Canon i560 Desktop Photo Printer

The Canon i560 Desktop Photo Printer delivers fast, professional-level performance for the home--or home office. Canon's specially developed software package includes Easy PhotoPrint and Easy WebPrint programs designed to take home printing to a higher level. Operating as a toolbar in Microsoft IE, Webprint automatically smoothes and aligned pages, resulting in both text and background images reproducing cleanly. PhotoPrint boosts color saturation while keep tones realistic and accurate; the results are grain-free textures and exceptionally vivid colors.

This printer can connect directly to select digital cameras. Learn more about PictBridge.

Your letters and text documents will also look their best, thanks to rich pigment-based inks that produce a sharp black color. The i560 features a symmetrical print head design with 1,600 nozzles that virtually eliminates color variance and banding problems frequently found with other high-speed, bidirectional printers. Speeds up to 22 pages per minute make this printer perfectly at home for small businesses or busy families.

The i560 printer features the economical Canon Think Tank System, combining four individual ink tanks with intelligent management practices that equal more efficient ink usage and lower printing costs. Four tanks are included with the printer; you'll need to provide the power cables yourself. Canon supplies a one-year warranty with Instant Exchange service.

Product Description
Whether for business or advanced home use, the i560 puts you ahead. An accelerated output of up to 22 ppm for mono and up to 15 ppm for color gives you the speed you need for all your work. While advanced Precision Color Distribution Technology also provides full color A4 prints at up to 2.3 ppm.Impress your clients with outstanding quality, color consistency and pinpoint accuracy. Advanced MicroFine Droplet Technology with 2 pl Micro-Nozzles achieve a true 4800 x 1200 dpi resolution delivering professional photo quality every time you print.With individually replaceable ink tanks for all colors, Canon's Single Ink technology ensures all ink is used and eliminates expensive waste.Print photos directly from PictBridge and Bubble Jet Direct compatible digital cameras and digital camcorders. There's fast borderless printing on A4, 5" x 7" and 4" x 6" formats. Other photo imaging features include Easy-WebPrint and Easy-PhotoPrint - plus Vivid Photo technology and Photo Noise Reduction. Making sure you always get more out of your printer.Benefit from quick and simple connectivity to all popular Windows and Mac operating systems via the USB and parallel interfaces. Plus an optional network adaptor allows the printer to be shared across most network environments.

The printer flies with B&W text, e.g., while printing websites off the web browser. The setup is breezy and hassle-free. With PictBridge built in, will connect directly to your digicam for printing on paper -- no need to transfer the file to your computer, then print from Adobe Photoshop etc.

For a home printer, given that the Epson, the HP and Canon are more or less the same in picture quality, the most important thing I have realized is that I need to keep ink cartidge replacements in check. Canon blows its competition out of the water in this respect.

And that's for the maintenance costs. Even for the upfront costs, this printer is unmatched either by Epson's 2200 or HP's 7960.

Highly recommended if you are looking for a full-featured home printer.


Economical to use   February 26, 2004
citan-uzuki (Georgia, USA)
57 out of 57 found this review helpful

I bought this printer back in October of 2003. So far, this Canon has proven itself to be very fast, reliable, and economical. There is an option to use "draft" mode for the purpose of conserving ink. This is a great feature to have if you print a lot of text, like I do. The black ink cartridge is also relatively inexpensive. I bought this particular printer because I print a lot of text. My main criteria was keeping the cost per page as low as possible. I rarely print photos, but the few that I have printed on Canon's paper looked very nice.

I like the design of the printer. You can fold the paper holder in the back forward and it will act as a dust cover to keep the inside of the printer clean. You can also close the front of the printer as an added measure to keep the inside free of dust. The i560 is a little bit more expensive than comparable printers from other brands. However, I believe that the lower cost per page will more than make up for it in the long run. There are individual ink cartridges. And the ink cartridges do not have a smart chip built into them. It might be possible, although I have not tried it, to refill the cartridges yourself if you can find the right ink. However, I think the cost of the ink cartridges for this particular printer is low enough that I would recommend buying only the genuine Canon ink, that way you can eliminate most of the problems that people experience with generic or refilled ink cartridges. I was told that a lot of problems that people have with their ink jets are due to using generic or refilled ink cartridges.


