Product Reviews

With inkjets these days requiring umpteen expensive cartridges to print - when they're not busy scanning, copying and making the tea - it's reassuring to find there are still models that just do the job, and cheaply. The iP2600 is one such, with just two cartridges and the basic essentials for an initial outlay of 30 quid.

It's small but surprisingly stylish, with a sleek black exterior. Build quality feels good enough, the only slight weakness being the flimsy output tray extender; best tuck it away safely when not in use.

Like most Canons, the iP2600 is annoyingly set up to leave a dry time between prints. In our tests only the thickest areas of

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solid colour came out wet, so for most jobs you can go into the driver and set dry time to the minimum. This done, we got a decent 8ppm (pages per minute) in draft mode and 7.4ppm normal quality; our five page colour document took just under two minutes, which isn't bad.

But you don't expect lightning speed for £30, as long as the quality is up to scratch. And despite the 3-in-1 colour cartridge, we were impressed with our photos. Reds were perhaps slightly orange, but apart from that we noticed no problems in our holiday snaps; text was just as good, with only very minor feathering around characters. Draft text, while thinner, was perfectly readable too, which is always an ink-saving bonus.

You'll want to conserve ink where possible, given that replacing the two cartridges will set you back about as much as the printer itself. But this isn't meant as a high volume printer, and when used to run off the odd letter or picture, the cartridges shouldn't end up costing you any more than those of more advanced models with their four- or five-ink engines.

It can't quite match dearer printers for quality or speed, but for £30 we don't care. If you just need colour output from your PC, we've seen no better deal than the PIXMA iP2600.