If your budget is small but you need good quality large prints, ImagePROGRAF IPF840 from Canon presents a great deal from leasing plotters specialists. It cannot produce wide prints as other models in the market and it does not offer fast printing speed, but it is a solid choice to get value for your money. It is a five-inked printer that can deliver technical drawings, posters, and architectural plans as wide as 44 inches. The Canon IPF840 offers a package of surprises for your business.
Good Deal
At $5,000 selling price, Canon’s IPF840 is a good deal. Value is the word to look for and not bargain. Keep in mind that you are looking for quality against price. It comes with basic abilities of plotters and so much more like good quality prints, printing stock assortment, scanner, and media rolls. It can be considered a multifunction printer.
Since the selling price is much lower than its competitors, the downside is that it only has 5 water-based inks and so the output may not be used outdoors. However, if you need a 44-inch printout, only a few models can produce them in good quality.
The replacement ink cartridges from Canon come in 2 sizes: 330ml and 700ml and the prices are somewhat the same with the usual cartridges in the market. Maintenance will not be a headache also as it has a single box intended for waste ink (replacement only costs $100 and can be installed easily) and the tanks are located in one place.
Product Review
It comes in a hefty weight of 417 pounds and is 75x51x45 inches in size. It already carries with it a wheeled stand making it easy to move around in the office plus it has a fabric print catcher with it. It may not be the biggest model in the market today, but it will most likely require its own space like a special corner or a room in the office.
Compared to its competitors offering 10-12 inks to produce realistic photo prints, this only uses 5 inks. It uses yellow, plain black, cyan, magenta and pigmented black ink. Since the inks are water-based, prints are not suitable to long outdoor exposure.
It cannot produce smooth color prints and shadow details necessary in printing marketing materials. However, this printer is a workhorse when it comes to printing blueprints and other simple posters. It has a resolution of 1,200 x 2,400 dpi (dots per inch) and uses 4 picoliter-size ink droplets to produce sharp, but detailed lines up to 0.02mm.
Advantages of Owning IPF840
It may be lacking in areas where other models from leasing plotters specialists excel; however, it has got something good to offer: it has a pair of media rolls. It takes a load off when it comes to shifting from a glossy print to printing with matte papers, so there is no need to juggle one paper roll to the other. It can be done with one click of a button and can also handle printing of large posters as thick as 0.8mm as well as card stock.