Canon PIXMA MP560 Wireless Inkjet All-In-One Photo Printer (3747B002)

If you are new to inkjet printers (like I am) you might want to take the time and read this long review. If inkjets are old hat, just ignore this review.This is my first inkjet color printer (I have a laser printer I use for text, which is the only way to go if you print a lot of text). The Canon PIXMA mp560 is a fairly nice looking printer, but nothing I'd write home about. When all closed up, it looks more like a small suitcase than a printer (about 17" w x 6" h x 15" d). You'll add another 6 inches in height with the rear paper feeder extended (not including the paper itself) and perhaps 3 inches to its depth. It came packaged well, but there was a lot of tape stuck everywhere one could possibly look.Setting it up and putting the ink cartridges in does take some time for a novice user like myself, but it is pretty straight forward and the instructions were easy to follow. I hooked it up with a USB printer cable (not supplied, but I have a few on hand). I may or may not mess with the wi-fi setup, even though that was one of the functions I initially wanted. I installed the provided Canon software and everything seems to be working properly. I run Mac OS 10.5.8 (Leopard).The 560 has a small 2-inch LCD screen that one can use. The controls seem logical and it was pretty simple to poke around and see how they work. However, I doubt I'll use it much. I use the supplied software for the Mac (although it is surprisingly slow and has a few minor bugs -- settings sometimes don't take or don't always function the way they should). The few times I printed text, I just hit command P. I checked the print quality on text (just out of curiosity) and it looked surprisingly good. I also liked that the front door of the receiving tray opens up automatically when you print anything. Pretty nifty.I really didn't need an all-in-one (AOI) printer, but the price difference was only 15 bucks (at the time) vs the PIXMA ip4700 I was looking at. The scanner is suppose to be 2400 x 4800 dpi, so I scanned a 5 x 7 photo and printed it on 4 x 6 glossy paper (on vivid setting) and I thought it turned out great, which indicated to me that this printer does indeed scan at high resolutions. It surprised me so much that perhaps I will use the scanner more than I ever anticipated. Just be aware that there is no FAX function, or bluetooth capability (bluetooth is a 50 buck add-on).I also ran a few tests on photographs my son emailed me (the main reason anyone buys this type of printer is for photos). At its default setting, the pictures were decent, but a bit washed out. However, on the vivid setting, these photos were quite impressive (just like the scanned photo), at least I was very happy with them (Canon supplies a few sheets of their photo glossy paper and it's really nice paper). As far as the print speed goes, that was not one of my biggest concerns. I think the 4 x 6 photos printed out in a reasonable time (although prep is a little slow), and I liked that the printer starts up quickly after being turned off. Now if I was a heavy user, I might think differently, especially if I were printing out 8 x 10s. I do think it's too slow for text, but that's comparing it with my laser printer (which one shouldn't do). Besides, I use this inkjet for only the occasional photograph or printing out an occasional CD cover and insert, and not for text. I also found this printer surprisingly quiet as it is printing. When preparing to print, mechanically it will make noise (same as when scanning), but actual printing is another matter.Printing photos to standard bond paper is a no-no. Hey, I knew it was, but I was testing as many things as possible concerning this printer. The picture came out fuzzy and washed out. Printed on glossy paper, it prints out great (as I mentioned above).This being my first inkjet (or Canon product), I had a hard time locating the front paper cassette. I was surprised when I stumble onto it. It pulls out from the bottom front of the unit (yes, the directions show this, but I was having one of those "duh" moments). I read where it is suppose to hold 80 sheets of paper (or 150 sheets depending upon the professional review one reads). Perhaps 80 might be correct, but I doubt 150 sheets. Personally, I wouldn't go more than 50 sheets of 24 lb. bond. I like that the front cassette is hidden from view (it's nice not to have a paper cassette sticking out). It also comes with a rear feeder for thicker paper stock (photo paper or card stock) and 8-1/2 x 14 inch paper (legal size). Having two different sources to print from is a nice feature.This printer also has duplex printing capability. Well, it's more of a novelty really, because it is extremely slow printing this way. But if you have the time, this machine will do it for you without problems. Just go out and have a cup of coffee while it's printing (maybe even two if it's a fairly long document). And whether one uses standard paper, thicker high gloss paper, or even card stock (I tested it on 110 lb. card stock), this printer works without paper jamming. I will say that it pulled in the last two sheets of photo paper when it should have taken only one (but it did not jam). I also waited several days before I printed anything again. I wanted to see if the ink heads dried out a bit, but I had no problem with it. This machine does test the ink heads, which will no doubt use up ink far more rapidly.All-in-all, a nicely designed and inexpensive multi-function printer that more than meets my meager needs and expectations. And because this Canon does so many things well, I give the 560 a 7 out of 10 (or a marginal 