Printing 12 pages per minute at an astonishing 2,400 x 1,200 resolution, the Canon S500 is an economical and powerful printing solution for your home or office. The S500 can produce exceptional photo-quality prints that, when printed on Canon Professional photo paper PR-101, can maintain their color for up to 25 years without fading. Colors are brilliant and images are sharp, thanks to Canon's Microfine Droplet technology.
Economically minded users will appreciate that the S500's ink cartridges are individually replaceable, so when you run out of one color you can just replace the cartridge for that color, instead replacing an entire three-color cartridge. The printer features both USB and parallel ports and drivers for PC and MAC (Windows 95/98/ME/2000/NT 4.0 and Apple Macintosh OS 8.1 or higher).
1 Was good, but now dead
This printer died in less than 2 years - the printhead doesn't work anymore and replacements are about $70, about the cost of a new printer. This is the weakness with Canon's method of reusing the printhead and just replacing the ink. If you want a long-lasting printer, get an HP where you replace the printhead along with the ink.
2 Great printer
This is a great printer, which is probably why Canon stopped making it. There are no special print cartridges needed to print photos. I used photo paper and the regular cartridges and made great photos. This was the mistake of Canon, they made an inexpensive printer that would print photos cheaply and realized they were going to lose a bunch of money not selling photo cartridges. Hopefully they will make another printer like this. The printing is very fast, almost as fast as my laser, quiet, and of exceptional quality. If you can find it buy it, you won't regret it.
3 The Canon S500, great printer
S500 is a great printer, even greater than the 30 dollar rebate I received from Canon/
Its very quick, even at its highest resolution, makes beautiful digital photos , magnificent with Glossy Photo Paper, and really excellent on a good grade of plain paper.
The setup and instructions, wonderful, I was up and going very fast, the indiviual ink tanks, makes things alot more affordable and the tanks as they are, last quite a while.
Its quiet, looks great and does its job very well, you could spend more money, but, I dont thing you could do any better.
My only negative on this machine, when the paper gets low, it gets balky feeding paper, easily remedied by putting in more paper and increasing the weight on the feed, that fixes it just fine, not a big deal, may Canon Should have mentioned it or maybe its some quirk in just mine, no matter, it still is terrifac, you can also adjust the paper thickness too.
Its tough to beat the printer, in price, quality or performance.
4 Great for CD Labeling
If you are going to use the Canon S500 for a variety of color tasks, this is for you. I use it primarily for making my own CD labels, jewel case booklet and tray inserts. The color and the detail are excellent and my labels are almost as good as the original commercial labels. Of course, I am making only single copies for my own use but it's fun making them attractive. Printer is highly recommended.
5 If you can find this printer, BUY IT NOW!
After recently purchasing this printer (Canon s500), based on the many good reviews it has received (including PC Magazine's Editor's Choice), I have got to agree this is a great printer for the price. The print quality is excellent, even on regular paper the color photos look very clean and sharp. This printer uses 4 different cartridges (black, cyan, magenta, and yellow) in the printhead, allowing you to only replace the color needed, rather than having to throw out a color cartridge that still has two of the three colors remaining. This will save lots of $ over the life of your printer. Also the replacement cartridges are quite a bit cheaper than the ones I have bought for my previous printer. Overall, I am very happy with the choice I made. Great printer!
6 Canon S500 has advantages but also flaws
I use a MacIntosh G3 "Wall Street" powerbook, which is too old to support USB. I had to buy a USB plugin card that fits in my PCI slot, to get the printer hooked up. Unanticipated extra expense.
Print quality is excellent. Print speed is good, but not as good as advertised.
The printer has hung twice in the last two months. To get it working again, I had to reboot the printer, reboot the MacIntosh, and re-select the printer from the Chooser. It was an inconvenience for me, but a work-stopper for another member of my household.
If I were making this purchase decision again, I would still buy this printer.
