Canon Releases Pixma Pro-1

I have been hearing a lot of different thoughts on the new Canon Pixma Pro-1, but I still have some questions. So far I have been hearing about mostly the design of the printer; how bulky and heavy it is, considering that it only prints at 13" by 19" at the largest dimension.

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However, I am still wondering about the actual print quality? Is it really that great as it has been advertised, for the price tag of $1000 or should I consider another printer for cheaper and that might print larger? Any feed back would be great!

Also, I found 2 great articles on Canon's DLC blog talking about the set up of this printer from packaging to making your first print. Really nicely explained with pics for each step.

http://learn.usa.canon.com/resources/articles/2012/pixma_pro1_setup.shtml


http://learn.usa.canon.com/resources...rk_setup.shtml

I have the 9500 and 9000 and if the new pro is the same size it is big and bulky.
The old versions do an excellent job of printing, provided you use the right paper and work out a few bugs. I would recommend them

The 9500 is an ink system, where the 9000 is a dye system. The 9000 does excellent glossy work, where the 9500 ink based system does excellent with matt's and art type work.
The new Pro is a 12 ink system; I would think it would be a replacement to the 9500. The 9500 does not print glossy nearly as well as the 9000.

The old systems print quality was excellent. But I would probably not buy the new Pro for glossy work based on how the 9500 performs.

I wouldn't gamble $1000 on the new system to find out it is just a replacement to the 9500. A cheaper option is to find someone who got the 9000 or 9500 as part of a rebate, usually you can pick the printer up cheap.

Have been following the growing talk and reviews about the Pro1 as I have the Pro9000 and have been considering switching over to a pigment based ink to increase the range of materials that I can print on. The items that keep being touted about it the most are a slightly larger colour gamut compared to the 9500, the use of 5 black and grey inks for a major boost to B&W prints, the elimination of wasting ink to switch black inks, and the gloss optimizer. Biggest sheet it will handle is 14x40ish inches so it has been enhanced there for panorama printing compared to the 14x26 for the 9000. Reviewers seem to have quite favourable comments about the print quality but so do the 9500 reviews.

Biggest complaints are the difficulty that some encounter with setting up custom size prints, the amount of border space produced on some specific print sizes, and the physical size of the printer.

Of course $1000 for a printer isn't insignificant. Compared to several thousand for one that will handle anything I'm likely to throw at it (24 inch wide)I'm thinking that the Pro1 would handle almost everything that I print with the small number of larger prints annually being done continuing to be uploaded to my local print shop who will also directly ship to the client. As I have produced colour calibration files for their printer it is with confidence that I can softproof the images before sending them off.

Is it worth the extra money over the 9500? I don't know for certain. I'd really like to find someone who has one print a few photos for me so I can see what it can do with some of my more challenging prints.