High Technology Product Reviews | Trends and News

Manufacturers tend to label low-end home inkjet printers such as Canon Pixma iP2702 Photo Printer ($49.99 direct) as photo printers, and these tend to print decent to very good photos (by consumer standards, at least), often to the neglect of text quality. In our testing, the iP2702 stood that model on its head. Its photos were rather disappointing, and it did surprisingly well in printing text. A bit different with my last reviews about Canon Pixma . The iP2702 is a handsome yet Spartan device. Matte-black with rounded corners, it is compact: 5.2 by 17.6 by 9.8 inches (HWD), weighing 12.1 pounds. Its interface is minimalist: just two buttons—one the on-off switch, the other labeled with a sheet of paper plus a puzzling icon; the on-screen user manual reveals it to be a resume/cancel button. There's no LCD or viewscreen of any sort. The exposed, top-feeding paper tray can fit up to 100 sheets. It lacks an auto-duplexer or any optional paper-handling features. Specifications Pr...

The Canon Pixma iX7000 Inkjet Business Printer is the third inkjet printer I've seen in the past several months that can print on tabloid (11- by 17-inch) or larger-size paper and is aimed tightly at small offices—particularly micro and home offices. Together with the Epson Work, it represents a newfound interest on the part of these three manufacturers in offering budget tabloid printers suitable for a small office on a tight budget. The Canon printer is the most expensive of the three, but also the one with the fewest compromises. It's second to the HP printer for speed, and second to the Epson printer for output quality, but not by much in either case. On the plus side, it offers an Ethernet connector, which the Epson printer lacks, and it outshines both the HP and Epson printers when it comes to paper handling. Specifications Printer Category Ink Jet Type Printer Only Color or Monochrome 1-pass color Ink Jet Type Standard All-Purpose Connection Type USB, Ether...