Canon PIXMA iP7250
Ink, Colour
The bitch tested: What can the Canon Pixma iP7250 do?
15.1.2018
Translation: machine translated
Video: Stephanie Tresch
User Dintenrolf has labelled a printer a "bitch". His review has ended up in digitec's new advertising campaign, where a woman reads out his review. But is the Canon Pixma iP7250 really that shitty? The test by an avowed printer hater provides answers. And frustration.
I hate printers.
There are several reasons for this. For one, and this is the main reason, the things never work when they should. Need to print out a plane ticket? Guaranteed paper jam, driver problems or empty ink cartridge. On the other hand, I'm not alone with these problems. I'm still traumatised from my time in IT security. Almost every time I told someone that I worked in IT security, they said "Oh, that's a good thing. My printer... " It's not about a printer specifically. I have absolutely nothing against Canon, just like I have nothing against Canon's competitors. But I do have something against the printer concept.
In short: I hate printers.
"Why don't you test the bitch?" says editor-in-chief Aurel Stevens at the video department's planning meeting, after producer Stephanie Tresch drops that she still has capacity for filming this week.
I hate printers. But the boss has spoken. You know how it is, when the boss speaks, the boss has spoken.
"Hmmm," I say, "I think synergies could be better utilised in the context of common working."
Except that I don't say that because we don't have one of those dreadful business-speak cultures.
"No," I say in reality, "I hate printers."
In the studio
While Stephanie sets up the cameras, I question my existence. Just not too conspicuous, because Aurel is keeping a watchful eye on me in the studio. After all, I may have threatened to test the Canon Pixma iP7250 with a baseball bat.
Because I promised Aurel that I wouldn't destroy the printer, I want to give it a bit of a hard time. Because the Canon Pixma iP7250, which user Dintenrolf calls a bitch, comes with many promises from the manufacturer.
Takes an infinitely long time until the thing finally starts printing. It rattles and turns and clacks for minutes on end, almost cleaning itself to death and squirting as much ink as possible into the residual ink sponge. An unrivalled ink guzzler! Only Canon can use it. Zero points for the bitch.
For an inkjet printer, ten pages per minute in colour is reasonably okay. That's six seconds per page. About enough time for me to come up with a decent rant that doesn't just consist of the word "fuck". Plus automatic duplex printing, which I appreciate in a printer. Because I usually only print things that are intended for wear and tear. So flight tickets or texts that I want to correct with a pen. Nothing lasts and if I waste paper pointlessly, then I'm not happy either. That's why my printers have the following settings as standard:
- Print in black and white
- Automatic duplex printing
Sometimes I also reduce the amount of ink the printer needs. However, depending on the printer, this is a bit risky. I only do this after a few tests, but I can usually save between 20 and 30 per cent of the amount of ink. It takes a bit of experimentation shortly after purchase, but it's worth it in the medium to long term. Because even if the printer is cheap - and the Pixma iP7250 in the bitch version is cheap - the cartridges can be expensive.
For the test, however, I orientate myself on Dintenrolf's review. The thing is an ink guzzler. I therefore leave the settings as they are from the factory. The document consists of pictures from the office and a page number. The document is 259 pages long in total. I actually wanted to generate 256 pages from 4 pages of content, but somewhere along the line it added three more pages.
The printing begins
Installing the Canon iP7250 is actually quite quick. Only the paper tray is a little difficult to find. For some reason, I'm looking for a paper tray that holds 500 sheets of paper. Judging by the size of the printer, this should actually be possible. Instead, Stephanie finds two tiny-looking paper trays at the front. One cassette, which holds A4 paper, should hold around 150 sheets of paper. Pretty much okay for everyday use. A little unfavourable for a 260-page document.
I open the test document, half of which consists of full-page images and half of text, and press CTRL+P, then Enter. Here we go.
Or not.
The first page is printed quite quickly. Then a long pause. The Canon iP7250 in the bitch version rattles away for minutes. I'm already worried that we have a paper jam or some other printer nonsense that has been plaguing mankind for decades.
But then the chattering changes and printing actually begins. Page after page of printed paper is spewed out by the bitch.
Am I wrong? Could it be that the printer is okay after all?
The filming is complete in my head until the printing is over. I remain silent to the camera, not quite sure what to say. Should I say something? Stephanie definitely makes hand movements like "Say something". All right, I'll just say it. Anything.
After about ten minutes of hand gestures and my inner question of whether it's finally time to cut or something, I've had enough.
"The two behind the camera are having such a great time and I'm sitting here bored because I've been sitting here for about 20 minutes and the printer is just printing," I blurt out.
But the shoot continues. Obviously, the two of them have figured out that I'm going to sit there for the whole print job and talk about printers, God and the world. Yeah, right, of course. I pull out my camera. I want the Sony a7s ii to prove that I'm the only one working here. Or at least the only one who's got the arse end of the stick. Aurel stands there with a coffee cup and tells a children's joke. Stephanie laughs and would immediately mess up any take that I, a hard worker, would start.
The glorious life of an editor.