4-star rating). With reasonable ink prices, I'd up this rating to perhaps a marginal 5 stars. Just realize that I have no idea how it compares to other brands or even to other Canons.I guess the biggest downside for me was to learn that I couldn't pop in a USB flash drive (the connection ports in front are different, so I'm not sure what the write up talks about as far as USB flash drives). And while the front ports are hidden and gives the printer a nice clean look (the ports are deeply recessed behind a small panel), one needs a flashlight to connect anything. I also suspect for those that don't have a laser printer, the print speeds for text may be an issue, especially if you want to print both sides of a sheet of paper. I also realize that for those who heavily use an inkjet printer, ink costs will be another big issue (one full set of 5 ink cartridges will cost around 60 percent of the price of the printer -- one professional reviewer called it larceny), but that's probably typical of most inkjet printers. BTW, I thought people were kidding when they said that when the printer runs out of ink, just buy a new printer (they are not far from wrong).EDIT: Hey, I found the USB port. It's much easier to access than the other interface connectors (it's under the connector panel/door). Good grief, I've had this printer for several weeks and just now spotted it. So I now give this printer an 8 out of 10 (still 4 stars, but a solid 4 stars).

UPDATE (2011/03): Canon is phasing out this printer, replacing it with the MG5220. As supply runs low, this old model is offered by third parties at a higher price. Go with the new model, save money, enjoy full ' Mac OS X compatibility out of the box. Namaste.My old review:--------------------------------------I wrote this review to help Mac OS X 10.6 users. If you are a Windows user, please read the other reviews of this product.This is a high quality, versatile, quiet, well thought out, well built all-in-one printer. As with other brands, the included software is pile of unnecessary mediocre ugly looking confusing mess. Canon makes a mistake by not offering a driver only installation, which would allow us to use the printer and the scanner without installing their proprietary software suite. I am set out to correct their mistake...Connecting the printer to WiFi is very simple, just navigate in the printer's setup menu on it's LCD, select your network and type in the password. The blue WiFi LED will confirm that the printer is connected.To be able to print wirelessly, you have to have the latest drivers.To install them, forget about the CD in the box (it has OS X 10.5 compatible drivers only), and the 13 page "Getting Started" guide to install stuff you don't need. Just download the latest drivers from the Canon USA website. Go to Canon USA :: Downloads :: Consumer Products :: Multifunction :: Photo All-In-One Inkjet Printers :: PIXMA MP560, grab and install these files:- MP560 series CUPS Printer Driver Ver. 10.26.1.0 (Mac OS X 10.5/10.6)- MP560 series Scanner Driver Ver. 15.4.1 (Mac OS X 10.3/10.4/10.5/10.6)- ICA Driver (Mac OS X 10.6)(the version numbers might change when updates are coming out)Once the printer drivers are installed on your Mac and it's connected to the same WiFi network as the printer, just go to System Preferences / Print & Fax / + (add printer) and wait a few seconds. You will see a "Canon MP560 Series Bonjour Scanner" and a "Canon MP560 Series_NNNNNN0000000 canonijnetworkr" printer listed, you can add them and you are ready to print and scan! When adding, you can edit the name to make it look a little bit nicer. If you prefer, you can connect the printer via an USB cable and the printer will be automatically installed.I spent hours trying to figure this all out on my iMac, I installed the contents of the CD, tried to upgrade the drivers from the Apple and the Canon websites. Once I understood what needed to be done, it took only minutes to install the drivers on my two MacBook's. Save yourself some headache and keep your Mac clean of bloated junkware by installing only the drivers you need. These will allow you to control all the printer's functions (duplex, paper size and type, alignment, head cleaning, ink levels, etc.), and even your spouse and kids will be able to use them.Why can not these instructions be found on Canon's support pages? Why is their installation procedure so messy? Trust me, it's not a Mac problem, their Windows soluition is equally complicated. Will the situation be better once their printers ship with OS X 10.6 compatible drivers? I think the core problem is that they are not listening to their customers. If they did, you'd see a reply from a Canon official under my review. Don't look, it won't be there...This printer supports direct iPhone printing if you install the free "Canon Easy-Photoprint" app from the Apple App Store. You will be able to print to 4x6" photo paper right from your iPhone when both devices are connected to the same WiFi network.I recommend this printer, it does a nice job once it's set up. Do not hesitate to buy it if you are on Snow Leopard. But call Canon's support line and tell them they should not overcomplicate the printer installation process.Update 1: If you have any kind of trouble with the printer or the installation, call Canon Support at 1-800-828-4040, they are very good with Mac's and willing to spend the time figuring out problems. My iMac could not detect the printer through WiFi no matter what I tried while my MacBook's could print flawlessly. Canon support figured out that Parallels was interfering with the network settings even when not running. I doubted it, but Parallels support