What is happening to Canon inkjet printers?

[Tin Ho]

I have not been to computer stores for a while. When I did go to Fry's Electronics a few days ago I was really shocked to see that there was such a weak market presence of Canon inkjet printers. Canon for some extremely stupid reasons has discontinued consistently their best printers shortly after they were introduced to the market and won big praises from users. Then suddenly they were discontinued for no explanations. They were replaced quickly by some wimpy ones that were nothing but disappointment.

There are no more ip4000, ip4200, ip4300, ip4500, ip6700D, ip8500, etc. All these best selling printers are gone. All I saw on the shelves ay Fry's were HP. Epson and Brother printers, a lot of them, over a total of 100 printers I believe. Canon has no more than 10 maybe 8 wimmpy printers shown there. With such a weak product lineup and weak market presence I can't believe Canon will sell any printers to any one in anyway.

My guess is that Canon is probably on the way out of inkjet printer business soon. If this is true I believe their digital camera business will soon follow. And the true cause would be poor marketing. When Canon was selling those ip4xxx printers I thought it was winning the market and soon they would really stand out and compete head to head with Epson. Now looks like it is competing head to toe with Epson. It's pretty much finished.
This forum has been dominated by Canon printer discussions. I am seeing a trend that it is drifting away. Oh well, the weather is changing for sure. My enthusiasm in Canon printers has lost some steam recently. I have no choice but seriously looking into HP printers when new printers are planned. Before that I will probably explore a little of Kodak's inkjet printers. ANyone knows anything about those new Kokad printers? Fry's has a few of them. Look very interesting to me.

 

[jackson]

If HP goes back to the quality of the Deskjet 900 series, then I'm on board.
I like the features of the CLI8 printers, but I think the quality is very poor - I have had an ip3000, ip5000 that failed prematurely and an ip6000 that's on its way out - none of these printers has been abused or worked hard.
In the same time, I have had the same ancient HP940c chugging away without any problems.
I do have four ip4500's (new in boxes) and expect to have to break one out soon.

 

[EdwardM]

I've noticed the same here in UK. Staples has no Canon printers at all. As for the new Kodak printers, there are a lot of very poor customer reviews & a lot of serious complaints (search the net). Seems they're very poor quality. I had a Kodak photo inkjet about 4 years ago (can't remember the model number). It was actually made by Lexmark & was very expensive & very flimsy. It also had a bad habit of running out of one colour of (ridiculously expensive) ink while still showing cartridges to be about 1/2 full. More than once I had to throw away a part finished print. Put me off Kodak (printers at least) for life.

 

[DomtheMon]

I disagree. The ip4600 is an able replacement for the ip4500 and handles the 160gsm matte card I use much more reliably than the ip4500 did. As always there is no chip re-setter yet but this was the case with the ip4500 when it came out. The downside is smaller cartridges which need refilling more often, but the paper handling makes up for this for me.

As far as I remember Staples in the UK haven't stocked Canon for quite some time anyway.

 

[Tin Ho]

From the specs of both ip4500 and ip4600 you will see that ip4600 is not a better printer. IP4600 has only a half of the nozzles of ip4500 for printing text. The nozzle numbers are the same for colors though. Then the smaller ink cartridges really make ip4600 less useful for higher volume printing.If you print text documents daily you will need to refill the PG-220 of IP4600 at least once a week.

I can agree that ip4600 is not that bad. But it is not a better replacement for ip4500. By discontinuing ip4500 and replacing it with ip4600 it shows how poor a marketing strategy Canon deployed. How in the world would customers willing to accept a newer printer that would cost more for ink supply yet it is a poorer printer? I would be more interested in getting a used ip4500 than a new ip4600.

By the way, when I was at Fry's I did not see an ip4600 even if I wanted one.

 

[Manuchau]

Not only that, but if you do some research, you will see that the ip4600 has a higher decibel level, making the printer more noisy, and weighs less that the ip4500.

These are not huge things, but it is yet another example of how Canon's quality standards are dropping.

Maybe it's me, but I can't really understand the corporate mentality. After years of growing their market share, Canon seems to be shooting itself in the foot by trying to screw the consumer. What they are doing now (making smaller carts and poorer quality printers) may increase corporate profits for now, but that will cause them problems down the road.

Am I crazy..is it me????

 

[pharmacist]

Tin Ho,

I agree completely concerning the latest Canon printers. Refillability is the most important reason whether or not to buy a printer. No all-in-one cartridges for me. Therefore I am very happy with the refillable cartridges I now have for my Epson Pro 3800. I paid only a little more than $200 for 9 refillable cartridges + resetter and this will keep me on printing with this marvellous printer for a long time after. New cartridges would cost me more than $650 here in Europe for a whole set. Precisioncolors.com delivers me 9x120 ml Image Specialists K3 pigment inkt to go into my cartridges for only $100. Savings are huge, without comprimising in quality.

 

[DomtheMon]

Well I am speaking as someone who actually owns an ip4600 and have owned an ip4500. It appears everyone else is talking purely statistics?

I have to confess my printing is mainly colour photos so it fits my requirements. Ink density and quality is exceptional on the printing that I do.

Also after 3-4 months of heavy use the ip4500 and its predecessors (I've had ip4200 and 5200 previously) have started being a pain in the butt, continually saying to load paper even though there was a supply (regardless of quantity) in the sheet feeder. The card then had to be jiggled about, sometimes several times, before it would pick it up and then would repeat at regular intervals. The ip4600 has done 4 months and hasn't missed a beat.

As far as the text goes, I find the quality perfectly acceptable.

Yes the cartridge size is smaller and I confess this is a bit irksome..... but it takes me literally 3-4 minutes to refill after each cycle (I have full syringes of each colour standing by) so I just refill more often. To me this is just an irritation.

The fact it is lighter hasn't made it a less functional printer for me either.

I agree the initial purchase cost was surprising as it was around 20% more expensive than the ip4500 was. This to me is the biggy when joe public is buying a new printer. But Joe Public on the whole doesn't refill cartridges, so they wouldn't be looking for this function. Most Joe Public look at purchase price alone and some for separate ink tanks.

The fact they are still clear and easily refillable is, to me, a major relief and a big plus for the Canon over many other makes but ultimately you pays your money and takes your choice. I personally wouldn't touch Epson with a bargepole but it would be very boring if we were all the same!

 

[Manuchau]

Dom, you do refilling, which is fine for you. The average person does not, however, and will be paying more for inkjet ownership than they previously did, so they will be making more trips to their local store to buy cartridges.

As a Canon printer seller who always looks at different wholesale prices, I can tell you that the wholesale price if the ip4600 has dropped in the last 3 weeks. Whether this is because customers are turning away from it, or a production glut, or the tough economy, I cannot say, but the cost of buying one should be coming down, so watch for specials. By the way, there still appears to be a LOT of MX850s on wholesalers shelves at bargain prices. You can pick one up for the same price (or less) than an ip4600. Now, That is a great deal!!

If there are any Canadian resellers here looking for an MX850, try Synnex in Toronto...they have over 300 in stock listed @ $121 ea. This is called the MX850 Apple. The MX850 reg. is $244.00 wholesale. They appear to be the same and are new, NOT refurbished.. Bargains, anyone??

 

[jackson]

Best Buy price $241 - 100% markup.