Canon i865

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The Canon i865 is a compact and sturdy sub-S$350 (US$204) printer that delivers your photos quickly and well. It also outputs text and graphics cleanly as well as offers a high-speed USB 2.0 direct-print port for direct printing with any brand of PictBridge-compatible camera. Bearing all that in mind, the i865's S$329 (US$192) price makes it hard to beat. With the inclusion of optional add-ons such as the duplex unit for S$109 (US$63.50) or the 250-sheet paper feed cassette at S$129 (US$75), the i865 quickly transforms itself into a capable office unit.

Sleek Is The Word
The i865 retains the same brushed aluminum and charcoal scheme as the older i850 and i950, opting to tweak the shape slightly. At 420 x 311 x 185mm the i865 is relatively compact, too. To achieve those dimensions, the curved paper trays tuck snugly into the body. Apart from the exposed USB port with the PictBridge logo on the front, the rest of the unit appears almost featureless: Two buttons for power and paper feed and a green power light at the corner. The USB, parallel port and power connector occupy the back panel.

A customized photo paper tray also ships with the i865, performing the same role as the one found on HP's Photosmart 7960. This separate tray allows users to keep 4R media loaded at all times even when you need A4 or letter-size outputs. The Japanese manufacturer has included a large knob--so that with a flick, the 4R media gets out of the way for normal media to be fed to the printer.

Other noticeable mentions include support for CD-R printing, making this only the second unit to arrive here after Epson's Stylus Photo 900. The i865 requires that the bundled CD-R feeder tray be fitted in the front of the printer before a CD-R can be printed on.

Installation And Software
As with other consumer-oriented devices, the i865 is easy to set up. There's the handy quickstart guide and installation CD which provide clear setup and usage instructions. This Canon supports Windows 95 and up, and Macintosh OS 8.6 or later. The CD also comes with a detailed HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) user guide, so you'll need a browser on your machine to read this. Canon has also included a USB cable so you will not have to interrupt your installation workflow.

The brushed aluminum cover opens like a music box giving you ample room for the replacement or installation of ink cartridges. Unlike previous Canon inkjets, the i865 makes use of five inks (pigment black, cyan, magenta, yellow and photo black) in individual cartridges, otherwise called Think Tanks.

Speedy Yet Quiet
The i865 excelled in just about everything in our lab tests. The only letdown was the mediocre quality of color graphics and color text in which there was visible dithering. In terms of speed, the unit finished our 10-page test in about 85 seconds or 7ppm. Although this was nowhere near its stated 23ppm, this did put the i865 at the forefront of speedy photo inkjets. With regard to photo printing, the i865 clocked in at 3.2 minutes and 78 seconds for A4 and 4R-sized prints, respectively.

In our testing, text output was good, staying very clean and legible even down to a 2.5-point font size. While the i865's color graphics showed visible dithering, the 2-picolitre ink droplet size--on Canon specialty paper--and 4,800 x 1,200dpi allowed photos to show crisp and vibrant colors.

That Thing About Think Tanks
As mentioned earlier, the i865 runs on a five-ink Think Tank system. The photo dye inks cost S$15.90 (US$9.20) each and have variable manufacturer-claimed yields from 360 pages for the yellow to 2,000 pages for the black (ISO/JIS-SCID N5 standard). This is a perfect example of how individual cartridges can save you more money. If you print standard photos, from the yields you can expect to change the yellow, magenta and cyan inks a couple of times before a photo black one empties. Therefore, without paper media thrown into the equation, we're looking at less than 4 cents a page (for 5 percent coverage).

The pigment-based black ink for text outputs costs S$17.90 (US$10.40), which the manufacturer claims is good for 330 pages (for 5 percent coverage). That also works out to an affordable 5 cents per page for monochrome outputs.

Verdict
The Canon i865 is one capable photo printer. Its good print quality and output speeds easily makes the machine one of the better photo inkjets currently out in the market. Add in the flexibility of fitting a duplex and 250-sheet paper feed and we're also looking at a versatile office machine. It's interesting to note that the Japanese manufacturer does not list the month duty cycles for its printers--laser, inkjets or dye-subs. Therefore, it appears we'll have to take the optional accessories as an endorsement that the i865 will be able to withstand the rigors of heavy usage.