confirmed it. I had to remove Parallels, install the printer and re-instal Parallels. All works now.Update 2: For occasional single page scanning jobs Snow Leopard's built-in Image Capture is sufficient. If you want to catalog your scans, convert them to multi-page PDF's, use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) to create editable text files from of your scans, you should download and install Canon's "MP Navigator EX 3.0". The name is not very catchy, but he interface is nice, the functions are not too hard to learn, and the program does well what it's supposed to do. It's a decent scanning utility, go for it if you don't mind the 80 MB installation footprint.Update 3: Thank you everyone for your kind words in the comments! I am not an educator, just a frustrated customer who wanted to save others from the trouble I went through. I'm very pleased that this review helped so many fellow Mac users with installing a nice multifunction printer. Thank you Amazon for the opportunity! If any of you purchases this printer and finds that a Snow Leopard compatible installation disk is included, please let us know, I will update the review.

Since my Dot Matrix Epson printer that I used up until my 2nd semester of my freshman year in college which was over 14 years ago, I have always bought HP printers never even considering another manufacturer. I was always under the impression that HP made the best printers and no one was ever going to change my mind. This was up until my HP 932C stopped working properly about a year ago. It would not print certain colors (mainly black) even though the black cartridge was full of ink. It could have been the ink cartridges I bought from Ebay that had expired expiration dates (I refused to spend nearly $80 for replacement black and color cartridges), or maybe the printer head went bad, but in any case I was ready for a change. I refused to go back to HP because I have read many places that they purposely date their cartridges so when the expiration date is reached, the printer will not print even if the cartridge still has ink. If this is true, then this is unfortunate and a rip off.After years of pricing and researching printers, I decided on this wonderful Canon MP560 and absolutely love it. The first thing I noticed is that is has separate ink cartridges. (Magenta, Yellow, Cyan, and 2 black cartridges). So no more being forced to buy a "tri color" cartridge if your Cyan ink runs out. This is a money saver right here. I can't tell you how much money I've wasted having to buy a tri color cartridge with my HP printer just because one color ran out. I haven't actually priced Canon ink, but the fact that you can buy them separately means you only buy what you need, and even three color cartridges cost the same (or a little more as an HP tri color cartridge), you will still save money unless you use the exact same amount of ink in every print job.The Canon MP560 is packed with cool and useful features that leave you wondering why it doesn't cost more. My favorite feature is the wireless capability which allows all your computers to connect to it provided you have a wireless network. This provides a lot of convenience because you don't have to worry about crawling behind you desk to connect the printer to your PC. In addition to this you don't have to worry about sharing the printer for other PC's on your network since it is a network printer. Setup of the wireless network is fairly easy; however entering your encryption key using the printer's jog dial is a little tedious. Perhaps an on screen virtual keyboard would have made this process a little easier, but luckily you only have to do this one time until you change your Encryption Key or SSID name. Keep in mind, even if you don't have a wireless network, you can still connect the printer to your PC using the traditional method via USB. No, it does not come with a USB cable (virtually no printers do), but a USB cable can be had for CHEAP and chances are if you've had your computer for any amount of time, you probably already have a spare one lying around anyway.This printer also allows you plug memory devices directly into it and the nifty flip up screen on the printer shows thumbnail previews of all the images stored on the device and it allows you select which one/s you would like to print. Though it seems to default to 4" x 6", you can select paper size, image quality, etc of the photo you would like to print without even having to use a PC. The media it accepts includes, Compact Flash, USB, and Mini SD. On top of this there is a Bluetooth adapter you can buy which will allow you to print directly from Bluetooth devices such as your mobile phone.There is also a scanner which also replaces my broken HP 4300C ScanJet. The only drawback I see with the scanner is that its size is only 9.5" X 11". My other scanner had a larger scan area, but since I don't plan on using the scanner that much anyway, it's not really a problem for me.Print quality to me is excellent, especially considering the price. I don't have problem with ink bleeding through with my documents using the same 20 lb. paper that I have always bought. Photo quality is really good; however you may have to manually adjust the brightness, contrast, and other settings to get the image to print exactly how you want it. The default settings don't always produce the result you may want, but a little tweaking of the settings should alleviate most of the issues. I will occasionally print photos, but for the most part this printer will be used for printing B/W documents so while image quality is somewhat important to me, I don't expect it to be perfect. Additionally, the