Keith over at Northlight has completed an exhaustive written review of the upcoming Canon imagePROGRAF Pro-300 printer. This review should tell you everything you need to know about the new printer from Canon.
From Northlight Images:
Compared to the previous PRO-10 and PRO-10S, the PRO-300 is slightly smaller and distinctly lighter.
It weighs just over 14kg (~31 lbs) a noticeable reduction from the ~20kg of the PRO-10S.
At 639 x 379 x 200 mm it’s also slightly smaller than the older PRO-10/10S (689 x 385 x 215 mm)
The screen is a welcome addition, especially for those of us who might not have the printer situated right next to their computer. It would have been nice to be touch sensitive…
The wireless options are useful, but unfortunately not being able to use the wired interface at the same time is irksome. This means that I can’t for example use the speed and reliability of my ethernet and have wireless available for occasional direct prints from my iPhone.
Print quality at Standard and Highest print settings are very good. It’s really difficult to see the difference without close examination. Given the decidedly slower printing at higher quality settings, I suspect I’d use standard for most printing. The driver does lack some refinement in its settings – even ‘custom’ print quality only gives 5 steps from ‘Fast’ to ‘Fine’.
Canon’s new Professional Print and Layout software is really easy to use. I used it as a plugin from Photoshop without any problems. Add in its multi-shot and multi-page options and I could see it as as a great way of making printing easier for people.
By far the most welcome improvements over the PRO-10 are related to paper handling. Not only are enforced margins on some papers gone, but the maximum page length of just over 39″ is enough for a lot of people’s panoramic print requirements. Borderless printing is also much more widely available, even for heavy art papers. Read the full review
Canon imagePROGRAF Pro-300 at Adorama
Review of the Epson SC-P700 13" printer with sheet and roll paper holder
If anyone has any specifi questions about either, let me know here or via th Northlight site
These are also the first reviews where I've tried making some short videos to go with them - looks like I'll be wanting an R5 after all ;-)
Any use of wireless disables the wired LAN
So, yes you can go from phone through to the printer via the WiFi/LAN, but I was showing direct connections in the review and noted that it skewered the wired connection.
Read the review for examples...
From the settings
I raised this with Canon, who noted that for for some reason, what you could do with their more basic printers, you couldn't do quite the same with the 300
There is only a limited amount I tested this respect, so I left it at that.
Mainly I wanted to show (as in the example in the review) using an ad hoc connection.
But the WiFi device needs then to be connected to the LAN WiFi using the LAN WiFi credentials - you can't let someone print directly to the printer using local printer connection and credentials if the printer WiFi is disabled once the wired connection is active.
how to print money?
There's no good reason for this other than perhaps a combination of engineering design conservatism and the dead hand of marketing ;-)
The P700 (with roll support) has an 18m limit
This from my look at making long prints on the 700
This is from initial setting up, so starting with reduced levels.
By the time I did these photos for the review I'd replaced CO, PBK and grey. Four others were flashing low (M/PM/C/Y)
That actually helps. Thanks Keith.