Great printer for home or students   September 5, 2003
M. Ryan (Kewaunee, WI United States)
55 out of 55 found this review helpful

I recently purchased the Canon i560s printer in September of 2003. The Canon uses 4 ink tanks. As the inks are used up you only need to replace the color that is empty. This is much nicer than many other manufactures' setup where the cyan, magenta, and yellow tanks are combined into one print cartridge. The Canon replacement cartridges are also about half to a third (list price) as expensive as other brands. This could lead to a significant savings over the years and was, in fact, the primary reason I chose this printer.

While the specifications on Canon's web site for this printer list it as having no USB cable included, my particular model did come with a 5 foot USB 2.0 cable. Perhaps that is what distinguishes the "i560" from the "i560s". At any rate, the inclusion of the cable saved me a few dollars and the trouble of getting another cable.

The setup of this printer was a no-brainer. Just had to remove the packing material, install the print head and ink tanks, then install the driver. There is a "quick start" sheet that guides you through all this. I'd expect the average user to be up and printing in about 15 minutes.

The print quality is very good for text and excellent for photographs. Especially good photographs can be produced on the included sample pack (5 sheets) of 4" x 6" Photo Paper Plus Glossy. I would rate the quality of a photo print on par with the pictures you get back with regular film developing. The Photo Paper Plus even has about the same thickness and consistency as that from a film developer. If you take the output from this printer and drop it on the floor a few times, bend it, and wrinkle it slightly, it will be just like pictures coming back from bulk developers. It takes less than a minute (50 seconds in high quality mode) to print a 4x6 print. The colors are as good as I've seen on a 4-color printer and nearly as good as high-end 6-color inkjets. You have the option of borderless printing on any size stock, up to 8.5" x 11"

For day to day printing, back off the printer setting from high quality to either standard or draft. The latter modes print much faster. The draft mode quality is certainly decent enough for printing out email and the like. You'll want to switch to at least "standard" mode for printing out your resume or term papers. I tested a 30 page draft mode gray scale (black only) document and printed it with the following results: Time to start printing first page, 20 seconds. Time to print all 30 pages: 10 minutes, about 20 seconds per page. NOTE: the source for this document included only scanned 8.5" x 11" B/W images on each page, total file size 253MB.

There is a status indicator (in the printer queue status) that shows about how much ink is available for each color, so you'll know in advance when you'll need more. In the print driver you have the ability to set the printer to automatically shut off after several minutes of inactivity (user settable) and auto power on when you print again. There is a USB port on the front of the printer to directly print from supported digital cameras - Canon Bubble Jet Direct compatibles only. This would be handy if you want to print out a quick snapshot without bothering to boot your computer first.

I've seen comments in other reviews that the paper trays seem flimsy. I believe they will hold up fine if not subjected to undo abuse.

This printer was just released so it remains to be seen how it hold up long term. However, it basically is the same as the Canon i550, but faster. I would expect it to hold up as well as the i550. From what I've seen, the i560 is about 30% more expensive than the i550. For that relatively small amount, the i560 is a good investment considering its faster print speed.

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Update:

After a few weeks of use, I have the following comments to add:

Printing a test document that is about half text, half color screen shots, 102 letter size pages took 16 minutes 20 seconds in draft mode. Average speed: 9.6 seconds / page. Text looked fine, graphics are quite readable, but solid colors have a noticeable screen pattern to them. Same document in standard mode took 32 minutes. Average speed: 18.8 seconds / page. Text was very good and somewhat better than draft mode. Graphics were noticeably much sharper. Printing a 8 x 10 inch color photo on plain paper gave the following results: Draft mode 18 seconds, output looks a bit fuzzy (comparable to inkjet's best modes a couple of years ago) also some slight banding. Color is a bit weak, but plenty good for school projects for example. Standard mode took 35 seconds, and was again much better than draft mode. Standard mode skin tones are a bit pink. High Quality mode takes 1 minute 34 seconds per 8 x 10 print. Again, this Canon excels at printing photographs and even on plain paper the output is quite good. By printing on special glossy photo paper, it is as good as I've seen from a four-color printer. Plain paper tends to curl when using it to print photographs.