printer has two paper trays, a paper cartridge that slides under the printer and a rear paper feeder that folds out when needed. When not needed, the rear paper tray hides away from view. Another plus is that the printer can print double sided with no extra attachments needed. Some may find the printing speed to be a little on the slow side especially with photos, but even with its slow printing it's still faster than my HP.All in all I am satisfied with and don't regret my purchase, I have been holding off on buying a new printer for many years because I just don't like spending money on items like this unless I absolutely have to. My 10+ year old 932C has been having problems for over a year, but I made do with it until now. I wasn't looking for anything top of the line so for my purposes this printer was an excellent choice. If your price range is close to what mine was and really just want a printer that can print clear documents with the occasional photo then you can not go wrong with the MP560. If this is a little more than you wanted to spend and don't care about the wireless capability, then I encourage you to take a look at the Canon MP490Do I recommend the MP560? Yes.

I got this printer to replace my canon pixma ip6000D. I spent some time in asia last year and plugged it into a 220v socket by accident and fried the power adapter. I called the service center back in california where I live and they told me it would cost more than $100.On amazon the canon mp560 is the new replacement for my old canon printer and has a scanner and is wireless too. At $90 its a bargain.Printer arrived yesterday. opened the box, i suggest you choose the gift wrap option if you want the box to be covered because it ships in the original box. When my printer arrived the ups man left it on my doorstep. good thing noone snatched it before i got home.In the box you have 5 ink cartridges, power cable, manual and quick start guides. I removed all the orange tape, took out the printer head which was placed inside the printer still wrapped.After making sure printer is untaped and empty, i plugged in the printer and pressed the power. The printer was ready to go in a few seconds. (Don't place the printer head or ink cartridges in the printer yet). The little lcd screen will start showing the setup instructions and tell you when to do the next step. This is the most easiest setup i ever experienced with a printer. In the setup it will also tell you when to open the printer head, how to install it, and when to install the ink cartridges. Everything the printers lcd screen shows is also in the quick start guide. Very easy to setup.After setting it up, it will clean the printer heads, tell you to load paper so it can start algining the heads, print out a test pattern, tell you to place the test pattern sheet on the scanner and will automatically align the heads for you. it is a clever way of doing it. i was impressed.When everything is done the lcd will show the main menu. I love the dial, old ipod mp3 style dial that clicks too. I chose the setting-->Wireless Lan setup. It detected my router and I entered the router's password using the dial on the printer. (TIP: to get to small letters rotate dial counter clockwise, to get to capital letters faster rotate dial clockwise). The canon mp560 immediately joined my wifi network.What I like about this printer is that I can leave photo glossy II paper on the top rack, and my letter size paper on the bottom. The printer will automatically detect when to use the photo paper or plain paper.The first thing I did was use canon's easy photo print app for the iphone. The mp560 was automatically detected and paper size, type and quality was also. (I recommend using the canon photo glossy II paper for photos...they are amazing even with iphone pictures.) The photos printed out beautifully.I then setup the printer on the desktop(win xp), a laptop(win vista), and netbook(win xp) in the apartment I am staying at. It was very easy to setup the windows drivers. if you have a netbook without an optical drive goto your web browser, using google search type in "canon support". Click on the "Support - Canon USA Consumer Products" search result, click Multi-function Printer --> Inkjet --> Pixma MP560 and click GO. Click Drivers and Downloads and select OS. Download installer by clicking the exe file in red letters, click i agree (on the bottom of the page) and save it. (UPDATE: Also download the MP Navigator EX SOFTWARE for scanning docs from the canon to any computer you choose on the same network.) Actually it was so easy doing it htis way from the canon support page and downloading the exe file that I dit it for all PCs. I never used the intalled cd that came in the box.run the installer, choose connect printer via network(wifi), it will check for the printer, choose it. The wifi connection will get checked and you can start printing from any of the computers you installed the drivers on.I love the duplex printing, printing on both sides. How this works is the printer will print the first page, the printed page will then go back into the printer and turn the page for you and print the other side. This is the best way to print manuals, parts of textbooks that use both sides. No more choosing only odd, or only even and then thinking of how to reinsert the paper so that the even numbers print on the back. And then thinking of how to end up with the first page on the top. No more worries...with the duplex printing, just know the page range, click duplex, and it prints, turns the page, prints the back, and when your done, the first page will always be on the top.UPDATE: just tried scanning from the canon mp560 to other computers on the wifi network. Very cool. You go to the canon and click scan on the main menu --> click to PC --> choose the computer on the wifi network --> choose type - i chose save to pdf --> and you scan the document, after the first doc is scanned the canon will ask if you want to scan a new doc or end the scanning session. when the scanning is done the pdf will pop up on the computer you picked.The best reason to buy this printer is the cost of ink...this is the printer with the most affordable ink prices. I like this printer because, like my old canon pixma ip6000D i can stil print even though the printer says the ink cartridge is low unlike the other printers out there.I will research on how to print outside my network so i can print from anywhere.

