The Canon Pixma iP8500 Photo Printer ($349.99 direct) is named to fit into Canon's current Pixma iP line, but the Canon printer it most resembles is the i9900, another current Editors' Choice and the fastest photo printer we've seen to date. As with the i9900, the iP8500 can serve as an all-purpose printer. But it's really designed for those who demand high photo quality and print enough photos, at sizes up to 8.5 by 11 inches, for speed to matter.

At 6.7 by 17.8 by 11.5 inches (HWD), the iP8500 is a little larger than most ink jets, but not by much. As with the i9900, you'll find a PictBridge connector for cameras on the front, a separate cartridge for each ink inside, and a total of eight ink colors, adding red and green to the typical photo printer mix of cyan, yellow, magenta, light cyan, light magenta, and black. As with the i9900—and some Epson printers—the additional colors yield a wider-than-usual color gamut for photos.

Another similarity to the i9900 is a printhead with 6,144 nozzles. Spraying lots of drops at once pays off handsomely in photo speed. On our photo suite (timed with QualityLogic's hardware and software, www.qualitylogic.com), each 8-by-10 photo took an average of 1 minute 35 seconds, a full minute faster than the Canon iP3000, iP4000, and MP780, which are essentially tied for next fastest. Only the i9900 was faster, at 1:05 for each photo. Average time for each 4-by-6 was 47 seconds. For business applications, the iP8500 is faster than many ink jets, but not impressively fast, with a 22:57 total time, compared with 15:48 for the iP4000, for example.

Text and graphics quality was also more than acceptable, but not impressive. Both types of output earned ratings at the high end of good. For text, most fonts were easily readable at 4 points, but some stylized fonts required 12 points. Graphics had a tendency to lose thin lines, but photos were easily at the high end of very good, missing out on excellent because of a few minor flaws that only a well-trained eye would notice. Most of the photos qualified as true photo quality despite the flaws.

If you need to print high-quality photos at high speeds, the iP8500 may well be your printer. And you have the security of knowing that it can pull double duty as a general-purpose printer if you need it to.

Sub-ratings: Text: Graphics: Photos:

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Copyright © 2005 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in PC Magazine.