Canon PIXMA Pro 9000 Mark II (A3+ Printer, 4800 X 2400 dpi) Printer

I bought this to replace an Epson 1290. It is surprisingly slow to start printing, but once started it churns out the best quality prints at an unbeleivable speed. (Compared to the 1290) The print quality is 1st class, I can now even print good quality Black and White, I wouldn't call it "darkroom" quality, but it is certainly a great improvement. The printer comes with a driver "Easy photo Print Pro which is an add on for Canon Digital Photo Professional and for Photoshop Elements 6 which comes with the printer. It is very good for setting up the printing- you can set all margins individually and the size of the print. Very useful. NB it does not work with Photoshop Elements 8, so if you have moved on from 6 then you will have to print using Canon Digital Photo Professional to be able to use this setup. I have had the printer a month and the indications are that £ for £ it will cost at least half the cost of the Epson on ink. The cartridges are bigger, cheaper and you only replace the one thats run out. So far I have been using up my Epson Paper and been extremely happy with the result. I am now going to try the Canon best quality papers but I don't expect to see a great difference. This printer also lets you use 3rd party paper, providing set ups for some of the best independent suppliers. Last but not least after the big clunk as it starts printing it is almost silent. I am very happy so far.

I have had this printer for six months and I really like it. The build quality is really, really good. You can close up all the flaps when you're not printing and it becomes a sleek, rectangular box. The print quality is superb. I am not a professional photographer and I have read that some people have had problems with colour matching. I think that this problem might be Mac specific. I am running Windows 7 and the colours are superb - comparable to professional printing. I use the printer to print architectural drawings on plain paper and the plans are crisp and vivid, even on the standard print quality setting. The printer does take a bit of time to limber up if it has been off or if you haven't printed for a while which is slightly annoying if you are wanting to print something and rush out (most days). You have to hop about on one leg while the printer makes noises and wiggles its bits about in preparation. The snag? It has no network connectivity - no wireless and no ethernet. I could not believe it when I opened it up. I turned and rolled it over and over looking for the ethernet socket but it's only USB. Nowadays when even £50 printers have network connectivity, this seems to be a real oversight. It means that I have had to buy and set up a little Silex print server to make it work with more than one machine (laptop, desktop and one other). 2014 UPDATE: Still pleased with this printer. It's solid and reliable. It does use quite a bit of ink and the ink's expensive. I have ditched the Silex print sharing thing and now use the built-in USB print sharing facility that came with my TP Link router - which works adequately. I still can't believe that there's no network connectivity in a printer at this level.

I migrated to this after using a Canon i950 for years. Always wanted an A3+ printer and after gumming up the print head of the 950 by using so called "compatible" inks (BIG lesson there!) it gave me the excuse. I analysed the A3+ printers available and it was really either this or the Epson equivalent. All other things looking equal the Canon won on being more economical to run using the OE manufacturers ink (remember the BIG lesson). I spent about 3 weeks spreadsheeting the alternatives and was really tempted by the Epson: print quality looked superb but if you consider one, look at how much ink there is in the replacement cartridge compared to others.......... I run the printer using Vista, had no problems with drivers or set up, installing the print head and ink cartridges was a doddle and it even does a self alignment check! The printer is disconcertingly quiet when working and print speed faster than expected. You can look at the specs but until you have it working in front of you speed doesn't mean that much. I use mainly Ilford Galerie paper with the respective downloaded ICC profile (very easy to do) and results surpass my expectations. Colours are true and vibrant with exceptional gloss levels. Monochrome prints are all I could wish for - deep blacks, snowy whites and everything in between that goes to make up that beautiful darkroom quality black and white print with not even a hint of a colour cast! I'm struggling to find something negative to say: there's no USB cable in the box and the printers foot print is quite large (but then it is an A3 printer so what should I expect?). Oh yes, the included Canon software does lots of clever stuff but I recommend resisting the temptation to try the "vivid printing" option unless you have a very strong stomach. That's about it really - it's all about making lab quality prints quickly and without fuss: and this printer does! If I had to buy one over again, this is the one I'd buy.

Canon PIXMA Pro 9000 Mark II (A3+). A fine printer producing excellent results, but not 100% reliable as is sometimes suggested. After just 8 weeks (purchased 10 March 2010) and 200 pages, our new printer stopped working suddenly and completely, showing a "high voltage" error. An engineer arrived the following day, but needed to order 4 replacement parts. These and the engineer were not available until a week later. In all we were without use of the printer for eight days. The printing is really good - it would have won 5 stars from us if it had not broken so finally, leaving us unable to fulfill orders for 8 days, and so soon after purchase. Incidentally, the time taken, and the expense incurred for the repair man to travel to our house and back twice, (460 miles) plus the time he spent working on it must have cost a great deal more than a simple replacement, something which Canon do not do, they only repair.