But the printer keeps on chattering. No error, no paper jam, the ink cartridge hasn't exploded and I set about tidying up the mess caused by setting up the printer. I have to pass the time somehow.
Paper. Paper everywhere
I notice that the paper outlet is smaller than the paper tray. I notice this because pages suddenly fall onto the floor in front of the studio table. So if you want to print out an important document for work, school or study, make sure you stay close to the printer. The Canon iP7250 is not capable of stacking paper properly. Even if you don't drop any paper on the floor and it spoils the whole room because paper flies far, no page will lie nicely on top of the other.
At some point, after a plush horn is thrown at my head, followed by malicious laughter from an unnamed video producer, the sound of the printer changes. The contented rattle becomes a higher-pitched rattle with clicking noises. My laptop informs me that the printer is seeking my attention. The thing must not be getting enough love.
I give the thing some love. With my baseball bat!
But it's only the paper tray. It's empty. So, fill it up and the boredom continues. Paper flies onto the floor, I'm now questioning the existence of the universe and time passes slowly. Very slowly. Every now and then I say something to the camera again, hoping that Stephanie will cut out the biggest nonsense and produce something decent and entertaining, but somehow I had imagined the shoot to be different.
The catastrophe after 180 pages
After about 100 pages of print, Stephanie is also bored. She dances behind the camera, has music playing and warns me that if I have a flash of inspiration, I shouldn't just blurt it out, but give her a heads-up. Then she can switch off the licence-protected music.
"How much longer will this nonsense go on here?" asks Stephanie.
She has work to do, she adds. Not only does she have to edit videos, but she's also writing a text that she wants to finish sometime this week.
"The way things are going, we're not going to finish printing this week," she grumbles.
I sigh, because after watching the printer for over an hour, I'm also bored to death. The Canon Pixma iP7250 starts printing the last page. For our 259-page document, the machine starts at page 259 and ploughs through to page 1. This makes perfect sense, because then you can simply take your stack of paper - assuming parts of the stack are not lying on the floor - with you. Any printer can do that. Okay, maybe another printer won't throw quite as much paper on the floor, but the will is there. I can see that in the bitch. It already wants to perform.
After almost 90 minutes, I've had enough. I'm leaving. I have to go and I have more than enough work to do. The printer still has about 80 pages to go and the paper tray is well filled. There's still room on the floor, so it doesn't need me anymore.
"Hey, you can't run off without a conclusion now," Stephanie calls after me.
I suspect she doesn't want to clear up the mess on her own. Fine, I'll just sit down again and talk about the printer.
My conclusion should only be about 30 seconds long. We have enough footage. We could produce a full-length feature film with me staring at a printer and being briefly replaced by Stephanie in places.
Suddenly, however, the printer spits out a white page that should actually be page 78. Shortly before, it had produced a page of text with M-coloured splashes. M is one of the CMYK colours that a printer uses to produce every colour that ends up on a piece of paper.
- C: Cyan - blue
- M: Magenta - red
- Y: Yellow - yellow
- K: Key - black
Much of the technology that we find in modern printers like the Miststück dates back to the distant past. CMYK was introduced in 1906 and is pronounced "Zmick". Printers are not dissimilar in their mechanics to copiers - on the market since 1959. Inkjet printers like the mick have a different nozzle system than a laser printer, which uses toner and is essentially a copier, but the mechanics, with paper and tray and all that, have changed only slightly since then.
After the M pig order on the text side, the printer then cleaned itself. Didn't take quite as long as at the beginning, but long enough to worry me. The white page doesn't make it any better.
After 93 minutes, disaster: page 259 comes out of the printer.
What is this?
Really now? No, no, no! We've been sitting here for an hour and a half waiting for the Canon Pixma iP7250 to spit out 259 pages. And just before the end, the thing thinks to itself "Hah, fuck you! I'll start again!"
Bitch!
Fuck this shit!
We cancel the shoot. The timer switches off at 1 hour, 33 minutes and 59 seconds. We've definitely seen it. That's it. Off.
Exactly what you can expect for the money
In the almost 94 minutes I've been watching the Canon Pixma iP7250, I've been thinking to myself. Is this beast a bitch? Yes, no, yes, but also not.
What you need to know when buying a Canon Pixma iP7250 is that you're not buying a premium, gold-standard, award-winning device - or whatever the manufacturer's marketing department has just pulled out of their fingers. You're buying a device that pukes ink onto paper and then you end up with something printed out. The photos don't turn out nice, an economical approach to ink consumption would have cost too much in development and there are some quirks in the software. And why not? If you buy a 100 francs printer, that's what you get for your money. To relive my IT security days. One of my employees always used to say "If you buy cheap, you buy twice" when any discussions about quality requirements came up.
But: I have to put a stop to my hatred. Installation was super easy thanks to USB, no paper jams and I only had a little ink on my fingers. If I hadn't had the idea of wanting to print 259 pages, I could have easily left the printer to rattle on its own.
Passable device, that bitch.
Update 16/01/2018
In the comments column, user Imageprocessor has linked the following video, which I don't want to withhold from you.
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.