Dan Littman

Canon S500 Color Bubble Jet

Canon's new S500 produces higher-quality graphics than many other ink jets in the $150 range. Though colors initially appear a bit brown, a little tweaking in a photo editor enables the S500 to deliver sharp detail with natural shading and transitions. The S500 also features ultra-affordable ink prices: A page of text uses only 2 cents' worth, and a page of color graphics only 10.7 cents. Unlike typical ink cartridges that enclose all color inks in one ink cartridge, Canon's S500 puts each ink color into a separate tank, so when you deplete one color you can replace just its tank instead of the whole cartridge. Canon provides clear documentation for setting up and getting started, along with a more thorough online manual (almost 200 pages long) that details everything from using the printer driver's features to clearing paper jams, fixing print quality, and establishing communication between the printer and your PC.
The S500's print speed is acceptable but unimpressive, especially for home-office use. A number of comparably priced ink jets--such as Lexmark's Z53--print text and graphics faster than the S500's 3.8 ppm and 0.2 ppm. Text samples looked adequate overall, but they also showed heavier ink bleed than other samples, and they appeared jagged in some places. As for its design, the S500 Bubble Jet has tough and durable paper-feed and output trays, but they don't clip snugly to the printer; they can fall off the printer easily when you move or bump them.
We're not crazy about the S500's purple plastic exterior and sparkly silver-speckled lid. Canon hasn't forgotten older PCs, though: The S500 sports a parallel port right next to the USB port. The software bundle includes PhotoRecord, which provides templates for designing documents that include digital photos, and PhotoStitch, which lets you combine several side-by-side photos into a single panoramic image.
Despite the S500's sluggish performance, the unit's combination of satisfactory print quality and excellent ink value suit it for home use.

Buying Information

Canon S500 Color Bubble Jet Rated 12 ppm monochrome/8 ppm color, 2400-by-1200-dpi maximum resolution, 100 sheets input, 50 output. $ 149 Rated 12 ppm monochrome/8 ppm color, 2400-by-1200-dpi maximum resolution, 100 sheets input, 50 output. 800/652-2666 http://consumer.usa.canon.com/index.shtml