Canon PIXMA iP1700 Inkjet Printer

Well like its predecessor the iP1200 , the Canon PIXMA iP1700 is also bit bulky. I mean, you think Canon could have maybe changed the design a bit. What it really looks like is a printer that’s still in the process of being completed. The front end looks like its been ripped open by a 5 year old.

It should have come with a paper tray in the front for it would be of great service if you would need to perch the printer at the edge of your desk. The darn papers keep falling all over the place. Its dimensions are 435 x 253 x 165mm and it weighs approximately 3.0kgs.

The iP1700 is an inkjet printer that uses 2 cartridges and does photo quality and normal prints at up to 4800x1200 dpi. For connectivity, it unfortunately doesn’t have PictBridge capabilities but does have standard USB 2.0 connectivity.

With regards to printing and quality, the geometric tests conducted on the photo paper show a slight purplish tint in certain areas. On normal paper however, it wasn’t too impressive. There was slight spillage of ink in a couple of areas.

Now for the normal paper prints with our Font test - From a distance, they’re not bad, but on inspection there’s a slight spillage of ink over the alphabet edges. This is rather odd considering this is a higher end model compared to the iP1200, which didn’t have this problem. And for some very strange reason, in the middle of the second page, we had an unexpected delay of 6 whole seconds before it began printing again. Every Single Time, we ran it though the test. Apparently the printer is not a big fan of the ‘Georgia’ Font. Go figure.
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My concern however, is with the photo print quality. Although the colors were just ok, the DPI was great. There appeared to be faded black levels in the print however. But the overall quality of the prints was good but lacked depth. Speed-wise we had no problem with the color prints, but quality-wise with our gradient test, well let’s say, they could have been better though. The prints were identical to the iP1200 so the detail was quite good.

It seems the Canon iP1700 is almost identical in every way to the iP1200, when it comes to most of the tests we conducted and even with the unimaginative design of the printer itself. But where the iP1700 lacks in size (and shape) and few odds and ends, it’s a great printer when it comes to quantity. A whopping 254 pages! And that’s only after we found a few distortions in the print. It would have gone a bit longer if you needed just black and white prints. The iP1700 is a however a much faster printer than quite a few out there and did print almost 40 pages more than the iP1200. So that’s definitely a good thing.

The bottom line - The Canon iP1700, at a price of approximately Rs. 3,000 is not too bad. Do remember that the cartridges are a wee bit steep, at approximately Rs. 980 for black and Rs. 1,400 for the color. The normal prints should have been better than the predecessor, considering it’s supposed to be a higher end model. But on the whole, it’s definitely worth the price.