Lost another old friend...
We know our tech gadgets have a limited lifespan, but it’s always difficult when an item you’ve been using for a long period of time ceases to function and needs replacing, it’s just happened with my printer, a Canon IP7250……
……in my opinion one of the best printers Canon made. It produced superb colour prints on any paper I put in it, even fairly thick card for the Christmas cards I produce for a good friend each year. The IP7250 could also print directly onto DVD. During the Covid-19 pandemic I was producing DVD’s for a local church each week, to give out to care home residents and those church members who didn’t have internet access to the online services. I produced 82 services in total and 8 DVD’s for each service, so nearly 700 printed DVD’s, and the Canon produced them all perfectly.
My IP7250 started printing blank pages, I did the usual head clean sequence with no effect, I also found out you could remove the print head and wash it under a running tap (!) again with no effect, so it was time to replace it.
Although I rarely need to print onto DVD’s, I still wanted to retain the capability as it makes a DVD look professional. I did consider the Epson XP-7100 for around £116, however I’m a Canon fan and I found the Canon TS705a could print onto a DVD, the price was a more reasonable £49.99 - £69.99 depending on where you bought from, I found it in stock for £59.99 so bought it.
Next but one day delivery and I was unboxing it. First impression was it’s small footprint compared to other printers I’ve had (and I’ve had a few), I removed the sticky tape everywhere, plugged it in and installed the ink cartridges, it then wanted to connect to my WiFi and router to download the drivers for my Apple Mac (Sequoia 15.0.1), slightly disconcerting was it’s ability to obtain my WiFi router password......
With the drivers and install software downloaded, I had an up and running printer. This printer has a front display and you need to ‘OK’ the menu items before it will actually print, you will need careful positioning of the printer if you want to be able to read the display.
You also need to pull out the print delivery tray before you can print (easy to forget), this tray does seem very ‘plasticky’ and could break very easily, in fact the whole printer does seem to be made from thinner, cheaper plastic than any of my other printers, but I guess that’s a way of keeping costs down.
In use, the colour was perfect on gloss paper for a photo, and it took a sheet of the thicker card I use for Christmas cards without complaining, I’ve yet to try the DVD print function. It’s not the quietest printer I’ve used but it’s noise level is acceptable. A full set of genuine Canon inks from Canon or Amazon will set you back around £60, there is wide range of non-OEM compatible ink available for around £8.00 per full set from eBay.
My only gripe so far is when setting up an item to print, I use the computer print dialogue box for size, quality etc - I then have to confirm all this again on the printers front display…maybe I’ll find a way round this as I get more used to using it.
Although I rarely need to print onto DVD’s, I still wanted to retain the capability as it makes a DVD look professional. I did consider the Epson XP-7100 for around £116, however I’m a Canon fan and I found the Canon TS705a could print onto a DVD, the price was a more reasonable £49.99 - £69.99 depending on where you bought from, I found it in stock for £59.99 so bought it.
Next but one day delivery and I was unboxing it. First impression was it’s small footprint compared to other printers I’ve had (and I’ve had a few), I removed the sticky tape everywhere, plugged it in and installed the ink cartridges, it then wanted to connect to my WiFi and router to download the drivers for my Apple Mac (Sequoia 15.0.1), slightly disconcerting was it’s ability to obtain my WiFi router password......
With the drivers and install software downloaded, I had an up and running printer. This printer has a front display and you need to ‘OK’ the menu items before it will actually print, you will need careful positioning of the printer if you want to be able to read the display.
You also need to pull out the print delivery tray before you can print (easy to forget), this tray does seem very ‘plasticky’ and could break very easily, in fact the whole printer does seem to be made from thinner, cheaper plastic than any of my other printers, but I guess that’s a way of keeping costs down.
In use, the colour was perfect on gloss paper for a photo, and it took a sheet of the thicker card I use for Christmas cards without complaining, I’ve yet to try the DVD print function. It’s not the quietest printer I’ve used but it’s noise level is acceptable. A full set of genuine Canon inks from Canon or Amazon will set you back around £60, there is wide range of non-OEM compatible ink available for around £8.00 per full set from eBay.
My only gripe so far is when setting up an item to print, I use the computer print dialogue box for size, quality etc - I then have to confirm all this again on the printers front display…maybe I’ll find a way round this as I get more used to using it.
