
Canon Pixma iP1600
Pros
- Inexpensive, Fast printing speed
Cons
- Poor text quality, low quality colour printing.
Bottom Line
This simple, inexpensive, and compact home printer is adequate for everyday printing tasks, but its print quality could be better.
-
Price
$ 79.00 (AUD)
The Canon Pixma iP1600 will appeal to anyone on a tight budget. It comes in a neat little package and is simple to use, but this no-frills printer sacrifices several features we'd expect to see even in a low-cost inkjets. Most obviously, the iP1600 lacks an output tray, instead ejecting printed pages straight onto your desktop.
In the absence of a PictBridge port or card slot on the printer, digital photographers must load their images the old fashioned way - onto a PC - before printing. And whereas its larger cousins (such as the Canon Pixma iP4200) align their heads automatically as they print a test sheet, you have to check the quality manually for the iP1600 and enter a sequence of numbers into the driver's alignment tool.
The two ink cartridges--one dispensing all three dye-based color inks, and the other containing a pigment-based black for dark text--have relatively low capacities, undermining to some extent the printer's low purchase price.
For such a low-cost printer, the print speeds of 6.6 pages per minute for text and 1.9 ppm for color graphics are impressive. Unfortunately, the iP1600's print quality was less than dazzling. Text smudged across the page, and the characters' edges looked fuzzy. In our line art test, vertical lines wiggled about every third of an inch, suggesting that alternate sweeps of the head were misaligned. Blocks of fine, closely spaced lines exhibited an odd diagonal banding. On plain paper, our color images stood up reasonably well to the competition, despite suffering from some banding and oversaturated colors that gave faces the appearance of having a fake tan. Faint narrow banding remained on photo paper, and dark areas looked washed out, but we also saw some sharp detail. Our grayscale image showed appealing contrast and crisp edges, though skin tones could have been smoother.
The iP1600 comes with a user's guide in HTML format, which you install along with the software package. The capable Easy-PhotoPrint tool guides you through printing photos and making basic enhancements. Easy-WebPrint works around Internet Explorer's printing limitations by fitting pages to the width of your paper. Strangely, though, Canon neglects to include its PhotoRecord app for printing photo albums.
Brand Post

Most Popular Reviews
- 1 Miofive 4K Dash Cam review: This friendly road watcher is ‘here for you!’
- 2 Dell U3223QE review: A winning debut for an IPS Black monitor
- 3 Netgear Nighthawk M5 mobile router review: Probably too expensive, but nice
- 4 Asus TUF Gaming VG28UQL1A review: This 4K monitor plays nice with consoles
- 5 Firewalla Gold review: Powerful home network security in a tiny box
Latest News Articles
- Canon ink is freaking out after shipping without crucial chips. Here’s how to fix it
- Epson RapidReceipt RR-600W scanner released for home offices
- Epson announces heat-free EcoTank printers
- Canon’s Pixma Endurance has a new name
- Brother pitch themselves at SMBs with new 'Inkvestment' options
Resources
Business Centre
The latest business news, reviews, features and whitepapers

Videos
Watch our video news and reviews from around the world

Guides
Comprehensive buying guides, features, and step-by-step articles

PCW Evaluation Team
Pedro Peixoto
Aruba Instant On AP11D

Set up is effortless.
Cate Bacon
Aruba Instant On AP11D

The strength of the Aruba Instant On AP11D is that the design and feature set support the modern, flexible, and mobile way of working.
Dr Prabigya Shiwakoti
Aruba Instant On AP11D

Aruba backs the AP11D up with a two-year warranty and 24/7 phone support.
Tom Pope
Dynabook Portégé X30L-G

Ultimately this laptop has achieved everything I would hope for in a laptop for work, while fitting that into a form factor and weight that is remarkable.
Tom Sellers
MSI P65

This smart laptop was enjoyable to use and great to work on – creating content was super simple.
Lolita Wang
MSI GT76

It really doesn’t get more “gaming laptop” than this.
Featured Content
- 100 Great PC Games You Should Play Before You Die
- Best Click Frenzy mobile and Internet plan deals
- Microsoft’s iconic browser Internet Explorer is being killed off in June
- Which flagship TV is best? Sony 4K HDR Bravia 2016 versus LG 4K HDR OLED 2016
- 10 Blu-ray movies / Best looking Blu-ray movies