low, and gauging on the ink. The cost for a replacement cartridge for my HP laser was around $200, the Epson, around $100, and the Dell (which came free with the computer) cost over $100. Since this is a home printer we cared less about print quality, and more aboiut reasonable operating cost...Read more

UPDATE: This multi function printer will not scan if the ink catridges are low or empty!

I just bought this printer and I LOVE it. It's the perfect all in one printer for home/ small office use. I am a student and wanted an all in one so i could print, copy and scan documents without the stress of using the school's facilities every time. This printer is exactly what I needed. The print quality is superb. Even photos printed with this printer come out looking just as good as lab quality photos. The colours are vibrant and rich and borderless printing is excellent. Photocopying and scanning quality is really good too. However, printing speed is not the fastest but it doesn't detract from the beauty of this machine. The printer itself has a small footprint and I love the way everything folds into one compact design and eliminates dust getting trapped inside the printer. Overall, this is a great printer for the price. Note that a usb cord is not included in the package.

I'm using the Canon MP490 at home with a Mac Book Pro Intel Core Duo OSX 10.5.8. I found the set up very straightforward and encountered no problems. As mentioned in another review, the USB cord is not included. Print quality/tone was very good for both photos and plain documents. Color ran a bit to the green end. Scanning and copying were also uncomplicated. Inserting the SD card from my digital camera into the printer immediately brought up the image on the LCD screen, ready to print. iPhoto also started up automatically on my laptop, ready to import the images from the SD card in the printer-very slick. Controls were fairly intuitive as was the menu on the compass control. Print speed was on the slow side, so if your needs require high volume printing, this is probably not the right printer for you. The included software loaded easily and works fairly well. Ink costs are high for OEM replacement cartridge. There are ink refill kits on the web for this model to reduce...Read more