Canon Pixma iP2600 budget Printer

The Canon Pixma iP2600 is a budget, no frills inkjet photo printer. Retailing for under £30 and replacing the Pixma iP1800, this is an entry level, basic printer with few features. As such it lacks such items as a PictBridge port and a memory card slot, but is a sleek design and produces bold, crisp prints at competitive print speeds.

Design
 A lot of work has been put into the design of the Pixma iP2600 and Canon are to be congratulated on a job well done. The smooth exterior, a space saving 5.6x17.4x10 inches is complimented by a glossy black look, with a slightly mirrored finish that looks very sleek sitting on your desktop. A far cry from the usual boring grey plastic body that usually signals an inkjet printer. The output and paper trays both fold into the unit when not in use, creating a sleek box that more resembles part of a high end Hi-Fi system. The output tray has a slightly flimsy arm which extends to catch loose paper, but lacking a stop cap at the end tends to let sheets fly off the end, annoying, but not critical. The minimalist control panel has only two buttons, one acting as a paper feed button and the other doubling up as both a power button and error warning light. The power cord fits into the rear of the printer and the USB port is also located here. It is worth noting that a USB cable is not supplied, so you will have to purchase one as an extra. At this price you cannot expect PictBridge or memory card slots, so all images will have to be sent to your photo software on your PC and printed from there.  


Cartridge supplies
The Pixma iP2600 comes with a black cartridge PG37 and a three-colour cartridge CL38 as standard. These are low capacity cartridges, the black containing 11ml of ink and the colour a total of 9ml, 3ml of each colour cyan, magenta and yellow. Higher capacity cartridges are available that fit in this printer. The high capacity black PG40 has 16ml of ink at a cost of around £13 and the high capacity colour CL41 with a total of 12ml of ink, 4ml of each colour. These cartridges, although more expensive to purchase, will work out cheaper in the long run as they produce a lower print cost per page. 


Performance
In speed tests the Pixma iP2600 performed very well. It managed to produce 5.68 pages per minute of black text, which compares well with both the HP DeskJet D4260 and the Lexmark Z845, that are both more expensive printers. The canon also performed well in quality tests, the characters formed were precise with crisp edges and created no blurred areas, in colour graphics tests most documents came out with solid colours and nice even distribution of colour. The only slight area of concern was in portions where gradual colour gradients occurred but these imperfections were barely noticeable to the bare eye and only a perfectionist could grumble.
4x6 photos printed on Canons semi-gloss paper were also impressive. They were not perfect but were well balanced and even, a difficult job for a budget printer.
 
So with solid printing performance at relatively quick output speeds and acceptable photo prints, the Pixma iP2600 is an affordable choice and is a printer that performs well above its weight, making it probably the best budget buy under £50.