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The simplest ideas are often the best, and every once in a while a manufacturer comes up with an idea that's so ludicrously simple, it makes you wonder why it hasn't been adopted as standard sooner. Separate ink tanks are a case in point. Replacing individual inks rather than an entire colour cartridge is not only logical, it's much cheaper. Although Canon's BJC-6100 isn't the first printer to include separate tanks, it scores points for doing so.
With a maximum resolution of 1400dpi we hoped that output quality would be impressive and we weren't disappointed. In our Labs tests, the unit coped well with mono text, producing crisp, clear prints even in standard mode. Graphics printing was also good. Although banding was visible on normal paper, this disappeared when we switched to high-quality paper or film.
Inkjet printers often suffer from colour bleeding, but thankfully the BJC-6100 didn't fare too badly in this area. The new model was no slouch in terms of speed either. In our tests it managed 4.3 mono pages per minute in standard mode, but when we used Canon's own test files, which are less text-heavy than our own Labs tests, and selected Fast mode, this increased to nine, Canon's claimed speed.
Canon offers as an optional extra a cartridge to turn your printer into a sheet-fed scanner, ideal if desk space is too tight to accommodate a flatbed. Using the cartridge we found 300dpi text scans were of good quality, although greyscales suffered slightly.
A one-year on-site warranty completes the package, bar the addition of a cuddly toy to promote Canon's corporate sponsorship of WWF (the World Wide Fund for Nature, rather than the World Wrestling Federation).
Contact Canon 0500 246246
Minimum requirements 486MHz PC, 8Mb RAM, 15Mb free hard disk space, CD-ROM drive, VGA display, parallel or USB interface
See also:
All Inkjet Printers
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