Canon Pixma iP4920 First Look Review and Introduction
The Canon Pixma iP4920 was released in the Summer of 2011. Red River Paper had one immediately dispatched to our Dallas headquarters for evaluation and profile production. Below is a review of the printer features, print quality, and media handling.
The iP4920 is the successor to the Canon Pixma iP4820. In printers are very similar. |
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What comes in the Box
The Canon iP4920 is a desktop, single function photo inkjet printer. It is one of a very small number of single function machines left on the market today. Most Canon inkjet printers are all-in-one models that include scanner, copy, and fax features.
The iP4920 comes well packed and secured. It includes:
- Printer
- Getting Started Setup
- Software & User's Guide CD-ROM
- CD / DVD Printing Tray
- Inks: PGI-225 Pigment Black CLI-226 (Cyan/Magenta/Yellow/Black)
- Power Cord
- Print Head
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Setup
You can see the process of installing the print head below. Print head and ink installation take about two minutes. After the head and inks are on board, the printer charges the head for about five minutes and is ready to begin printing.
Canon iP4920 print head module |
iP4920 with inks installed |
iP4920 uses individual ink tanks |
Features
Inks
The Canon iP4920 printer uses the ChromaLife 100+ ink system that consists of five individual ink tanks: four dye based inks and one pigment based black. The ChromaLife 100+ system is capable of resisting fade longer than traditional dye based ink systems when displayed in the proper conditions. Under glass or plexi, ChromaLife 100+ prints can resist fade for 20+ years on high quality inkjet media. In dark storage, fade resistance extends much longer.
- Cyan dye ink (CLI-226 Cyan)
- Magenta dye ink (CLI-226 Magenta)
- Yellow dye ink (CLI-226 Yellow)
- Black dye ink (CLI-226 Black)
- Black pigment ink (PGI-225 Pigment Black)
The Canon iP4920 uses a thermal print head that can be replaced should it fail over time. |
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Controls and connections
Controls on the printer are simple. They include a power button and resume / cancel button which is used for paper feed, ejection and other tasks.
The power connection is on the back lower right side of the printer. It is the standard two prong plug used on all Canon desktop models. |
Front control buttons |
Power plugin |
The iP4920 connects to your computer via a USB 2.0 port located on the back lower left of the machine.
A PictBridge connection port is located on the front lower right of the printer. The PictBridge is used to print directly from certain digital cameras with no need for a connection to your PC or Mac. |
Rear USB 2.0 port |
Front PictBridge port |
Specialty Features
The Pixma iP4920 has a number of specialty printing features. You can use the machine to print on inkjet coated CD and DVD discs.
The second feature is duplex printing on light weight plain and coated media. The duplex option is only available when printing from the front paper cassette. Duplex printing is helpful for document and presentation projects where saving paper or space is a requirement. |
DVD PRINTING |
Duplex system accessible from rear of machine |
Paper Feed and Handling
The Canon iP4920 has two paper feed options, the top tray and the bottom slide out paper cassette. You will use the top paper tray for the vast majority of photo printing needs. The tray can hold up to 30 sheets of typical photo weight glossy or satin paper. The bottom cassette is intended for plain or very light coated paper. |
Top Paper Feed Tray |
Front light weight paper cassette |
The iP4920 can accept sheets of paper 4" x 6" up to 8.5" x 23.9" in length. The printer comes with a number of popular paper sizes such as 4x6, 5x7, 8x10, and 8.5x11 built into the software. You can also define custom paper sizes when printing special sizes such as Red River's line of inkjet printable note cards.
The Pixma iP4920 can also print a number of borderless sizes. These sizes are factory set. You cannot define custom sizes to be printed without borders.
Available Borderless Sizes from the Canon iP4920
- 4x6
- 4x8
- 5x7
- 8x10
- 8.5x11
- A number of metric sizes
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Performance
The Canon iP4920 is a workhorse machine suitable for photo printing, note card printing, daily documents, and much more. Photo quality from this machine is remarkable. Like most inkjet printers today, the print quality of the iP4920 meets and probably exceeds that of your local photo lab.
