PIXMA iP6600D

The A4-sized PIXMA iP6600D printer may be aimed at advanced amateur photographers, but this machine will be just as useful to the regular designer as photography enthusiasts.

There is much here developed with the photographer in mind – the PictBridge link and preview screen, for example. But introduce the printer into its more natural environment and link it up to your computer and you’ll really begin to appreciate the quality of the hardware.

Print speed is impressive, helped by Canon’s patented FINE method, which allows you to print two sheets of A4 in well under 40 seconds from the moment the print button is pressed to the moment the final prints land in the tray.

The same principle applies to the iP6600D’s high-quality graphic output. In our tests a 10x15cm borderless photo quality print emerged in less than 50 seconds and, thanks to its near silent mechanism, managed it without the usual clunks and whirrs.

Needless to say, the average designer should find little to fault. Six individual print heads output to a maximum of 9,600x2,400dpi and produce colour fidelity as perfect as you’re likely to get for a printer in this price bracket.

Photographic output is smooth and shows no banding – a common problem with inkjet printers – and, thanks to the individual print heads, you need only replace empty heads when the need arises, rather than wasting ink with multiple head alternatives.