Looking at the new Canon PRO-300

[The Hat]

This new Pro 300 I reckon is a bit too far for not much value, if you stop at look at what’s on offer seriously, you might think twice…Do we really need a Densitometer, print margins gone or the 1 metre Pano, what else is on offer for your £700, i.e. new inks, new paper and new headaches. (Careful for what you wish for)

Look at what we have now in the Pro 10, you have the same print quality, and it’s easy to overcome the print margins, you can also refill and reset, if your using 3rd party inks and the waste ink pads are much bigger in the Pro 10.. “We know the unknowns”

I reckon I have the best printer of all in the Pro 9500 mk2, it can do much the same as the Pro 300 / Pro 10, excluding the "Go" cart, but you can reset the waste ink counter and fit a Printer Potty to monitor and lessen your ink loss… Larger lifespan..

This Pro 300 is a winner for Canon in many ways, but for us the user its far less, let’s see how we get on with the cartridge chips and the small waste ink pads, and this Feckin Densitometer can cause all sorts of colour changes if not used with OEM inks, so most of these new advantages could be cancelled out..
P.S. if you don’t wish to use 3rd party inks then it’s a real winner..

 

[palombian]

This new Pro 300 I reckon is a bit too far for not much value, if you stop at look at what’s on offer seriously, you might think twice…Do we really need a Densitometer, print margins gone or the 1 metre Pano, what else is on offer for your £700, i.e. new inks, new paper and new headaches. (Careful for what you wish for)

Look at what we have now in the Pro 10, you have the same print quality, and it’s easy to overcome the print margins, you can also refill and reset, if your using 3rd party inks and the waste ink pads are much bigger in the Pro 10.. “We know the unknowns”

I reckon I have the best printer of all in the Pro 9500 mk2, it can do much the same as the Pro 300 / Pro 10, excluding the "Go" cart, but you can reset the waste ink counter and fit a Printer Potty to monitor and lessen your ink loss… Larger lifespan..

This Pro 300 is a winner for Canon in many ways, but for us the user its far less, let’s see how we get on with the cartridge chips and the small waste ink pads, and this Feckin Densitometer can cause all sorts of colour changes if not used with OEM inks, so most of these new advantages could be cancelled out..
P.S. if you don’t wish to use 3rd party inks then it’s a real winner..

The Densitometer calibration can be done on the PRO-10 with a Colormunki or I2Pro, but if you refill and not print on Canon paper it is not of much use. And who has a calibration instrument makes custom profiles.

I can miss the Pano.
The the Qimage hack leaves you with 1 cm margins, better than 3 cm, most important is that Fine Art settings give much better results on matte papers. The usual matte settings give quite washed out prints (unless you oversaturate), in particular on the 9500.
Even with Fine Art settings and the same MBK ink I can't reach the same deep blacks as with the PRO-10.
Same with PBK, on glossy paper with CO L=1,6 has been measured, no need to buy an Epson.

The CO is a huge advantage IMO, overprinting does not give the same results.

The waste counter of the 9500 can be reset, but it burns a printhead every 2-3 years and you can't find them anymore so what does this help ?
I learned recently the PRO-10 does much longer with a printhead and most probably they will stay available for the years to come.

Resetting the PRO-10 is an important hurdle to take, if not it makes sense to stock a spare (even 2nd hand, most people don't print much). I never found how long the waste pads go, but if the PRO-100 goes over 30.000p I think 20.000 is realistic for the PRO-10.

After all I am better prepared for the future with the PRO-10.

The PRO-300 waste pads probably are smaller since it seems to waste less ink, end result the same.

 

[nertog]

What is it making this difference actually - apparently directly visible - gloss - gamut - granularity of the 4pl droplets or ?

Also curious here! I think pharamacist also owned an Epson R3000. How does that one compare to the P800?

 

[pharmacist]

What is it making this difference actually - apparently directly visible - gloss - gamut - granularity of the 4pl droplets or ?

Apparently the most visual difference is the overall sharpness of smaller details and contrasts in prints. Gamut and Gloss: I can't see a great improvement but yes there is a slight difference to my eyes. Also gloss difference is less with the P800 (LLK coating ?).

 

[pharmacist]

With the firmware hack you are in a comparable situation as with the PRO-300 and disabled ink monitoring - something I suppose is not possible with the P900.
With your Epson experience I would stay with the P800 too.

But what makes you buy a second one ?

