This is the printer that I use because it has it all at an affordable price. Unlike comparable printers in its price range, the Canon S600 prints colour excellently, even on transparencies. Canon claims that this is because of their Advanced MicroFine Droplet Technology; whatever they call it, the photographic quality is impressive.

The speed is fine for a printer of its type. It doesn't measure up to the speed of a laser printer, but if you're used to using inkjet printers, you'll be impressed. It does live up to the billing in its specifications.

I'm also impressed with its paper handling qualities. You can load up to 30 transparencies at a time rather than feeding a single sheet at a time as you have to do with some inkjet printers. And the printer handles letter, legal, and envelope sizes without fussy control adjustments, and accepts a wide variety of different paper types, including banner and high resolution paper. In addition, it has a paper tray to hold the printed product, a feature many low-end printers don't have.

The Canon S600 also has the type of cartridge that you should look for when you're shopping for an inkjet printer - a cartridge with four separate ink tanks, so you can replace individual colours when they run out, rather than having to replace the entire cartridge unit. Convenient - and cheaper.

If you don't have huge volumes of material to print, this is the printer for you, providing easy-to-use high quality printing of everything from photographs through brochures and reports.