Product ReviewsCanon I9900 Digital Photo Inkjet Printer

More pleased than expected

Thought it would need a new print head, and I have a new I used to try to fix my last printer. But a couple of ink cartridges to replace that were low, did a print head alignment and viola, pics print great on glossy photo paper. Very happy as these printers print good quality up 13 x 19. full bleed to 11 x 17. AND DON'T REQUIRE CHIPS IN THE REPLACEMENT CARTRIDGES. Next generation of printers were trending to cheaper quality. I've seen these printers altered to convert to 1 Liter jugs of ink with flexible hollow tubing and run them in small print shops for 8 - 16 hrs a day. One of my favorite e-bay purchases period...Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: janeksokol

Defective Printer

The unit was defective and never functioned correctly. A waste of money. My previous one was a great unit, but the logic board was damaged by a new defective Canon (not a 3rd. party) print head. Canon should design these printers to be more forgiving.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: ranitaviajera

Note from an Amateur: An older HP vs the Canon i9900

For about 6 years before trying the Canon i9900, I had a HP DesignJet 10PS. That printer had a reputation based on its incomplete and poorly designed RIP software. With concentrated effort, I was able to get that printer going and produced some very decent prints. I liked the fact that I was able to go for over 2 years with the enormous HP ink cartridges, without having to replace them. At that time, I had been looking at resolution of media versus lens resolution. I felt that my DesignJet probably exceeded the resolving power of any of my scanning or digital camera output.

Finally one day, the power supply on my DesignJet fizzed out.I went online looking for a replacement printer or even an upgrade. I found a used i9900 on eBay. I had to buy a new print head, but was happy because I came out of the deal with a perfectly usable i9900 for less than $200.I was a bit skeptical that the i9900 would produce a resolution comparable to the DesignJet.however, I was pleasantly surprised to see that not only did the i9900 produce an equivalent resolution, but also that the color rendering was more vivid, more pleasing to the eye, and more accurate than the exact same photos produced on the DesignJet.

One difference that represents a possible drawback for the Canon i9900 is the fact that the cartridges are much smaller than the DesignJet's. this translates to more frequent replacement, more cost per print, and more possibilities of making a real mess, as some of the third-party replacement cartridges for the Canon can leak and drain.as an amateur with limited resources to pour into my art, the expense of the OEM Canon cartridges exceed that which is reasonable. On the other hand, despite occasional leaky messes, the color output and gamut of the third party ink supplies are more than adequate for my purposes.

I would advise being extremely cautious about attempting to install the third-party continuous ink supply systems (CISS), unless you know in advance that the supplier had actually tried their system on a real i9900. The first attempt I made on that score turned out to be a complete disaster. I am convinced that whoever had sold me that had never really tried installing one on an actual printer. I will perhaps write a new review on one of those CISS's if or when I ever get one to actually work on the Canon i9900.Read full review...

i9900 is good and works on a wireless print server

I bought a Canon i9900 for home use because I was looking for a great photo printer to compliment a new 10.2 megapixel Nikon camera. I found a new i9900 on sale and it does a fine job. Borderless prints look great but that only works automatically on specific sizes. Sometimes cropping, stretching or squeezing images is necessary. The canon pro photo paper works very well. The paper has to be loaded on the right side of the movable guide otherwise you get paper jams. Large format paper is expensive but the results are great. I don't have enough wall space for all the great prints I have made in just a couple of days playing with this printer.

There are 8 ink cartidges (about CAN$18 each in Toronto). This mitigates runnig low on one color in a multi-color cartdidge but I found it is not easy to buy all of the ink colors, at least not all from the same place. I have a color ink replacement kit but it does not have 4 of the special color inks used by this printer. Unlike some other inkjet printers, this printer has a (replaceable) print head. The color cartrides do not have print heads. That saves on the price of ink cartidges. I am not sure if that will cause operating life concerns.

I have a wireless network at home and wanted to make this a wireless network printer. I managed to do that using a Linksys 802.11g print server (which cost about CAN$130 extra). Now any of my 2 Windows XP PCs or my Win2000 laptop can print great color images wirelessly. The printer supports USB 2.0 under Windows or Firewire under MAC OS. The Linksys print server only works one way so while you can print, you cannot tell the printer status. I believe D-Link offers a bi-directional print server capability but it is only documented to works on certain HP printers.

The only visual feedback on the printer for diagnostics is a single light that flashes green or yellow (maybe red too??) and you need to read the manual to figure out the flashing codes. I only needed this when trying to get everything working in the beginning. The factory sealed printer comes with a quick start guide. The full manual is on disk, with the Win/Mac drivers.

