The Canon Pixma iP2600 is a budget, no frills inkjet photo printer. Retailing for under £30 and replacing the Pixma iP1800, this is an entry level, basic printer with few features. As such it lacks such items as a PictBridge port and a memory card slot, but is a sleek design and produces bold, crisp prints at competitive print speeds.
Design
Canon has put a lot of thought into the design of the Pixma iP2600, the small exterior, 5.6×17.4×10 inches, is very sleek and in glossy black with a slightly mirrored finish is a great addition to your desktop. No boring grey plastic shell for this neat printer. The only downside to this finish is the propensity for the shiny body to retain fingerprints and attract dust. However if kept clean blends in nicely with other modern desktop peripherals. A basic control panel is situated on top of the printer, with two buttons; one a paper feed button and the other a duel power and error-warning button. The back of the printer is home to the USB port and power input socket. As with all manufacturers, Canon does not include a USB cable with the printer, so this will be an additional expense. With no PictBridge or memory card slot you are forced to download images to your PC and print from there, but this is to be expected from a printer in this price range.
Cartridge supplies
Only two cartridges are required in the Pixma iP2600, a black ink cartridge and a three-colour cartridge. There are two capacities of each available, the standard black cartridge, PG37 has 11ml of ink and the higher capacity PG40 has 16ml. The standard colour cartridge, CL38 contains a total of 9ml of ink, 3ml of each cyan, magenta and yellow, whilst the higher capacity CL41 contains a total 12ml of ink, 4ml of each colour. With the PG40 costing less than £14 and the CL41 less than £17, these cartridges represent the best value for use in this printer.
Performance
In speed tests the Pixma iP2600 performed very well. It managed to produce 5.68 pages per minute of black text, which compares well with both the HP DeskJet D4260 and the Lexmark Z845, that are both more expensive printers. The canon also performed well in quality tests, the characters formed were precise with crisp edges and created no blurred areas, in colour graphics tests most documents came out with solid colours and nice even distribution of colour. The only slight area of concern was in portions where gradual colour gradients occurred but these imperfections were barely noticeable to the bare eye and only a perfectionist could grumble.
4×6 photos printed on Canons semi-gloss paper were also impressive. They were not perfect but were well balanced and even, a difficult job for a budget printer.
So with solid printing performance at relatively quick output speeds and acceptable photo prints, the Pixma iP2600 is an affordable choice and is a printer that performs well above its weight, making it probably the best budget buy under £50.
