Canon Pixma iP4600

Single-function, basic inkjet printers suitable for the home or home office haven't quite gone the way of the dinosaur, or even the not-quite-extinct dot matrix printer, but they're growing rare. More and more, standard inkjet printers are being replaced with all-in-ones (AIOs) on the one hand and heavily photocentric printers on the other. The canon ip4600 ($99.99 direct) is one of the few inexpensive inkjets that still qualify for the standard inkjet category, although even it includes a few photocentric touches, most notably a PictBridge connector.

As the number of single-function inkjet printers has dwindled, the printers have devolved enough so that there isn't a current Editors' Choice in this category. The last printer to earn that designation was the Canon Pixma iP4300, a direct ancestor of the iP4600.

When Canon replaced the iP4300 with the nearly identical but more expensive Pixma iP4500 (there was no iP4400), that unit's higher price was enough to keep it from earning an Editors' Choice. The iP4600 drops the price back to where it was for the iP4300, but it also loses print speed, which has long been one of the great strengths of Canon's Pixma printers. The step down in speed is enough to keep the iP4600 out of contention for Editors' Choice, leaving the category still without a current winner.

Like earlier models, the iP4600 offers excellent paper handling. Two paper trays give you the choice of loading 150 sheets of plain paper in each or loading plain paper into one and photo paper into the other. The first choice lets you have a more-than-ample 300 sheets loaded at a time. The second lets you switch between printing standard documents and photos without having to swap paper in the tray, and it still gives you more input capacity than you'll get from many printers aimed at the home and home office. Even better, the printer also includes an automatic duplexer to let you print on both sides of a page.

Setup is standard for a Canon printer. Set the 6-by-11.7-by-17-inch (HWD) iP4600 in place, remove the packing materials, then plug in the power cord, snap in the printhead and five ink cartridges, and load paper. Next, run the automated setup program from the disc, then plug in the USB cable when the program tells you to. The five ink cartridges, one for each color, are for cyan, yellow, magenta, and two versions of black--a pigment-based black for text and a dye-based black for photos.

As I've already mentioned, the iP4600 is slower than the model it replaces. Ratings for inkjets aren't particularly meaningful because the printers never ...