I have been using the Canon PIXMA MP560 for over a month now. Setup was probably a lot more easier if I used the installation CD because it would install all of the required components to make my printer ready. I didn't use the installation CD that was shipped with the printer. Instead, I downloaded the setup software for the printer from Canon site. I first downloaded and installed the latest printer driver. When I tried to test the printer by sending it a Word document to print, the printer manager appeared to time out and print job eventually failed. I then called Canon technical support. The tech support person was very helpful. He guided me through each of the installation steps since I didn't use the setup CD. It turned out that I had to download and install all component software such as the MP Navigator, Easy Photo, and the Network Tool. Once the setup was complete, I had to setup the printer to use Wireless connection because I have three PCs connecting to the router on the LAN. If you want to use direct connection to the printer, you would need to purchase a special USB cable with a special head that is connecting to the printer. I have an old USB cable left over from my previous HP inkjet printer. But using a direct connection via the USB cable is inconvenient because the PC that is connected to the printer must be on before you could print anything. So, using wireless connection is much more preferable. I have no problem printing from any of my three PCs.To use the wireless connection, I needed to use WPA2 option for wireless authentication protocol. That means, I had to set up a long pass phrase through the LCD control panel so that the printer can sign on to the wireless network automatically whenever it is powered up. Whether to use WPA2 is dependent on whether you desire to have a secure wireless network. Since I had already set up my wireless router to use WPA2 protocol, I had to choose the WPA2 option when I set up my printer. I also used MAC address filtering on my wireless router and so I had to navigate through the setup menu on the LCD control panel to find the MAC address of the printer. Once the setup is complete, the printer is ready to use. By the way, you have to assign a unique name to your printer so that you can select it from a dropdown box whenever you print a document.After the setup, I tested the Easy Photo to print a color picture. It is pretty easy to use. Just start the Easy Photo on your desktop and pick a picture of your favorite to print. My test picture came out perfectly. The photo printing is pretty fast too. I haven't tried to use the memory slot on the printer to print photo directly using the control panel. But I like the Easy Photo because it makes the pictures selection so much easier.Without the MP Navigator, it was pretty clumsy trying to scan a document that had multiple pages. Originally, I used the LCD control panel to scan the document one page at a time. It worked as expected except that the next page I scanned in was stored to the same directory under the same default file name. In effect, Canon PIXMA MP560 overrides the scanned in document unless I change the default file name right after scanning to prevent the file from being overridden. The whole process was rather arduous because I had to move the flash drive back and forth between the PC and the printer in order to change the name of the scanned in document before starting the next scan. That was rather slow and tedious. I highly recommend to use the MP Navigator.Using the MP Navigator is so much easier for scanning documents. All I needed to do is to start scanning and the printer automatically saved the JPG image of the page to the selected PC. When I started the scanning on the printer, I had to choose which PC to save the image to. If I wanted to save one or more pages in a single PDF file, I could check all the related images in the sequence that I wanted my pages to appear in a PDF document. Then, I just clicked the Save All button to aggregate these selected images into a single PDF document. Without the MP Navigator, you can never collate the pages together in one document: Each page is saved as a PDF file by itself using the same default file name. That's why your file can be overridden if you forget to change the file name after the scanning if you don't install the MP Navigator on your computer. So, it is a good idea to install the MP Navigator before you do any scanning. Scanning photos works the same way as scanning documents except that you need to rename the image file names.Scanning black and white document is good. But when I tried to copy a page that had dark red color, I got a light pink color instead. The printer couldn't quite replicate the color from my original document. Copying a color document might not guarantee color fidelity in the resulting copy. Overall, the printer is pretty good to have.

