Canon i9900 InkJet Photo Printer

I shoot for Federal Law Enforcement and the Air National Guard; I have managed a large format service bureau in my civilian job. I have printed on many, many different output devices to include Durst Lambda, Encad IJ, Roland HiFi Jet, Laser printers, Fuji Pictrography, Dye-sublimation devices, plus many more. I say all of this to validate my comments that follow...

The bottom line is the i9900 blows all of them away! This includes an Epson 9600, 7600 and 4000 all of which I use for the Feds and military. The only downfall is the lack of "Archival" inks. I lamented between the Epson 2200, and the i9900. I DO NOT regret one minute the i9900 decision! It is absolutely gorgeous! I shoot a Canon 20D for my personal work, that coupled with the i9900 makes unreal images/prints, these prints blow the minds of all of my peers! They cannot believe the quality. It works with Epson, Konica/Minolta, and Red River papers perfectly. The Canon i9900 on Red River Paper is a perfect match, with no "bronzing", like the Epson pigmented inks.

As far as the noise aspect I cannot tell that the printer is actually working until I see the paper moving, it is that quiet!

Downfalls would be the paper path not being a straight feed path, and the inks not being archival. The paper path has not presented a problem as of yet, I have put very heavy card stock & art paper through it with ZERO hang-ups!

Although with the archival aspect I think that in 8-10 years when these prints are expected to fade, I will have been through several printers and the technology will be untouchable and I will just reprint them as needed. As far as selling the prints, well it will give me an opportunity to resell prints in the future...maybe. I will see down the road if they actually fade.

I hope that this has helped you make the right decision...the i9900!

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.

I bought this printer because many have recommended it. I am a dentist and many of the dentists that I follow and communicate with use this printer. Photography is becoming a big thing in dental offices and this helps us to communicate to our patients some of the possibilities. The portraits that I have printed have been more than I expected in color and clarity on 13x19 size paper. AND what I am finding surprising is; most of the images I am using were shot using a 3 megapixel image; somewhat small by todays standards.

My computer guy has it tied into my network so that anybody can print to it. It does NOT have a card reader port so that you can insert the card directly into the printer and review your images like the HP photosmart printers have but this hasn't been an issue.

Great printer!

Kurt J. Laemmer Jr. DMD.

This printer is an absolute gem; easy, user friendly tools, quiet, rapid printing and seems to get excellent ink mileage. I decided to buy it after actually wearing out its predecessor, a Canon i9100.

The Canon i9900 is one of the best photo inkjet printers available. The 13 X19 prints are large enough for wall or mantel piece display. It's consistency enables the user to establish printer profiles with programs such as Photoshop, Illustrator, or Canvas. As with all inkjets the life of the print can be greatly extended by laminating the print or using UV glass in the frame. The i9900 is a consistly accurate tool for amateur and professional alike.
*tuck*

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.

I bought this printer for large format photo printing and am very impressed with the speed and colors. I do dance photography as a hobby and wanted to print poster-sized photos of my work for display. I have two other Canon printers and the larger the photo I print, the more impressive the image looks. If there is only one downside, it would be the ink consumption for this printer, but that may be the case for all large format photo printers. I just make sure I have a supply of Canon ink at hand. I highly recommend this 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).

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_ca

PAID FOR ITEM.DID NOT RECEIVE IT.IN DISPUTE WITH PATPAL RIGHT NOW.ANY HELP FROM E-BAY WOULD BE APPRECIATED. JIM

The canon i9900 is the best printer to work with the program that I print with. I own a printing company and it bests suits my needs.

This is a fantastic printer and one of the few on the market that will do borderless printing up to 13x19 in pre cut sheets. It also has great color and is high speed for an ink jet printer. One of the best on the market.

Fantastic large format prints, and it is fast and pretty quiet! My HP printers are junk in comparison. The ink consumption is high if it is used infrequently, as the startup clean cycle uses a lot of ink. I'm going to try to refill cartridges. I bought a second i9900 on ebay cheaper than a new print head and now have two great printers. (I learned that clogged print heads can be fixed by a soak in Windex plus distilled water, google "i9900 clogged print head" for advice.)

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,Fl

Very good printer, vivid colors, great 13x19 prints on glossy paper.I believe this to be one of canons better printers and I like the fact that it uses the bci-6 inks with no chip in it.

This is my third Canon wide format (s9000, i9100, now i9900). Each is better than the last, and they are nearly indestructable. The ink cartridges are easily refillable, and the aftermarket inks are very good-- cartridges can be refilled at least half a dozen times before they fail to release ink. The print head doesn't clog up easily, and can usually be cleaned with solvent or compressed air. When the print head finally dies, as it will, replacements are easily available and fairly inexpensive.

Colors are good, paper handling is excellent. Fast and quiet for an ink jet -- what more could anyone want except maybe a real press!

Wide variety of cartridges from fairly inexpensive to the more expensive OEM. Printer prints great pictures and fine text. It holds up well and is economical to use.

I bought this Printer and thought I was happy. After recieving it, the seller did not dust it off. The description said it needed two ink cartridges and the other were low. Well I had to replace all and noticed they were aftermarket ink cartridges. i hope I do not end up replacing the printer head (Knock-on-wood)

Deceived...Every thing listed in the printer auction was true and recieved. The seller appeared to be most gracious and thankfull. But the purchase was for a high grade printer which proved to be deficient. It would print in all capacities but when printing a high res portrait/picture there were untrue colors and bridging lines. It required a new print head to correct. The auction closed over $200 dollars for this used printer. Then print head proved to be quite expensive and the only one thing I can think to say is ..
BUYER BE WARE
Disappointed

This is a good printer. We print about 400 letter-sized photos a week and this is the fifth one we've acquired, the quality of the photos remains the same through the years.

This printer prints beautiful photographs in sizes from 4 x 6 (the smallest I've printed) to 11 x 17. It's fast, easy to use, and uses ink tanks (8)instead of cartridges. It's 23" wide and 12" deep. The out put tray folds up and extends when down incrementally to hold any size photo you print. The paper support tray in the back folds down. The only aspect of this printer I wasn't prepared for is that when it's done printing, it ejects the print, which is startling the first time you use it. Big Deal! I love this printer and couldn't be happier with my purchase

Great printer for at-home photos for display and framing. Excellent quality. We bought this printer to showcase select photographs from our photography. We will print out examples of our work in order to gain business from customers who seek a photographer for weddings, babies, family portraits, senior portraits, etc. We are pleased with the quality of this printer and would recommend it to others.

Fast shipping BUT... I don't necessarily fault this vendor, but the excess ink in the waste tray of this used printer spilled all over the printer and the box, and then all over me and the carpet in my new home. It was a horrible mess. Luckily it didn't get into the interior of the printer. So word to the wise... ask that they empty the waste tank before they ship it, or don't buy it! I think in my case the printer was used a lot so the waste tanks must have been pretty full. You might have this problem with someone that says the printer wasn't used a lot.