Review of the Canon Pixma MP500

The MP500 is a very different proposition to the MP150. It retains the low running cost and speed advantages of separate ink tanks and a separate print head, although photo printing must depend on very small drop sizes rather than light magenta and cyan ‘photo’ inks. The MP500 also adds the facility of a small colour LCD for printing direct from memory cards without having to connect or power-on a PC. Unfortunately, as with all the similarly equipped all-in-ones in this test, there is no way to quickly navigate through large numbers of images using a thumbnail matrix display, as you would on your camera. It’s almost as if the manufacturers are forcing you to print index pages and so consume more ink. Despite the price premium, photo print and scanning quality were much the same as the MP150; not really good enough, though the MP500 is faster at just under four minutes to print a borderless A4 photo. It has to be noted that some rival printers offer better photo fading resistance. In the end the MP500 is too expensive for what it ultimately offers.