The end of the C5280 saga, the beginning of the PIXMA MP830 era

The $600 check and the four FedEx return shipping labels from HP arrived. the three C5280 printers and all of the associated photo paper and ink cartridges have been boxed up, labels have been applied, and FedEx has been called for pick-up. God willing, the check will be deposited later today. I just sent a letter to the small claims court telling them to dismiss my case with prejudice.

My new Canon PIXMA MP830 multifunction printer (copy / scan / fax / print) arrived yesterday. I set it up this morning and gave it a whirl. The six photos I printed were all perfect: good colors, fine detail, and no sign of streaking due to misfiring ink jets.

I showed them to my wife, who declared that the prints from the C5280 were better. I’m not sure what planet she is living on, but at least I have a better understanding of why HP has been able to sell the poor C5280 to so many people and convince them that they were getting good photo prints out of it.

The one complaint I have about the MP830, at least so far, is that it is significantly bigger than the C5280. On the other hand, the MP830 has several significant features that the C5280 does not, including two-sided scanning and printing and a built-in fax machine (which we are not using fight now, but probably will eventually). Another big advantage of the MP830 is that it has separate ink tanks for each color, which means that you don’t end up wasting two colors of ink in a tri-color cartridge when the third color runs out.