Canon CP-300 Photo Printer

I've gone through a number of HP inkjet photo printers. Printing my own photos was somewhat of a novelty, but I had to concede that none rivaled prints done at a photo lab. Finally after struggling with ink costs, paper costs, and less than impressive print quality, I started to use ofoto.com. Recently, I got the bug again and invested in the CP-220. This little unit puts all of the other ones that I've owned (three HP printers) to shame. Durable prints, great color, compact design, PictBridge, etc. make this printer a hands down winner!

To those of you that travel and would like to bring your printer with you, consider the CP-300... same printer, but comes with a Li-Ion battery pack so you don't need AC power.

I ran into a problem where the paper type selection was unavailble. Canon technical support was less than helpful. I figured out that the HP Photosmart software that's installed for my HP P1000 printer was causing the problem. After I exited the HP software in the system tray, the Canon printer began working fine. Canon's response was sometimes software is incompatible. I've found several reports on the web with people having the same problem, so Canon should know about it. The only reason I'm rating it as a 3 is because the picture quality when it actually prints from the PC is excellent. The results weren't quite as good printing directly from a Canon S200 camera; the picture wasn't as sharp.

These Canon card printers do a fine job if you are printing directly from the camera -- or it is the only printer you own if trying to print from your computer. I bought the printer to do snapshots, while I own several other printers for documents and larger photographs. Even if you only have Adobe Acrobat on your system, the printer will not work. It is useless to me.

I have had this portable printer only a few days, and have only printed 18 prints on it so far, all on the Card Size photo paper. These little pictures are really neat, and will be a conversation item at family gatherings, I'm sure. The color you get is phenomenal, as true as any photo coloring I have ever seen, even on commercially developed film. My only complaint with it is that is is not easy for me to use. Evidently others have not had this problem, if what I have read in the other "Customer Reviews" is correct. Perhaps that is because all the others appear to be men who have written the reports and I am a female and perhaps not as "technical savvy" as the guys, as well as being older than most, if not all, of them, since I am a great grandmother, and my generation wasn't exposed to electronic technology at an early age and we did not grow up with a lot of electronic gadgets, but I love them, all the same!
I hooked my Canon G5 camera to the printer, as per instructions, and had no problems there, (I had my dear husband's assistance with all the cables) and got the ink cartridge and paper tray loaded into the printer with no trouble, but my problem started when I got to the point of sending instructions from the camera to the printer. I did get it done, obviously, since I printed 18 pictures, but sending the correct message to the printer didn't always work correctly! I got nine prints of a photo that I didn't even know that I had asked for! I had not chosen that particular image to print, yet it kept pumping them out! By fiddling with the controls on the camera I was able to print a few photos that I did choose, but the Menu on my Canon G5 does not make it simple. You don't choose any of it on the actual printer, other than what size photos you want and that is determined by the size photo paper that you load into it, everything else is done with the Menu screen on your camera. I have three other digital cameras, but only one of a Canon Digital Camera. I am not sure if I am going to be able to use the other cameras, an Olympus Stylus 300, the Minolta Dimage 7i or the Gateway T50 with this printer or not. I hope that I will be able to, but I don't think they have the "PictBridge" feature that newer digital cameras are equipped with now, though none of my other digital cameras are very old, it is just that this "PictBridge" feature that enables the cameras to work with all printing mediums is very recent. I do like this little printer and will keep it, it wil be great when we go on vacation and it will definitely accompany us, but I wish it were easier to use. If any of you reading this has any tips that might help me, e-mail me with the info most definitely! Also any information on whether or not the printer works with other than Canon cameras or cameras without the "Pict-Bridge" feature. Thanx for any incoming corespondence and helpful information. Sincerely......Alphia D. Larkins aka Mimi3plus3@aol.com

I own a Canon A70 digital camera and wanted a non-inkjet photo printer for lab-quality photos. The CP 300 exceeded all of my expectations. The 4x6 paper comes ready with post card formatting on the back for an absolutely perfect road trip tool! Just take the photo, print it in the car (the cp 300 comes with a battery pack!), slap a stamp on it, and toss it in a mailbox. Brilliant. Plus, the small credit card size photos are adorable and you can get the sticker kind (either full label or mini labels) which I anticipate will be even more fun. Tip: a business card holder is a perfect album for these little pics.

All of this you've heard before. What you may not know is that you can print more than just photos with your cp 300! I do a little graphic art on the side and have been able to make high quality prints of original non-photo artwork (created in other programs and saved as a tiff) right through the software that comes with the printer!!

The only aspect of this printer that is less than ideal is that the paper/ink packs are proprietary and not universally available yet, even online (especially the label kind).