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General Performance
Warm-up time (4.95)
The Pixma MP600 performed well for its class in both speed and quality categories. Its warm-up time of 25 seconds was quicker than some of its competitors. Equivalent models by HP and Kodak took longer to bring to achieve ready status (42 seconds and 33 seconds respectively), and with a lot more complaining. Both the HP Photosmart 5180 and the Kodak EasyShare 5300 make a lot of noise as they are warming up and calibrating themselves.The Canon MP600 makes a few minor clicks and whirrs, but it certainly doesn't sound like the HPC5180, which could easily compete with take-off time at Logan Airport.
Power Usage (7.50)
This all-in-one printer is certainly not a power hog, as our watt meter recorded, and our power readings were very much in line with Canon’s reported power usage figures. We measure power usage by plugging the printer into a watt meter and note how many watts of power it uses. The Canon MP600 did not use any power when off. Some printers, like the HP Photosmart 5180, register power usage even while off. The MP600 does have an idle mode and drew 1 watt of power according to our watt meter. This is the lowest idle power draw we saw, significantly lower than the HP 3600n’s 12 watts or the Kodak ES 5300’s 6 watts.
The Canon MP600 drew 5 watts of power when ready. This is slightly higher than most printers we tested which fell in the 3-4 watt range. It is significantly less than the Kodak ES 5300 which drew 13 watts of power when ready. When printing, the MP600 drew 16 watts. As a reference, this number is significantly lower than the Canon CP730, a dye sublimation printer, which drew between 50 to 62 watts and slightly more than the Canon Pro9000’s 13 watts. Because self-cleaning puts the printer through a variety of processes, this number is usually a range rather than a single number. The Canon MP600 drew between 8 and 21 watts of power during self-cleaning, an average of 14.5 watts. This is slightly higher than the Canon Pro9000 (13 watt average), but it's significantly less than the Kodak ES 5300 which drew 30.5 watts on average.
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Power Usage (watts)
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Off
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Idle
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Ready
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Printing
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Self-Cleaning
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Canon Pixma MP600
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0
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1
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5
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16
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14.5
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HP Photosmart 5180
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4
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5
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5
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12
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20
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Kodak EasyShare 5300
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6
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6
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13
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24
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30.5
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Speed/Timing (4.33)
Our tested times for printing black-and-white text on the Pixma MP600 yielded a respectable pace for an inkjet printer—2.81 pages per minute (ppm), when printing from Word. These times represent testing a seven-page document at the highest quality setting. Color graphics, in the form of a PDF newsletter printed from Acrobat Reader, print at only half that output, 1.35 ppm. These test times fell in the mid-range between two other currently tested printers, the HP Photosmart 5180 and the Kodak EasyShare 5300.
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Pages per Minute
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Black Text
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Color Text
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and Graphics
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HP Photosmart 5180
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6.00
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2.57
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Canon Pixma MP600
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2.81
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1.35
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Kodak EasyShare 5300 ES
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1.59
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1.33
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