Printers seem to have been left behind in today`s increasingly mobile world. It is not often that you see a mobile executive lugging around a printer to a presentation or meeting. If he or she needs to print, more often than not, this will be done beforehand or on the client`s printer.
Enter the Canon BJC-50 colour Bubble Jet printer, which Canon claims is the smallest inkjet printer in the world. At half the size of an A4 page, this printer seems ideal for use by a mobile user. However, things are seldom as good as they appear. What will need to be sacrificed, if anything, in terms of performance?
Setting up
Installing the printer took a couple of minutes on a Windows 98 machine and a couple of seconds on a Windows 2000 machine; the only difference being Windows 98`s preference for requiring the manufacturer`s driver diskettes while Windows 2000 used its own driver library.
The BJC-50 ships with a parallel cable, but unfortunately no USB option. However, Canon is shipping the BJC-55 printer featuring USB capabilities. This shouldn`t be too much of a problem for notebook users, since they would be willing to accommodate such a mobile printer on their parallel port, using their USB ports for other peripherals like keyboards, mice, storage devices and even projectors. However, for those who really dislike cables, the printer has a built-in infrared port.
The battery and the infrared port
Unfortunately, infrared tends to suffer from breaks in transmission which could see you lose the printer connection while printing a document. This can be very frustrating when you are waiting for a high quality picture to finish printing, only to see it being aborted and having to do everything all over again. However, this is a risk worth taking when it means not having to carry extra cables wherever you go.
The BJC-50 also features a built-in Lithium-Ion battery for true mobile usage. This allows a notebook user with an infrared port to take the BJC-50 to a meeting, place the printer next to their laptop and print presentation notes and other documents without having to fret about cables and plugs.
The battery life is one of the outstanding features of the printer. According to the documentation, the battery can print up to 100 A4 pages continuously on a full charge. While I did not test this, the battery comfortably lasted the week that I was testing it. The BJC-50 also automatically powers off if you leave it on for longer than 30 minutes.
The print quality
I was quite disappointed with the print quality when it came to high-resolution pictures. The BJC-50 was slow printing on the high quality option (10 minutes for one A4 page) with no major differences to that of the standard quality option. However, the ink did dry remarkably fast, which means no smudging.
The printer did perform admirably when printing text documents. The four-minute print speed for a high quality A4 text page featuring several full-colour graphs is acceptable and the quality is very good.
Unfortunately, the black ink ran out while I was reviewing the printer after only a handful of prints (most likely due to previous demos and reviewers). The official word from Canon is that the life expectancy of the black cartridge is 45 A4 pages and 40 pages for the colour cartridge.
Conclusion
While the print quality of pictures leaves much to be desired, it is doubtful whether users will look towards printing 1024x768 resolution pictures in 24-bit colour. The printer also does not ship with an auto-sheet feeder. This means loading the pages one-by-one, which can become annoying when printing a 20-page proposal in a hurry.
However, the BJC-50 is ideal for the road warrior who requires a truly mobile printer solution.
Useful links:
Canon BJC-50 product page
Canon BJC-50 scanner add-on drivers page
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