This printer was purchased as a birthday present for my mother, who has been hampered by a Windows Vista computer and a malfunctioning HP Printer (it worked great with XP...). We purchased the Canon PIXMA MP560 printer for $85 (free shipping) on Amazon, and comparing the price to other retailers online (and the retail price), it was no contest.This printer has some features that you may already know of via the product description page, but I'd like to elaborate on some of these features.Thoughts out of the box:-The MP560 has a folding LCD screen that covers the function buttons. The screen is not too large, but it does seem to have large enough text (and a simple GUI) to work well for novice printer users. There are not too many buttons, and they're large, well-marked, and simple enough for anyone to recognize.-The printer has a lower paper tray (for regular inkjet/copier paper) and an upper vertical tray (for thicker photo paper and other things). The vertical tray has an automatic two-sided width adjustment/alignment, so any size paper is aligned to the proper position every time (and the thickness is adjustable from maximum printing width of the printer, down to only an inch or so).-The basic instruction manual is printed on paper, and easily guided me through the process of installation of the print head/ink, paper, software, and wireless network capability. This guide has simple words and illustrations, though it does not include every detail of the printer's operations (the more complex instruction/user manual is electronic, and is installed with the printer software). There is a Network Troubleshooting guide, as well, that seems to be rather detailed (though unnecessary in my case). The printer comes with a sample pack of 4"x6" photo paper, which we immediately tested (and it passed the test with flying colors). There's other throw-away junk included, but nothing that surprising.-The printer is clearly labeled so as to make it simple to place cartridges in the right location, once the print head is installed.-The fact that the MP560 has multiple single-color ink cartridges may seem expensive at first, but with tri-color cartridge printers, we would always seem to run out of a single color much faster than other colors... so we were wasting a good amount of ink each and every time we replaced a cartridge. This printer seems to have ink cartridges that would be easier to refill than some other cartridges, as well.After powering it on:-It was EFFORTLESS to set up the MP560 on our wireless network. It quickly detected the network (our router is on another floor in the house, on the other side of the house), and it still had a good quality signal, and it only took a few minutes (and only a couple pushes of a button... plus entering our internet security key) before the printer was connected. There is a rotating pad (similar to an IPod) on the printer that lets you select any security codes you may have (and navigate through the GUI)... so it may take awhile if one has an alphanumeric password, but it was rather quick for a numeric 8-key code. Heck, my mom is not too familiar with computers, and I have no doubts that she could have set up this printer with the network.-The printer comes with easy to use software (again, in Vista), though it does take a few minutes for the software to install itself on a PC. The basic instruction manual makes it rather easy to install everything, whether using Windows or Mac. Once installed, the printer is rather effortlessly found (remember to have attached the printer to the wireless network), and before you know it, you're ready to print.-The printer has a laser ink level meter for every cartridge, and it can be displayed on the computer and on the 2" LCD screen on the printer (actually, pressing one button on the "Home" screen will allow you to see each ink level). So far, it does not appear as if this printer over-uses ink... in fact, printing on glossy photo paper seems to suggest there's less "gunk" on the paper than some other printers, perhaps due to the finer ink jets this printer allegedly uses.Using the printer for the first time:-The printer and software actually WORK WELL with Windows Vista!-The printer does take a few seconds to warm up, but after the first print job, it seems to be much faster.-The MP560 didn't have a single problem feeding thicker photo paper.-The quality of printed pictures is very good, showing very tight pixels even on plain paper. Photo paper shows an excellent picture quality, and the software included with the printer makes it effortless to print photos with certain photo papers... no need to change printer settings manually.-The scanner/copier seems to produce quality pictures, although this isn't the fastest, nor the quietest, copier I've seen in a multi-use printer.