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Ease of Use (8.00)
The Canon Pixma Pro 9000 is simple and elegant in design, and this carries through to its functionality. Doors open easily, if not entirely intuitively, and the austere control panel is mostly self-explanatory. Interfacing with the printer’s drivers and software is no problem; it provides pleasing graphics and plenty of help menus. The various functions of the print trays, while not intuitive, are very useful and simple to operate. No print jams occurred during testing.
Value (6.00)
As the lowest priced Canon printer able to print 13 x 19-inch photos, the Pixma Pro9000 does a very good job, printing smaller photos at reasonable times with above average quality. For those just getting into printing their own photographs, this is an excellent first pro photo printer. Blacks are rendered fairly well, and color accuracy and gamut are good. If you’re looking for a printer with a lot of bells and whistles, you might want to look elsewhere. The Pro9000 does have a PictBridge connection, but it doesn’t have media slots, display, or much in the way of RAM.
Comparisons
 Epson Stylus Photo R1800 — This printer has the same number of ink cartridges as the Pro9000, but it utilizes Epson’s UltraChrome Hi-Gloss pigment inks as opposed to Canon’s Chromalife dye inks. Pigment inks are generally longer-lasting, but they are not as vivid. Metamerism (the appearance of a color under different light sources) is reportedly worse with pigment inks as well. The R1800 ink set features separate glossy and matte black inks as well as a gloss optimizer to make the images appear like lab-quality. The Pro9000 has only one black cartridge and lacks the clear overlayer, but it does have a separate photo magenta and photo yellow inks. While the number of nozzles—1,440—is less than the Canon Pro9000, the R1800 sprays ink at a 1.5-picoliter size compared to Canon’s 2 picoliters. Unlike the Pro9000, the R1800 will also accommodate roll paper and features a FireWire connection. But there is no PictBridge connection, which is featured on the Pro9000 and the HP Photosmart 8750.
 HP Photosmart 8750 — HP, always with the bells and whistles, provides more functionality than either the R1800 or the Pro9000, including media slots, standard Ethernet connectivity, a small LCD display, and 64 megabytes of RAM. But the HP Photosmart 8750 can only print at a maximum of 1200 x 1200 dpi in black, a drawback for black-and-white photographers compared to the Pro9000’s 4800 x 2400 dpi for both black and color. Resolution is not always the best comparison across manufacturers because of the differing technologies, but they do report these numbers, so this wide a margin should make the consumer stop and think. The 8750 features a dye-based nine-ink Vivera ink system, with 2 grays in addition to black, a light cyan and a light magenta. There is no red and green inks, as with the Pro9000, so these colors will have to be made with the other colors.
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