Canon Pixma iP1900 is as simple printer as it gets. This is no surprise given this printer’s low price. The PictBridge, a memory card slot and an LCD are all missing from this printer. The lack of a output tray is probably not so predictable though, so you’d better be sure there’s a lot of space before the printer to stop finished pages from falling to the floor.

Inkjet technology hasn’t advanced much in the past 12 months. This is a plus for the Canon Pixma iP1900 as it means there’s no problem with it keeping up with the specifications of other printers.

The 4800 x 1200 dpi resolution is more than you’d ever really need, and the 2-picolitre ink droplet matches that of more expensive competitors of Canon Pixma iP1900.

Thanks to the use of Canon’s ChromaLife100 system, photo prints are guaranteed to last a good century if stored in an album. The software assortment is not so rich, but Canon’s Easy-PhotoPrint EX suite is enough for most printing situations.

As for the quality, don’t expect high-end text printing from the Canon Pixma iP1900. Even in the finest mode (at about 1.9 pages per minute), text is rather fuzzy and poorly defined. However, the results are legible, and the middle mode (with a ppm of 6.3) produces readable results at a reasonable rate.

Color graphics are never fast though. On paper the printer is stated to produce 17 color pages per minute, but the reality is not so bright — the speed is about 10 times slower even in the fastest mode. The Canon Pixma iP1900’s gamut is a touch light, and certain colors are reproduced inaccurately. The results are OK, but brooding intensity certainly isn’t a virtue of the Canon Pixma iP1900’s output.