Canon 4503B002 Wireless Color Photo Printer with Scanner and Copier

I was looking for an all-in-one office printer, and I was deceived by the title, combined with the confusing jumble of feature lists.This printer will scan, print, and copy, but it is not truly an all-in-one because it lacks a fax, document feeder, and perhaps some other features that would be appropriate for an office machine, and I was actually looking for those features.I decided to forgo the hassle of trying to return it and get the printer that I actually wanted, and since I am a photographer I thought that this machine would be helpful as an adjunct to my Canon Pro9000 MKII.I printed a run of cards on this machine, and I found that it is not efficient with ink, compared to the Pro9000 MKII. The ink cartridges are smaller without being significantly less expensive. The machine has a gray ink cartridge in addition to the yellow, cyan, magenta, and black. This gray ink cartridge is difficult to acquire, and must be custom ordered from Canon. I discovered the hard way that the Canon store website is not functional. I was unable to complete purchasing the gray ink online, and had to call Canon directly in order to get the ink. I was startled to find that this gray ink was the first tank to run out when I was printing my cards.While I am discussing the ink, there is one subject that is food for thought. The machine carries two black ink cartridges, one small, presumably for photo printing, and one very large black tank which I assume is for printing office documents. The small black ink tank is running out, and I am not sure how to force the machine to drink from the large black ink tank. I think that I will have to make another call to Canon customer support to find out the answer to this question.As far as printing photos go, the machine comes with tons of software to enable novice photographers easy printing. However, I print directly from Adobe Photoshop CS5, and had to experiment a bit in order to get my card colors printed correctly. Normally, I would have Photoshop control the printing process by use of ICC color profiles I was able to get the profiles that are associated with the MG6120, but they did not work well with this printer. However, when I specified that the printer control the printing process, it printed my cards very nicely. If you do not know what ICC profiles are, do not worry about it, this machine is for you.The MG6120 does print photographs very nicely, and is optimized for beginning and novice photographers. The features lean very heavily toward producing nice photo prints. I would definitely recommend this machine highly to anyone who is not comfortable with photo editing software, or who does not use Adobe Photoshop. This printer will fill in the gaps and print all kinds of photo variations. It will print direct from your camera card, through a USB device, and over your home network. I did not delve too deeply into the software features of this printer because personally, I do not need them. One feature that is very helpful is that the photo paper feeds from the back. This means that the paper is not curled around the feeder the way front loading printers work. This allows printing on heavier papers, and also makes for superior registration when printing businsess cards or other documents that must be precisely located on the paper.There is a cartridge tray in the bottom of the machine where copy paper can be permanently stored, forgoing the hassle of changing papers when you go to print photos.I did find it a bit confusing to connect the machine to my home network. I expected this connection to be made automatically when the driver and software were installed, but instead, the connection had to be made through the settings menu on the printer itself. I am very familiar with my home network, so once I realized how the process worked, I had no trouble setting it up, and now it works very well. However, it is SOOO easy to imagine a user who is not all that familiar with networking tearing their hair and exclaiming "What is a router?? What do you mean there is a security code?? Nobody ever told me what it is!!".Once the connection to the network was set up, I found the installation CD to be quite appropriate for Windows 7, and it installed without a hitch.I have used the scanner, and it is wholly automated, and seems to have no opportunity to change the settings if, for example, you wanted a high resolution scan. I scanned some business documents, and the scanner did quite a good job of it. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could convert my scans diredtly to a PDF file very easily. It also does a nice job of copying.So, to sum it up, I would characterize this printer as a very nice full-featured photo printer that will also scan and copy. I would reccommend it highly to any photo enthusiast who doesn't want to make the trip to Wal-Mart, and wants nicer photos.However, beware if you are looking for an all-in-one office printer.

I purchased this printer the end of Oct. 2010; I didn't set it up right away & didn't use it for 6 weeks when I was out of state. During the time I've been home I've printed approx. 200 pages of text, on fast print. This printer doesn't have a draft choice. I've printed a few color photos (largest size approx. 2.5" x 3")...again on fast print. I wasn't after quality; I simply needed a print for crochet patterns. Last week, two colors were low, this week nearly every color is showing low. I've never, ever had a printer use ink so quickly.Other than gobbling ink, the printer is good; however, I've owned better printers. It was every easy to set up. It's working with Windows 7, wireless is great, and it's user friendly. It is sometimes slow to begin printing a page. I never owned a printer that was quite this slow; the slowness doesn't bother me; I can live with it, just thought I'd mention it. The scan & copy features work nicely. I haven't printed any quality photos with it, so I can't vouch for photo quality. The photos I printed in 'fast' mode aren't as clear as photos I've printed in draft mode on other printers I've owned.edited to add: I always use print preview; this evening I realized I couldn't delete a page from a series of pages I was printing. I really miss this feature which was on the Epson printer that I had to replace with this Canon printer because the Epson wouldn't work correctly with Windows 7. I had to print pages I didn't need because I couldn't delete them from the queue.An observation (4/4/11): I'm still printing text even though 5 of the ink tanks have a red X above them. I don't plan on replacing a tank until I'm unable to print. I haven't replaced any ink tanks yet.Update (4/30/11): All my ink tanks all have an X above them, except the large black tank which still shows a tiny bit of ink. I can't print in color, but I can print in black and grayscale. Just thought I'd let you know.Update [6/2/11] I just realized the other day that the ink this printer uses doesn't run when it gets wet. To be sure I was correct, I held a printed document under running water yesterday. The ink didn't fade or run. I looked up ChromoLife 100+ which is the ink used by this Canon printer. The prints will last over 100 years.Update: [7/14/11] I just discovered that this printer will print two or even four pages on one page. It also has an option, Duplex, to print on the front & back of the paper. I printed a 32 page manual using '2 on 1' & 'duplex'. So I had two pages of the pamphlet on each side of the paper. The print is small, but I can read it. To learn more about the features of this printer, check out the video which is included with the images at the top of the product page. This printer has some nice features, my star rating will remain the same because of ink usage.Yet another update: When I get the message 'Printer may be out of ink', I press OK & my text document usually prints. But, be aware the print quality might begin to suffer. If my document doesn't print, or if it prints, and the quality is poor, I finally change the ink tank/s.