-The Duplex printing feature is a great thing to have in a lower-cost home printer, as few documents are of an official, legal nature, hence there's no need for one-sided printing. It gets to be inconvenient to flip the pages by hand each and every time one wants to print on both sides of a piece of paper, so it is great to find a lower-cost printer that has this feature. This printer does not print internally, it prints on one side and extracts the page, then gathers the page back inside the printer and prints on the other side, so I don't know how well Duplex printing would work on thicker media such as fabrics.All in all, this is a great printer so far. It beats anything I've ever owned, in terms of print quality and functionality, and I'd say it's a pretty good value to boot. Mom is certainly happy about this printer, and she's going to test it with some of her crafts... let's see how it stands up to the test of time when she puts it to use.

I'm using Mac 10.6.2, Snow Leopard on a 24" iMac.The MP560 produces excellent text and photo quality.It can be used hard wired or wireless but not both at the same time. So if you have a laptop as well as a desk computer as we do, do not use a USB cable to connect the printer to the computer as it will then not be accessible to the wireless laptop.It does not support auto on/off but if left powered on, it goes into sleep energy saver mode and wakes quickly. At first this seemed to be a problem deal breaker but learning of the power save mode makes it easy to keep the printer on if we know that we will be using it from our laptops rather than the iMac.Ink cartridges significantly smaller than for my previous Pixma 5200 but slightly cheaper. But it will be the primary expense of this printer. I am not sure if this is different from any other brand of printer out there, however.The paper outlet drawer opens automatically when the printing begins so you can leave it closed for a tidier look to the printer.You do not have to install the complete software et al contents of the Installation disc if you chose not to. Using the installation disc, you can chose Custom Install and chose only what you want to install. The choices are the instruction manual, the drivers, and the software so it is not necessary to install the complete package as has been noted in another review.The top paper slot is for Photo paper, and the bottom tray is for regular paper. The default on the printer is Automatic Chosing depending on what you are going to print. On my older Pixma 5200, you have to tell the printer which tray of the two to use but it was not any problem with the 5600 as the automatic choice seems to work just fine every time.The lcd screen, which is becoming standard on printers these days, allows for printing directly from a camera without the computer, and allows for esy copying. My current copier is a sheet loader so a receipt or other small item has to be taped to a full sized page to pass through the copier. Not so with this machine as you just lift the top door of the scanner component and place your small paper inside just like the grown up copiers. This makes a hugh difference wfor us but probably not so if you already have a copy machine that works the same way.A major problem occurred but Canon tech support helped me develop a workaround solution.iPhoto in 10.6.2 cannot print borderless of any number of prints per page other than one. So if you want to print 2 or 4 borderless prints per page, you will get borders despite the settings you chose. It will print a borderless full page print, however but you will be taken through an extra print dialogue box after you select Print.Because of this, I installed the Canon software which is much more intuitive to use than printing from iPhoto itself and does allow for multiple borderless prints per page. The problem with the Canon Easy PhotoPrint EX is that it does not recognize iPhoto so you cannot chose any of the photos in the iPhoto library. What to do?Create a desktop folder (mine is called iPhoto pics) and Copy and Paste any photos from iPhoto that you wish to print. The Canon Easy PhotoPrint software will callup a dialogue box allowing you to chose form many areas of your computer to chose photos to print, and the Desktop is among them. It takes several clicks the first time to get to the Desktop photos. So when the Easy Photoprint appears in the dock (which it will once you start the Print process), right click on it and click Remain in dock choice). Then, every time you click on it in the dock, it will immediately take you to the folder on the desktop in which you have saved your photos for printing. It is much easier and quicker than it takes to read this paragraph.Now you can print as many borderless prints per page as you want directly from the Canon proprietary software.I'm looking forward to creating a custom Calendar and Valentine's Day album with photos on every page using the included software that walks you through the process.