After a month or two of use I must say this is a quality product. The prints are first class and that is what a photo printer is for after all. I have tried several papers from different manufactures, they all look very good. The matt and art paper prints are the best I have seen. It has great tonal depth in mono prints too. You do need to ensure you select the correct paper type in the printer menu of course. I have only done A4, A3+ size prints, nothing smaller. The CD/DVD printer also does a great job. So why not 5 stars? It is rather slow to get into action as if it has a list of pre flight checks to go through. Then there is the printer price and the inks are not cheap either. You can get a full set of 9 Canon inks for £80! if you shop around. I have not used any compatible inks and to be honest the genuine Canon inks do seems to go a very long way. My previous printer was the Canon iX4000 A3+ printer. I used Jet tec compatible inks in that for years. The Canon inks go a hell of a lot further between replacements. They should too as 9 inks are contributing to the finished print. As a keen amateur photographer I am now getting print quality worthy of the images from my cameras. It does seem strange to get the best cameras and lenses you can, and not expect the same quality in the printed result. If your priority from your printer is TOP CLASS large prints, then this is for you 100%.

I have now had the Canon Pixma Pro Mark II since November 2010 and perhaps is the worst printer that the office has purchased. Since we bought the machine we have spend more that the original purchase price buying inks. If you intend to buy this unit think twice as to run this machine is extremely expensive. Furthermore when using A3 paper it does not work all the time meaning that paper jams or machine feeds paper at an angle therefore resulting in many lost prints and additional ink down the drain.

Quite sad to have to write what I am about to regarding this printer because underneath it all there's an absolutely first class printer just waiting to break out. I purchased mine in July 2009. I was immediately impressed with the build quality, aesthetics and very impressed with the noise levels once I started printing. Setting it up was an absolute breeze and I was really excited to start printing. I started out with some Permajet FB Royal paper along with their ICC profiles for the printer/paper combination. Firstly, the black and whites are breathtaking, I mean absolutely stunning. Great contrasts, no metamerism in different light (no bronzing), no colour tints - just perfect (especially on the FB Royal paper). Unfortunately colour is a different story. All of the prints I got from this printer were over saturated in the yellows/oranges and there was most definitely a slight yellow cast when viewing under daylight. After spending weeks updating drivers and working with Permajet directly they offered to create a custom profile for me. I sent them the test patches generated exactly how I was instructed to and they phoned me telling me they had never seen test patches that were so dark and with what they thought was a magenta cast. I contacted Canon support - firstly let me wish whomever is reading this the fortune that they never have to deal with Canon support in the UK. Absolutely the worst support system I've ever encountered but it would take the whole review just to go into the details. Anyway, after some 8 weeks (during which time I only ever managed to speak to the guy working my ticket THREE times) I decided to go back to the vendor and ask for a refund (and they graciously arranged it for me). I would like to say that Canon even admitted there was a yellow cast, slightly dark and over saturated oranges but seemed at a complete loss as to why. I should probably state that I am using a (colour calibrated) Macbook Pro and I'm not massively convinced by the drivers for the Canon. I suspected a couple of times there was an issue with it double-colour managing, although I could never prove it. I did try the Snow Leopard drivers which were better drivers but now you can no longer make tweaks to the color options when using icc profiles (I used to compensate the colour cast by adding some blue and lightening the image to get an accurate result). In short - I REALLY wanted to like this printer. I even toyed with buying another with the refund just in case on the off chance the one I had was faulty but I can't help feeling this is a trait of the printer/driver combination, at least on the Mac, and so I'm not going to risk it.

First impression is the weight, then the size, quite a large footprint, so make sure you have somewhere strong and large enough to place it. No WiFi, so I bought a longer lead and have it about 2mtrs away from my laptop/desk. Easy to set up and comes with a free Adobe Elements 8 disk, a nice bonus if you don't have Photoshop or Lightroom. Borderless prints can be made, I noticed another comment saying they could not, anyway the printer can, just set up your printer settings accordingly. Very quiet in operation, also very quick for an A3 print. Quality is superb, even B&W, with a deep rich black. I have printed 8 A3 prints and around a dozen A4 and the ink low on the photo magenta is flashing, red/green no movement, very little on the black and the others showing half. I am surprised at having any flashing warning lights yet, I would have expected at least 50 A4 size prints even then that would work out at £1 per print just for ink. A Ciss system is a definite consideration. I have bought one for my 560 Pixma to test, using FotoRite ink, I find the paper makes more difference than the ink. Seeing how much ink is being used by the 9000, I will continue to use the 560Pixma for A4 or smaller, I don't see any difference at that size. Now down to £283 on Amazon great value !

Ferma lì da un mese causa problemi di consegna delle cartucce (si veda l'apposita recensione), finalmente stasera ho potuto provare la stampante e dopo un lungo momento in cui non stampava il verde, a forza di insistere, finalmente si è messa a regime e ora pare funzionare perfettamente. Il prezzo non proprio popolare spero giustifichi l'acquisto e anche il venditore si è dimostrato all'altezza, dato che la ditta di spedizioni non mi stava consegnando il pacco, dato che non sapevo nulla dell'arrivo e soprattutto nulla dei tentativi di consegna, non avendo tracking né pezze giustificative del passaggio del corriere nella buca delle lettere. Così opera un venditore on line. Ringrazio ma spero per un po' di non avere bisogno di ricorrere a loro per un'altra stampante: questa spero basti e avanzi per un po' di anni...