Though Pixma E600 doesn’t have fast printing
speed, its black-white and color outputs are all better than those of inkjet rivals.
Canon
Pixma E600
E600 is an upgrade of E500 plus new
features and considerably bulkier case. Besides functions of printing, scanning
and copying like E500, the new model can perform faxing, which is suitable for small
and medium businesses who want a multi-function device. Besides, the printer
can serve home entertainment by printing Full HD capture with interesting
effects.
RRP is $1,750.
Like its predecessor, Canon Pixma E600 uses
2 ink cartridges, including one for black-white for normal photocopies and
documents and another dedicated to color printing (PG-88 and CL-98). Maximum
resolution is 4,800 x 1,200 dpi, scan resolution is 1,200 x 2,400 dpi. The
device can also scan colored images.
Overview
Good
Good-quality printouts
Multi-function with printing, scanning,
copying and faxing
User-friendly
Bad
Bulky and heavy
Big noise created during process of
scanning and copying
Design and features
E600
has a quite big design.
Pixma E600 has considerably larger and
chubbier case compared to E500. The printer seizes 458 x 385 x 200 mm and
weighs 8.5 kg. It is heavier than E500 model by 3.2 kg. Because the machine is
big for a desk, users have to consider a particular space for it so that they
won’t feel cramped.
User-friendly
control panel
In the top is paper tray and open-air
control panel. There’s still glossy plastic finish which easily gets scratches
and fingerprints, like on other E-series models.
Control monitor is quite simple with screen
displaying the number of pages copied or printed. Next to it are number keys,
options for black-white/color printing while function keys, such as fax, copy
and scan, are visually illustrated in left buttons.
Connectors
in the back
E600 has its connectors lay in the back,
including power jack and port for connecting to PC via USB line and fax signal.
The printer also has front paper tray the upper tray is able to load paper
automatically, which comes handy.
Features
Canon Pixma E600’s printing support maximum
resolution of 4,800 x 1,200 dpi with only two official ink cartridges, PG-88
and CL-98, for black-white and color printing. This absolutely saves user when
other printers use from 4 to 5 cartridges with lower quality.
Auto-load
tray in the top
E600 has single-page printing speed of 5ppm
for color A4 and 8.9ppm for black-white A4. The device also support various
paper sizes like A4, A5, B5, LTR, LGL and 4x6. With scanning feature, E600 uses
optical resolution of 1,200 x 2,400 dpi and scanning speed of 15 seconds per
page for color documents. Meanwhile, photocopying feature gives an operating
speed of 23 seconds per page.
Replace
ink cartridges
E600 places its ink cartridges in the same
position of E500. User is recommended to open the front cap then open a small
cover and switch the bolt to replace the ink cartridges. Sharing few ink
cartridges saves more money but required more regular replacement when compared
with using many ink cartridges.
Performance and printout’s quality
Pixma E600 comes with 3 printing modes:
high-quality, standard and fast. In our test, printing a black-white page containing
texts and images (from a website) in A4 size took 6 seconds per copy. Meanwhile,
using the same source but with color printing allotted for 11 second for a copy
in a similar size.
Printing
speed is not improved but the quality is quite good.
In another test, we noticed that printing
consecutive 10 pages shared a familiar amount of time with printing 10 pages
separately. Additionally, for an image on 20x30cm glossy paper, the system used
up 1 minutes and 16 seconds. This process was slowed down in condition of image
overflowing the frame (A4).
Image quality of black-white texts was very
good and no less than that of laser printer despite inkjet method. With small texts
(under 10points), strokes were not stuck together but legible. With color images,
output colors were quite nice and there’s no colors overlapping in tiny details
and complex areas.
Trying photocopying with Standard and Fast
mode (plus lower quality), processing speeds are 15 seconds and 21 seconds
respectively. There wasn’t much difference in the speed. Thus if users print
separately and leisurely work, they are recommended to use Standard mode because
Fast one would produce images having lower quality which is clearly visible.
Top
tray’s mechanism of loading paper
In test of scanning a color A4, the printer
supported 600dpi resolution and took 1 minute and 15 seconds. When we lowered
the resolution, allotted time reduced to 30 seconds. During scanning process,
this printer caused a lot of noise due to inkjet method.
Moreover, with faxing feature, E600 is
compatible with common A4 paper. This saves a great amount of time as well as
cost.
