Canon Smartbase Photo

Canon's Smartbase 200 Photo multifunction device isn't the prettiest of units, as it looks like a scanner has been rather unceremoniously dumped on top of a bog-standard printer without taking style into consideration.

It is, however, packed with features and is really rather cheap, so we can forgive its weak design.

In addition to the usual print, scan and photocopy options, you can use the supplied PC card adaptor to print directly from Compact Flash memory, and if you use the correct adaptor it will read all the popular camera media formats.

Disappointingly, we found the control panel was hard to get to grips with. We reached for the manual on more than one occasion, even though it only has 10 buttons to master.

The print and scan quality from Canon's latest separates has been a cut above the rest, as have its digital cameras, so we expected great things from this. However, our impressions were a bit mixed.

Quoted printing speeds are 14ppm for monochrome and 10ppm for colour, but our testing showed that the true speeds were significantly slower, at 5.6 and 3.9ppm respectively. This isn't particularly fast, but still perfectly usable.

Text output is clear and crisp, and very pleasant on the eye even on plain photocopy paper.

Colour quality is a different matter; as photo printing on Canon photo paper was very clear, we found the picture was excessively bright and the colours washed out.

When we made colour photocopies on various paper types the colour was at fault again, except this time they were too dark. However, text on the photocopy was excellent.

As scan quality is so good, we had to put it down to the device's print quality. This was particularly surprising as most of Canon's latest printers have been outstanding.

Contact: Canon 0870 514 3723
www.canon.co.uk

Specifications

• 600 x 600 monochrome copying, 1,200 x 1,200 colour copying, 600 x 1,200 scanning at 36bit, 2,400 x 1,200 printing
• Bubble Jet Technology
• CIS scanning
• 396 x 413 x 276mm (w x d x h)
• 8kg
• Easy Photoprint 1.1
• Omni Page SE
• USB2