Overall I'm still very pleased with this printer. Though (as with virtually all printers) the average print speed is much slower than claimed on the box, it's pretty fast for an inkjet. (I was able to get about 20 b/w pages per minute in "custom 5" mode, but the print quality suffers greatly.) For day-to-day printing, I leave the printer in draft mode for speed and ink savings. The above-mentioned 102-page document looked good enough in draft mode for use and as a bonus, draft mode is basically twice as fast as standard mode. I've currently printed a bit over 500 pages (about 20 were large 8x10 inch photographs). When printing photographs, the special photo paper is expensive, but well worth it. The three ink tanks for color are still about half full, the black is just about ready to be replaced. Also, I mentioned above that Canon includes a printer monitor that has a graphic display of the remaining ink for each color. Unfortunately, I believed this was how it worked. In reality, it shows all the inks full until one of the ink tanks is nearly spent, then displays that ink as low level. Upon more closely checking the documentation, it is mentioned that the display will only show when the ink is at a low level.


Unbelievable quality photo prints for such price   November 13, 2003
K. D. Le (fairfax, va United States)
43 out of 44 found this review helpful

Everyone is blown away by the quality photo prints I show them when I use the glossy plus paper. (I have also tried Kodak paper by the print turns out not acceptable.) I wanted to buy the s9000 but after using the i560, I don't feel the need for more. In fact, I used a laser printer for most of the stuff and this printer is now used for photo only!!! This printer is so much more quiet and MUCH MUCH faster than the Epson (785) I just broke. The design is very nice where you can completely close the paper tray and the output area so no dust can get in.


Interesting Tips - Things your mother should have told you.   March 1, 2004
S. Gerber (Philadelphia, PA USA)
36 out of 36 found this review helpful

Quiet Mode - Doesn't just reduce noise. Will also slow the printer's operation a bit. Why would you want to do this, you may ask? I ran in draft mode and the printer was so fast it sucked the paper from the paper tray at an impressive speed ... so fast that it can feed the paper slightly askew and almost throw it across the room on eject. In "standard mode" plain paper printing can be so fast the ink hasn't completely dried. So ... it can sometimes be a good thing to slow this creature down a bit and Quiet Mode is the way to do it. I run that way all the time and life is good.

Ink Cartridges have no "stale date" - Don't make yourself crazy trying to read the dotted characters at the package bottom to read a date into it. They're lot numbers, not encoded dates. Unlike all HP cartridges and most Epson cartridges, Canon just doesn't date its ink. It "seems" that ink cartridges without self contained print heads have very long shelf lives since there are no internal jets to clog as the sealed cartridge ages. I will believe the Canon rep on this one since it makes sense, although I'm always more comfortable knowing the age of the ink. Like many of you I want a reserve of ink "at the ready" so I just buy from a retailer that always has a fresh supply like Best Buy, Staples, OfficeMax and probably Amazon.

The Nozzle Game - Don't let the salesman sell you a more expensive Canon (I860, I960) because it "has more nozzles". More nozzles doesn't mean anything in terms of printer resolution or precision. Each cartridge has a certain number of nozzles, no matter what printer it's used on. I believe Black has 320 and color 512 except yellow which has 256. The I560 holds 4 cartridges and if you do the math has 320+512+512+256=1600 nozzles. The I860 has an extra 256 nozzles but that's only because is can hold a 5th cartridge (black with 256 nozzles). Ditto with I960 which holds 6 cartridges at 512 nozzles each for a whopping 3000+ nozzles. So, consider the advantages of having more cartridges and the essence of these cartidges but don't be led to think that high nozzle counts means it prints better.

Warrantees and Print Heads - Just be aware that unlike HP printers the Canon I-Series has one installable print head which will likely determine the useful life of the printer. Since the cartridges do not have print heads they are less expensive, but they do not contribute to the useful life of the printer. I do know that the apparently simple and little print head is claimed by Canon to have a lot of electronics in it and is the most expensive component of the printer. So ... when it goes, the printer goes (costs around $70-$80). Canon expects their print heads to last 1-3 years, maybe more, and their $50 extended warranty covers it. I was tempted to buy the $30 extended warranty from Best Buy but was told the print head is a "consumable" and won't be replaced. So ... Buyer Beware on warrantees and expect to surrender your beloved Canon when the print head goes.

Enjoy your Canon and treat yourself to a new one every couple years or so. I'm very happy with my I560 and Canon support for this and my LiDE50 Scanner has been solid. (I pay for the phone call and in return they offer me courtesy, knowledge and they even speak English.)

-- Sam