Just a practical one: one for my appartement and my second residence in the Ardennes. Because I sold my Epson Pro 3880 printers, I wanted a replacement for these printers and I ended with these two P800 printers. Also I could use my spare waste ink cartridges and my resetter for it.

 

[pharmacist]

Also curious here! I think pharamacist also owned an Epson R3000. How does that one compare to the P800?

In sharpness and detalis in small area's: visibly better compared to the Epson R3000. Actually I had two R3000 printers but both suffered from the dreadful MB/PB valve leaking problem during switching between the two blacks. It is such a pity that this problem is so widespread. The Epson Pro 3880 I owned did not has this problem, even after almost 8 years of usage, but maybe I am lucky with this printer.

 

[palombian]

Just a practical one: one for my appartement and my second residence in the Ardennes. Because I sold my Epson Pro 3880 printers, I wanted a replacement for these printers and I ended with these two P800 printers. Also I could use my spare waste ink cartridges and my resetter for it.

Good reason.
My wife asked recently "why don't you leave a printer in the Ardennes" ? (in fact it's the Condroz).
Took one of the Maxify's - I could place it on the washing machine since it has wifi - but I won't cable the house with USB for the PRO-9500 .

 

[mikling]

this Feckin Densitometer can cause all sorts of colour changes if not used with OEM inks, so most of these new advantages could be cancelled out..
P.S. if you don’t wish to use 3rd party inks then it’s a real winner..

With my Pro-1000 and to others, with all my aftermarket inks, it passes the self calibration tests and as a result, the OEM profiles and other third party paper profiles can be used on the Pro-1000 with Precision Colors aftermarket inkset. It is within the tolerances of OEM inks and paper drift. Just be aware Hat. Color accuracy of certain aftermarket inks have changed and you gotta move with the times. So your statement that it will cause problems with aftermarket inks is no longer a universal truth that some just somehow might end up believing.

Is a densitometer necessary for the amateur? NO> but the replacement i.e Pro-300 is aimed at the ImagePrograf market. Here, one aspect is consistent and predictable print output by multiple offices and machines. Like I said before, the tools to do this had been provided by Canon with its Pro-10 but it was a manual process and the user needed to appreciate its value and KNOW it was there. Many did not understand its value, Some will find it of no value and some have. Remember seatbelts were optional at one point. Some people found them be of value and some actually uninstalled them.

For most people visiting this site, it will likely be of little value, but imagine an aftermarket inkset that you don't have to futz around color profiles, adjustments etc, Isn't that what real people want?

 

[Artur5]

Good reason.
My wife asked recently "why don't you leave a printer in the Ardennes" ? (in fact it's the Condroz).
Took one of the Maxify's - I ould place it on the washing machine since it has wifi - but I won't cable the house with USB for the PRO-9500 .

The first time I read your post in haste I understood "I could place it in the washing machine since it has wifi.. "
Anyway, that would be a good system to keep the nozzles clean.

 

[mikling]

In sharpness and detalis in small area's: visibly better compared to the Epson R3000. Actually I had two R3000 printers but both suffered from the dreadful MB/PB valve leaking problem during switching between the two blacks. It is such a pity that this problem is so widespread. The Epson Pro 3880 I owned did not has this problem, even after almost 8 years of usage, but maybe I am lucky with this printer.

I will attempt to explain why the P800 is visibly superior to the R3000 and to the trained eye, you will know where to look and find it. Prior to your pruchase I had told you that that was one area that the P800 in my tests were visibly superior to the 3880,. Here are my thoughts.
I will first explain a parallel analog form of our senses. Sound. One of the qualities one looks for in good sound reproduction is layering. What is layering? Two systems might have the same frequency response or be able to reproduce the same range of sound say 20Hz to 20,000 Hz. Now layering is a little different from Clarity. Clarity is the perceived sound with no distortion but layering is when different instruments are playing or different voices are singing but you can distinctly and easily hear the number of instruments or the different voices, where you can count them and discern the tone of each. If you've never heard systems of this caliber....yeah it's real. What makes these systems allow that to happen, nobody know 100% for sure how that is achieved but certain aspects of performance are critical and correlated to this. Absolute stability and noise prevention in the power supply and retention of the dynamic range during play amongst all sections in the amplification chain.
So in printers it goes like this. The P800 can "layer" better than the R3000 because it is better able to produce more distinct fine steps in color tone that allows our senses to better separate objects in difficult situations.