7 Heavy duty printer
Our printer is used mainly for my children schoolwork. Prints beautifully and prints fast in black and white. Color prints take a bit longer, but this is the best buy I made. The printer is a bit heavy may take some space, but this does not bother me at all. If you want a real good printer, buy this one or the S520,S600.
8 Bad Printer
I started out purchasing the Cannon 450, when I took it home it would not print, I then returned the printer to the store and we tested a second, and it would not print. I then upgraded for more money to the S520. While it does print, the text is smeared, faded, and illegable, while the test color prints are ok. The Customer Service is a long Distance Phone Call to talk to a tech, the documentation is poor. THIS IS A DO NOT BUY product
9 I helped my daughter buy one, and now I shopping.
My daughter was in the market for a printer for college, and which would also print out acceptable photos from her digital camera. I helped her read reviews on the web concerning the Canon S500. It seemed to be faster and better than the newer and more expensive S800. So she ordered one. She has been most pleased with its performance - as long as she uses quality photo paper. She tried some bargain paper that I sent her, but never again. I'm seriously considering ordering one for myself, as I'm preparing to spring for a Canon S30 digital camera. Should be fun.
10 Best Choice under $150.00
Based on exhaustive research, I ordered the S500.
After opening the box, I was printing in less than half an hour.
Print quality is fantastic. The print speed is very speedy, when using the USB connection.
11 Prints a nice looking photo.
From arrival to printing the first page took about half an hour. The directions were clear, the printer text and photo print are very good. So far I have printed numerous pages and photos over a two week period and have barely used the ink which I find myself contantly monitoring since my last printer used up ink quickly. For the price a real buy.
12 Excellent quality. Ninja Quick.
The Canon S500 is extremely fast. About 4.9x faster than my Lexmark Z11. This is due mainly to the fact that it's print head can contain both color and black ink at the simultaneously. This means that it can simply use black ink for black instead of making black out of the other colors. It also saves a lot of annoying cartridge switching and money, since you don't need to replace three colors when only one is low. This is a very good printer. It looks kinda cool too.
13 PURR-FECT QUALITY =^..^= Great Price
My husband bought me this printer. I wanted the S600,but you were out of stock. After reading your reviews I decided to go with the S500. I am really satisfied. Great print quality and I love the individual ink tanks. Being an art teacher I am very particular about color quality..It's PURR-FECT and it has so much more ink. My old Canon printer had the colors in one. I didn't want an HP because of the all in one colors and the bottom loader. I really prefer the top load printer. This runs rings around my old Canon printer. Noise level isn't bad at all while printing. I have printed really....PURR-FECT pictures on regluar printing quality using card stock paper. When you put them in a frame they look like regular pictures. I am very HAPPY with the picture quality.
You'll Love it.... BUY ONE TODAY =^..^=
14 A fantastic, low cost high quality printer for Windows XP
First let me say that I am absolutely amazed and delighted by this printer! I have had Epson printers for a number of years now, and swore by them (though lately I have been swearing at them). After upgrading to a Windows XP system, I found that many of my Epson peripherals simply no longer had drivers that allowed them to operate. This was true of BOTH of my Epson printers, a stylus 740 and an old workhorse 900. I was rather upset with Epson that they really had no intention of doing anything about XP drivers, and I had to be content with the bundled XP driver that handles (poorly) the 740, OR download the Windows 2000 driver that they say "Probably works with Windows XP"...It doesn't - so don't do it!- in fact it had my printer substituting green for yellow, and unable to delete documents that would then spool for an eternity.
I read the reviews for the canon printers and liked what I read, but I really have to say, that the following points make this printer ideal for photo printing and documents:
1) Ease of use: It came with an XP driver! (Hello Epson!) and was installed and running in less than five minutes including alignment of the print head!
2) It has multiple "Ink tanks" that allow you to replace only the one you need. With my Epsons, I would print half a dozen large pictures for family members and I needed a new cartridge, primarily due to the fact that the magenta ink was out. Now, I can simply buy a cheap magenta cartridge!