The printer seems very fast. The resolution is high in both the horizontal and vertical axis. It has a neat automatic power shut down and remote start up function which should be a great power saver.

This printer does not print on CDs or DVDs, nor does it read memory cards of any kind but it is supposed to be Pictbridge(tm) compatible for direct connection to certain cameras. However, I cannot think of any reason to print directly from a digital camera to this high quality printer. Anyone serious enough to buy this printer will probably want to first post-process their images in Photoshop(tm), or whatever image manipulation software, before making hard copies. Printing blind from the camera could make costly mistakes.

There may be better photo printers out there but this is a good one for reasons discussed above. If you can get it for a decent price I would recommend it.

Sincerely,
pmanuel_caRead full review...

Canon i9900 InkJet Printer

Excellent printer, I have used the 6 color Canons for years and liked them. The 8 color Canon i9900 is nothing short of fantastic. I decided on the i9900 because it uses ink tanks that are not "chipped" so can be refilled if one wanted.

My previous Canon S900 & S9000 six color printers were not capable of printing full bleed edge to edge prints. I was expecting borderless printing on 13"X19" Photo Paper to be stunning. I was unprepaired for the difference the vivid eight color printing, and the borderless 13"X19" printing would make. These large photograpic images are nothing less than fantastic.

I bought two i9900 printers using eBay. One was brand new in an unopened box and is really fantastic in print quality. I intend to use this printer only with genuine Canon ink in order to insure maxiumum print life for those photographic images I really care about displaying.

The other was apparently well used and needed some adjustment as the print head was dragging on the paper mostly from center to end of travel, making odd noises as it traveled across the paper and leaving marks in the surface of photo paper. After height adjustments were made to the guide bar, that printer also prints acceptably and is fine for proofing and general use. The color quality on this printer is fine however the print quality is simply not the same as the new printer. The prints sometimes are not as clean on this printer with little ink marks in places. I intend to use after-market ink in this second printer. I may also refill ink tanks myself or I will install a continuous ink system so that I can use the printer for color posters etc.

I highly recommend the Canon i9900 8 color printer. The color is stunning and the use of ink tanks that can be refilled is a plus over the current model being sold at this time (current model has "ink-out" chips on ink tanks).Read full review...

Very good results

This unit uses paper sizes from smaller than 4x6 all the way 13x19. It's the only photo printer I've owned. Guests in my home have many times complimented me on my gorgeous artwork, all of which was printed with the Canon i9900.

The print head failed during the warranty period, so Canon sent me a replacement and an email explaining how to switch it out. The results are mind-boggling, eye-popping, astounding for any photo printer of any kind.

My personal opinion is it uses a lot of ink, because it evaporates when the unit is not in use. I have never used OEM ink, and the results are still flawless. Compatible ink works perfectly, even if you mix brands.

I've had my unit for six years, and it's still going strong; flawless! I rarely need to use the "Clean Printhead" function. In fact, I haven't manually (using software) cleaned the print head for at least two years.

I use Ilford "Classic Pearl" paper, because it is designed for use specifically with "dye based" ink only. By producing a paper stock specifically designed to take dye, Ilford paper is able to encapsulate the ink inside a special top layer that the ink temporarily emulsifies.

Ilford offers a 110 year guarantee against wash out. The Canon 4x6 paper I purchased for smaller prints, but it fades rather badly within six months, even if the print is not exposed to light. The Ilford Classic has not faded at all, ever!

The Windows compatible software package for production is mostly useless because it doesn't have many settings, but gives identical functions different names on different tabs in the UI.

The printer is capable of much more than the Canon supplied software and driver package exploits. I use TurboPrint, which is third party, but it does fully exploit the capabilities of the printer, and TurboPrint has a Linux version.

I've used the unit under both Windows XP, and Fedora and Debian Linux, and it works much better with the "Common Unix Printing System" (CUPS) combined with the TurboPrint package.

I had many problems under Windows with this printer. I finally gave up and plugged it into a Linux box. That was roughly five years ago.

Each time the unit is powered up, it primes the print head, using a little bit of ink. On the right side of the ink carriage there is a sponge to absorb ink used in the priming and cleaning processes.

After some use, the sponge fills with dried ink, and the printer refuses to operate. Canon's tech support does not inform users of this, but rather simply says the printer is no longer under warranty, and nothing can be done to clear the error. The printer is dead.

