Canon PIXMA printers guzzle ink in duplex mode

Canon PIXMA MP970

Canon’s PIXMA printers have a defective duplex mode. (Duplex is where you print on both sides of a page.)

Canon says that when using duplex mode, “grayscale will be created using a combination of the color (dye) inks to prevent smearing.” Even when you print black and white, the printer still approximates the black color using the color tanks.

This is stupid:

  • Gratuitous waste. Color inks are expensive.
  • Duplexing is slow. Color printing considerably slows printing.
  • Poor quality. Approximating black with color inks produces a murky, greenish black, not a true black.

Summary: to prevent smearing, they make the printer use more ink. Does that make sense? Maybe if the goal is to sell more color ink cartridges!

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 12th, 2008 at 10:34 PM and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  1. Just bought a new printer | Aren Cambre's Blog says:
    February 27, 2010 at 10:22 PM

    [...] support days. My current printer, a Canon Pixma MP-970, is junk. Ink’s too pricey, and Canon rigged it to drink ink in duplex mode. Drivers feeling like a product rushed out before usability testing. After just 2 years old, prints [...]

    Reply

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