Color accuracy is good, and is helped if you use a printer color profile. Click here for more information on profiles and their usage.
Print speeds are good, even when using a photo media setting and highest available print quality:
- 8x10 Photo Satin 1 minute 34 seconds
- 4x6 Borderless Photo Satin 46 seconds
When using the plain paper setting or when printing black text, the black pigment ink (PGI-225) is used, sparing your photo black dye cartridge. Text performance is good on plain copy paper with little evidence of blurring or bleed.
Software
The software CD-ROM comes with a number of programs:
- The printer driver
- On-screen manual
- My Printer configuration tool
- Easy-PhotoPrint EX - basic photo editing and design software
- Easy-WebPrint EX - tool for grabbing and creating layouts with websites
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Printer Driver Tour
Below is a brief tour of the Windows printer driver for the Canon iP4920. Mac drivers are similar, but the maintenance functions are sometimes located in the System Preferences > Printers menu.
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The Quick Setup Tab puts most of the imporant printer controls in one location.
The most impotant option missing from this menu is color management, which is critical when using printer color profiles.
Under Commonly Used Settings, you can name and save any combination of settings for one click printing in the future. |
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From the Main Tab, you can set your media type, print quality, and color / intensity settings.
The Main Tab is important when you make prints using an ICC printer color profile. You will use the color / intensity manual option to turn off the printer's color management tools.
By checking Grayscale Printing, the iP4920 will use a combination of the dye and pigment black to make black & white images.
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When in borderless mode, you are able to control the about of Borderless Extension for a print. The iP4920 stretches the edges of an image to insure it extends to the edge of your paper. If you have crucial part of an image at the edges, lower the amount of extension to preserve those details. |
The Page Setup tab contains controls for paper size as well as orientaion of the image on paper.
Controls also include automatic scaling of images that do not fit on a paper size, and borderless print control.
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The Effects Tab controls printer software based color and image optimization as well as special B&W effects.
These controls allow you to add extra punch via the Vivid Photo check box, or a texture via the Simulate Illustration slider.
While we recommend making color corrections and effects in Photoshop or other photo software, these features may come in handy if you just want to add some flare to an image quickly. |
The Custom Settings contains an important feature - Prevent Paper Abrasion. This is Canon's way of saying "Thick Paper Setting".
You will want to use this setting when printing on heavy card stocks and fine art media. |
The Maintenance Tab contains features you should study and know how to use. This is the nerve center of your Pixma iP4920 and the features will keep your printer running smoothly.
Fortunately, Canon printers clog very rarely. If you suspect a clog, run the Nozzle Check first to determine if that is the case.
Canon offers a Cleaning and Deep Cleaning feature. In most cases only one run of the Cleaning cycle will be necessary.
Other features include a bottom plate and roller cleaning function as well as the ability to set auto power off.
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Conclusion
The Canon Pixma iP4920 continues the line of four color single-function printers more or less unchanged from the previous two versions. The Canon ChromaLife 100+ ink system is a battle tested ink set that performs well on virtually all quality inkjet media.
We would recommend this printer for customers who want to make lots of photo note cards, and photo prints when you want the convenience and control of your own desktop photo lab.
Red River Papers for the Canon Pixma iP4920
Luckily for you, dear reader, Red River Paper has a lot of experience with Canon Pixma printers. Our line of premium inkjet papers includes over 20 that work very well with the Pixma iP4920. You can see the most popular for the Canon Pixma iP4920 here and order a sample kit there as well.
You can shop for our most popular papers on one page. Go to Inkjet Papers for the Canon Pixma iP4920 here
Positives
- Tried and tested design
- Excellent dye ink system
- Compatible with any coated inkjet media
- Very reliable paper feed mechanism capable of feeding light to very heavy stocks
- Low initial cost
- Reasonable cost of operation
- Fast print speeds even with photo media at top quality setting
Room for Improvement
- Honestly would be almost perfect IF it had a six color ink system with photo magenta and photo cyan
- Ink tanks could be larger - print cost is not an issue but tank change frequency is in our opinion
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