However, you can open the cover, let the ink carriage move to the center, pull out the sponge at the far right, thoroughly rinse it in warm water and apply a LOT of squeezing until virtually no dye is left in the sponge, set it aside for a few days to dry, put it back in the printer, disconnect all connections from the printer, make sure it has at least some of every color ink (no empty ink cartridges), let it sit for 30 seconds or more, connect it to the PC USB port, and THEN connect the power.

Power up the printer with a few sheets of 8 1/2 x 11 plain paper in the rear tray. If you get an error, hold down the big upper button for ten seconds, and the printer should feed a blank sheet through the paper path. Then it will workRead full review...

One of the Greatest

I bought this printer because I already have one and wanted a spare because this model is no longer made. Print quality is top notch. The best thing about Canon printers is that they rarely ever clog and they have separate transparent ink tanks (in this case eight of them) which makes it easy to check ink levels and replace cartridges. Canon printers also have easily replacable printheads. This is the last of the large format printers that uses cartridges that have no stupid chip on them so refilling is a snap. Since I regularly print 13 by 19 inch prints, I use a lot of ink and have been refilling cartridges for two years now and have never even had to run a cleaning cycle. I get my ink from cfriends.com.Read full review...

Canon i9900 - Fine Printer

Have used Canon i860 and i950 printers for several years; both are limited to 8.5x11 inch sheets. Refilling individual ink cartidges is a breeze as well as beng economical.

When reviews of the i9900 appeared (touting 13x19 inch prints0, my lust for a new printer was aroused, but the price was a stopper. Gospeltech offered a used i9900 at a price I could stomach. He (or she) was honest enough to declare the printhead somewhat clogged. Printer was delivered promptly; in fact, before I had purchased inks. While waiting for inks to arrive, I soaked the printhead in Windex. Upon installing the inks and executing a nozzle check there was no apparent clogging.
Cartridge refilling is easy and quick. (Perhaps this will be the last Canon top-of-line printer without the annoying electronic chips such as those complicating Epson printer cartridges. I have an Epson Photo 2200, for B/W exclusively, and have felt the pain.)

Have since printed many beautiful photographs. Wife comments that several seem three-dimensional. Eight inks are a distinct improvement over the six used in the i950. The i9900, for me, has lived up to the claims for outstanding performance. And, the eBay price was right.Read full review...

Agree with every positive response, I read here!

There is really nothing to dislike and every positive reaction is well justified. I happened to buy it because I always buy top of the line and don't pay attention to the price , perhaps because may be I am blessed and can afford it. From the first print that came out of this printer it was a marvelous incentive to take up cruising and taking pictures that I had never done before and as you might imagine I have a huge collection of especially outdoors in the Bahamas, caribbean, Mexico, etc. etc.
After a while decided to expand my horizon by buying larger printers such as Epson 4800 which is considered professional and costing $2500.00 at the time. I say this because after spending that kind of money the only advantage for me was that I could print larger pictures but not as much resolution that I was getting from Canon i9900.
Canon is now making another printer very close to i9900 for nearly half the price but I have not tried it but if it is anything like i9900 if you are in the market for that sizr printer and willing tp pay over $400.00, go for it or buy a good used i9900 for a fraction of the cost of the new one. I'm not sure if i9900 new is still out there for sale.

Ali from NPR,FlRead full review...

Expensive for an older model bu well worth it.

I bought this quite a few years after it was first introduced. It wasn't much cheaper than the new ones but it had everything I needed to produce professional quality prints in a large format. And it does. The interface to win7 64 bit is seemless with the add on program Canon has on their site. The printer is fast too. The ink is kind of expensive from Canon but I found I could use the ink from Sophia and as long as all the ink was from them the printer performed as good as if it had the much more expensive canon ink in it. No cloggs and the colors match so well it was difficult to tell them apart even before using the color match part of the driver.Read full review...

Canon i9900 is an Excellent wide format inkjet printer!

I'm in the printing business and in my quest of finding a perfect inkjet printer, I found this Canon i9900. I bought this printer for our business 4 years ago at a full price. I was so impressed then and even more at present. I'm so amazed at the quality of the photographic color prints as well as the high density black it produces on a clear film for silkscreen printing. Even with the third party inks, the color is excellent. You cannot tell the difference. The maintenance is not time consuming compared to other name brand printers I've tried before. With the removable printhead, you don't have to replace the whole printer when it goes bad. We already have 4 in our workplace, but I am still buying more of this printer here on Ebay at a lot lower price, to replace all other ones we have left. We rely on the consistency and high quality prints that this printer produces to keep us in business. This is the best printer so far, that I have ever tried.

I cannot think of anything I don't like about this printer, except for one thing . . . it's now a discontinued model, which I could never understand. Why discontinue such a reliable and excellent product?Read full review...