I’m typing this review after my MP560 has decided that today it doesn’t want to make photocopies. No reason given, it just doesn’t want to do it. I’m beginning to think the “MP” in MP560 stands for “Might Print.” (If so, I’d suggest to Canon that “MPMN” would be more accurate: Might Print, Might Not.) Some days it hops right to it. Other days it takes up to three minutes of enigmatic clunking and whirring before it deigns to copy one page. And today, as it sometimes does, it decides that it just doesn’t want to be a printer. Pushing the “start” button on my MP560 is similar to pulling a lever on a slot machine: I never know what’s going to happen. I suppose the upside of this is that I’ll never waste money on a trip to Vegas, because my printer gives me all the gambling excitement I’ll ever want.If you want an ontologically tormented printer that can’t decide what it wants to be, then this is the printer for you. Me, I’d like a printer that happily embraces its function and performs it without throwing geeky temper tantrums.On top of this, the MP560 suffers from needlessly bloated software, performing inscrutable functions that are annoyingly non-intuitive. One example: scanning a document is needlessly complex, and the MP560 saves every scan in a very slow program where I’ve yet to figure out how to delete scans I no longer want. I’m sure it’s possible to delete them. All I need to do is wade through the Russian novel of an owner’s manual to find out how. To me, this is an example of software geeks gone wild, cramming arcane functions into what should be a simple product. Note to software designers: most people don’t want to devote a significant portion of their lives to figuring out how to work a printer. We want to print, copy, and scan with a minimum of fuss.This printer’s deficiencies even extend to minor details. For example, the blank paper holding tray slides neatly into the base of the printer. Is the front of the tray transparent, so you can see how much paper is left? Of course not. It’s black opaque plastic, so the only way to know if there’s any paper in the holding tray is to slide it out and look. One would think that making a transparent tray would be obvious to any competent design team. But it wasn’t obvious to the MP560’s designers.—January 14, 2011 Update—Today my MP560 is refusing to scan a document until I replace an empty cyan ink tank. Mind you, I’m not trying to print anything. I just want to scan a document. Really? Canon, are you still running this old scam, forcing customers to buy an ink cartridge even when they’re doing something that has nothing to do with printing? Unbelievable. If anyone wants a free Canon MP560, they can find mine at the curb in front of my home on the next trash pickup day. Although I’ve had this printer only one year, I want this piece of junk out of my life.—Another Update—Wait, this gets better. After writing the above, I decided to give this printer one more chance. I bought the cyan ink cartridge that the printer said was empty. Installed the cartridge, and then tried to make a black and white copy for a student during a lesson. First my student and I waited a full three minutes while MP560 deliberated mysteriously. Then it announced that the magenta cartridge was empty. It hadn’t said anything about this when it told me the cyan cartridge was empty. And of course it refused to make a black and white copy.—And Yet Another Update—By this time, I have a perverse curiousity in just how bad this printer can be. So I bought the magenta cartridge and installed it. Then I tried to make a scan. Temporaily satisfied that it has no more empty cartridges, my MP560 is now refusing to scan a document. I push all the correct buttons (the same ones I’ve done in the past), the printer displays “processing” on its video display, then it tells me to press the “Color” button, which I already did. So I press it again. Again I get the “processing” display, then it again tells me to press the “Color” button. And if I do it again? Same result. Will MP 560 do a scan for me? Not today. Apparently it now prefers to see how many times I’ll push the same button hoping for a different result.Dear Canon: I say this with deepest sincerity. You’ve managed to design and build a printer that’s guaranteed to drive its owner crazy. Indeed, I’m in awe of what you’ve accomplished with the MP560. Really. I consider myself a reasonably patient man. But your product has driven me to seriously consider smashing it with a sledgehammer. If this was your design team’s intent, then congratulations on a job well done.—Workaround to keep printing when a color cartridge is empty—Hold the “Color” and “Stop” buttons down simultaneously until the orange light goes out. Then you might be able to make a black & white print or do a scan. (Of course, if the black ink cartridge is empty, you won’t be able to print a black & white page.) My thanks to “Staci,” whoever she is, who described this workaround in a comment on another MP560 product review.