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Tour
Front
The front face of the Canon Pro9000 is fairly plain with its dark gray door and centered Canon logo. The outer edges of this side are a lighter grayish silver color. The door on the front has three bumps above the Canon logo that designates where users should push to release the spring catch that opens the door, which glides down slowly, and is a nice touch to protect the door from damage. To the right of the door are three buttons and a USB port. The top two buttons are very large and are for turning on the printer and for printing and canceling jobs. The bottom button should be pressed when feeding paper into the special front tray for larger papers. Beneath the buttons is a wide USB port with the PictBridge logo next to it. When the front door is opened, the Canon logo still appears on a black piece of plastic in the center. Behind that piece of plastic is the printer roller that feeds paper in and out of the front. The roller can be seen below, and the extendable paper tray looks flat from this angle but slides out nicely.
Back
The back is made up of the darker plastic material and is mostly flat except for two niches at the sides. On the left side is a niche for the Ethernet cable port. In the bottom right corner is a niche for the power cable port. In the center is a door that is popped open by a button on the top and lays flat to act as an output tray for fine art and other heavy papers.
Left Side
The left side of the printer looks très mod with its boxy lighter gray front and a darker gray edge along the rear and bottom sides.
Right Side
This side looks similar to the left side with the boxy silver-colored main portion of the printer housing with darker bottom and rear edges. Toward the back, the niche for the Ethernet port is visible.
Top
The Pro9000 top has a logo in its center. This logo is on a large dark gray panel that lifts up from two finger notches on either side to create the standard input paper tray. In front of this paper tray is another panel that lifts up to reveal the inner workings of the printer. The dark gray middle is flanked by lighter silver edges. In the upper right corner of the top is a round button that can be pushed to pop out the rear output paper tray on the back.
Interior
There are several panels that open to reveal paper trays and cartridges. Lifting the front panel shows the interior inner workings, with printer rollers and the print head containing the eight ink cartridges; this slides from its resting location on the right to the center when the door is opened.
Components
Display (0)
This printer does not have an LCD screen because it relies mostly on a connected computer. Users preview images and edit them on the computer before sending the job to the Canon Pixma Pro9000. This is a typical setup for printers of this caliber which cater to a more advanced audience. Most pro photo printer users will want to edit on-screen within a photo editing program.
Paper trays (7.50)
The Canon Pro9000 has two separate paper paths, including a front feeder for heavier types of paper up to 1.2mm thick. Most paper is loaded into the top of the printer, which folds upward to make a nice upright supportive paper tray, with the top section arching back slightly to allow longer paper to rest some of its weight. There is one edge guide which, when pinched, can be slid along a ridged strip and locked into place when unpinched. There are 13 labels along the strip designating paper sizes from 4 inches to 13 inches across; users must line up the guide with the label on the right side.
The output tray folds down from the front and lays flat. Two plastic panels slide out from within to extend the tray’s surface area. The rollers for this paper tray can also be used as input, especially for thicker papers. The input tray must be reset to accept paper as input by lifting the tray up from the open position to about 45 degrees, then pulling the tray straight out and laying it open. This raises the tray on its hinges so it sits about an inch higher than in output position and in line with the rollers. When paper is loaded this way, the rear output tray must also be activated. It pops out from the back via a button on the rear of the top. There are also two wing-like support extensions that are released via a spring-loaded catch at the front edge of the tray. This layout is great for fine art printing with heavy paper that doesn’t do well with the bending and winding paper path typical of compact printers.
CD burner (0)
This printer has a lot of cool features, but a CD burner is not one of them. This feature can be found on some compact photo printers.
Battery (0)
It takes a lot of power to make this large printer work. And since no one will want to tote this 30+ pound printer anywhere, a battery is not even an option with the Pro9000.
Power supply
 The large Canon Pro9000 is Energy Star certified and uses 120 volts with its included power cable. There aren’t separate cable and adapter wires; it is all one thin cable with this printer.
Internal memory (5.00)
The Pro9000 has only a 42 kb buffer, comparable to the Epson Stylus Photo R1800’s 64 kb. It’s pitifully small when compared to printers like the HP Photosmart 8750 which has 64MB. Since the Pro9000 doesn’t accept memory cards, it’s less of an issue.
Hard drive (0)
The Pro900 doesn’t feature an on-board hard drive. This is an atypical feature on pro photo printers except for the very large wide format units. Hard drives can also be found in some smaller compact photo printers from HP and Lexmark.
Accessories (7.00)
This Canon uses a ChromaLife 100 ink system that incorporates 8 ink cartridges, typical for printers in this class. This might keep users on their toes trying to keep up with the supply of each individual cartridge, since they each hold only 13 milliliters, but it provides users with vivid prints. Each cartridge costs $14.25 on Canon’s web site, or users can purchase all of them together for $99. Canon’s photo paper is relatively affordable. A package of fifty 4 x 6-inch photo paper runs for $7.99, and Canon offers a wide range of sizes and types of compatible papers. The maximum size—13 x 19 inches—costs roughly $2 a sheet, selling in packs of 20 for $40, with the more expensive papers like the Fine Art Premium Matte selling for a bit more, around $2.75 a sheet at $54.99 for a 20-pack. A Digital Art Variety pack can be purchased to sample the various paper surfaces. A twenty sheet-pack with five different surfaces costs $49.99.
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