3) Speed. Simply put this baby is fast! I test ran a 5x7 photo on high quality (In fairness to my old Epson I ran both of the prints at about 1240 x 780 or whatever the specific number is, though the Canon S500 does 2400 x 1200). The results knocked me out...First, the Epson took almost six minutes while the canon took less than a minute. More importantly, the image from the canon LOOKED BETTER! The tones were more natural, and the quality seemed more like a photo, even under a loupe. Next I did the same test but used cheap Jet Print photo paper. The canon STILL printed a fantastic picture, (in fact it looked as good as the one on Epson Glossy) while the Epson printed a horrible discolored wreck.
So, No more Epson for me. I am sick and tired of waiting for the drivers for my high end scanner and printers that may or may not ever come out; I am sick and tired of having to buy "genuine Epson paper" or be stuck with awful images, and I am REALLY tired of spending so much money for a single color cartridge. I don't intend to buy another printer or scanner from Epson again.
Do yourself a favor and get this printer if you want really nice images and text, easy installation, and a lot less of an outlay for inks and paper.
And once more for those who scan reviews briefly -YES this printer is FULLY windows XP supported and comes with the Driver CD Rom
15 Love At First Site
I received my Canon S500 only a few days ago and I love it. It is so much faster than my old printer and the color is wonderful. I printed some photos that looked nearly as good as the originals. I am so glad I chose this printer. For the money, I think it is better than most in its price range.
16 Great deal.
I just bought this printer for my daughter to take the place of a printer that was included in a new computer pkg. While most printers have now become quite inexpensive, they have very high operating costs (think of it as a "free" cell phone with a very high per minute rate). Anyway, this Canon S500 is quite efficient with the ink, and uses individual tanks for black and colors, so only what's been used has to be replaced. The speed is awesome (12 ppm B&W, 3/4 of that in color) at this price, and the mechanism is extremely quiet. What a perfect combination for the dorm! Lastly, the freebie I've disconnected was USB only, whereas this one offers a choice of USB or parallel connectivity. Not long ago, this printer would have cost 10 times as much!
17 Inexpensive but High Quality
Absolutely stunning photo quality printer. Not the fastest in the world, but it's fast enough for home use. Easy setup for Win ME and others including XP. Was up and running within 30 min. Test prints with included 4x6 Canon Photo Paper Pro blew me away. This baby cost half as much as my old BJC-600 did 7 years ago. This now replaces that dinosaur, which works great to this day! Canon makes quality items that will last for a long time. What are you waiting for, buy this printer now. You will be glad you did.
18 Nice Machine
High quality prints and fast but the best thing as per review I read in PCworld it had the lowest cost per page for prints. All inks are seperate cartridges so just be cause you run out of magenta you do not have to replace yellow and cyan.
19 Not DOS compatible!
I bought the Cannon S500 to replace a 15 year old HP Lasejet II, and to add color capability. The color is nice but the printer is no replacement for the Lasejet! I was unable to print anything from any of my old DOS programs and even a simple "COPY XXX.TXT PRN" command did not work.
I complained to Canon and they wrote back "Unfortunately the S500 is not compatible with MS-DOS applications. I apologize for any inconvenioence this may cause. We look forward to assisting you in the future."
I thought all non-postscript printers had HP PCL compatibility but the current Canon line does not. The PC Mag review of the S500 did not alert me to this limitation and none of the Canon ... S500 advertising mentioned it either.
Am I the only PC using dinosaur who still depends on DOS capabilities?
20 great printer
I happened to run across a Canon salesman in the store, when I bought this. I was looking at the S630 model, and he explained that this one (S500) just came out. The only difference between the S500 and other models of the S series is the speed. I found the speed more than adequate, and the picture quality matches that of the more expensive ones. I recommend this product to anyone that is looking for a printer with high resolution, but does not want to spend a lot of money.
