Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Fair disclosure: I've had this printer up and running for less than 48 hours. But the early results have been so incredibly good, I felt a review was in order. If you, like me, have been on an endless search for an AIO that actually worked as advertised and could hold its own with minimal compromise vs. more task specific printers, then I believe your search has ended with the 990.
Setup: A+. I have two Macs, one a PowerMac G5 running 10.5, the other a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard, both on my Airport Extreme (simultaneous dual band) network, and setup was about as close to plug and play as you could get. Just BE SURE that if you're running 10.6, you download all the latest drivers from Canon's website. The software CD packed with the printer is not updated for Snow Leopard.
Wireless Performance: As noted above, connecting to my home network was a snap. I've had no dropped connections over two days. Now, I've never had a problem printing wirelessly in the past, but scanning wirelessly and reliably? Forget it. At least, until the 990, which worked flawlessly on both machines from the first scan. You'd swear that Apple, and not Canon, had designed this hardware/software solution. Pop in a document, click scan, choose which computer you want to send it to and you're done.
Printing Quality: A. Superb quality on both black text and color graphics, and all reasonably quick.
Photo Quality: Haven't gotten into this yet, but professional reviews posted thus far indicate that the photo printing performance is excellent.
Scanning/Copying Quality: A. Scans and copies are incredibly good. Haven't tried negs or slides as yet.
Ease of Use: A. If Apple designed its own printer, this is how it would work. An amazingly intuitive interface.
I'll post an update after I've put it through its paces a while longer, but it's a definite 5 stars out of the box. Thanks for taking the time to read this review--I hope you found the info useful in helping you make a buying decision!
Update as of 10/16/09:
The Bad News: Within 2 weeks of posting my review, this printer has dropped in price by $100! Oh well... that'll teach me to be first in line to buy a new model! :-)
The Good News: I rated it 5 stars at $299 and I still think it's every bit as good as noted in my review. At $199, it's now a steal of a deal as well.
UPDATE AS OF 12/7/09
The professional reviews are now coming in for the MP990, and they're raving: Computer Shopper gave it a 9 out of 10, and [...] gave it Editor's Choice, stating that they had a hard time coming up with any "cons" for their conclusion. I remain totally satisfied after two months of use.
UPDATE AS OF 4/3/10
So, 6 months after purchase, do I still think this is a 5 star printer? Well, yes and no. The printer performance remains every bit as good as previously described. But the ink usage has been another matter. While I've owned a variety of other inkjets, this is my first Canon, and I feel it penalizes you more than other brands for light usage. After printing perhaps 2-3 dozen pages with color on them--and I'm talking very moderate amounts of color and no printing of photos--I've just had to replace all five color cartridges at a cost of $50 at Amazon discount prices. Do the math and you realize that this is a huge cost-per-page, driven by this printer's all-too-frequent automatic cleaning cycles of the print cartridges, which use up large amounts of ink whether you're actually priniting or not. Of course, all inkjets do this, but I feel this Canon takes it to a whole other level that just seems like a blatant cleaning of your wallet. That said, if you print color regularly, the ink usage may well be on par with the norm.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Canon PIXMA MP990 Wireless Inkjet Photo All-In-One Printer (3749B002)
Ultimate Wireless Photo All-In-One with 3.8-Inch LCD and Built-In Auto Duplex Printing.
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