Canon Pixma Pro-200 review: A single-function superhero

Many printers are chunky beasts, but the Canon Pixma Pro-200 is a true giant. It actually isn’t all that heavy at 14.1kg, considering its size, but it has an enormous footprint, particularly when its rear input and front output trays are fully extended. It’s 837mm wide so, before you buy, make sure you factor in the price of a second desk to put it on.

The reason for its enormity is its ability to print on A3 paper. Actually, this isn’t strictly true, since the Epson Photo HD XP-15000 can also print on A3 and is significantly more compact. However, we can’t bring ourselves to be too critical of the Pixma Pro-200’s proportions because it prints photos like an absolute dream.

Every photo we printed came out perfectly. Blacks are deep and rich; skin tones of all shades look natural; and colours are bright and pin sharp. Whether we printed on Canon’s own A3+ paper or cheap 6 x 4in photo paper, the results were simply wonderful. We tested it with a broad range of photos, from bright, colourful prints to misty landscapes requiring subtle colour transitions, and it produced everything exceptionally. If you’re looking for a printer that can print off superb quality photos at any size, this really is the one.

Let’s not pretend that such luxury isn’t expensive, however, with the Pro-200 only just falling short of the £500 mark after tax. It also comes with a high printing cost. Canon only quotes cartridge capacity in terms of printing A3 photos, which makes sense given the type of printer it is, but isn’t a fair comparison to the prices we’ve quoted elsewhere.

However, we’ve tried to work out comparable print costs based on that. If anything, it’s likely to work out cheaper than the 13.4p colour and 13p mono figures that we arrived at, but even so, it’s best paired with an ink tank workhorse if you print with any kind of volume. This simply isn’t an everyday printer.

The Pro-200 requires more ink cartridges than any of the other printers we've tested, with space for eight cartridges at a time. These are the usual four colours, along with grey, light grey, photo cyan and photo magenta. This might leave you working through more cartridges, but it’s clearly part of the process that produces exceptional prints.

If there was any proof needed that this isn’t an appropriate printer for regular document work, take a look at its performance in our speed tests: you will have to look hard to find a printer that doesn’t outpace it, with mono print speeds of 2.5ppm and colour speeds of 1.6ppm at normal quality. Even in draft mode, it could only manage mono prints at 3.9ppm, which even the sub-£100 HP DeskJet 4120e puts to shame. Text and regular graphics really aren’t its thing, and it lagged a long way behind other printers in these tests.

The one speed test the Pro-200 didn’t fall foul of was our 6 x 4in photo printing test, where it lined up around the middle of the pack compared to rival inkjets. Those that beat it weren’t the best at producing photos and we suspect that most users won’t mind waiting a little bit longer to get prints that look this good.

Setting up and connecting the printer is as simple as Canon’s consumer models, and most easily done via the setup website, where you choose your printer from a list and are then guided through the process with as much (or as little) hand-holding as you need. There’s a CD included in the box, however, if you prefer that method. The printer can connect to a computer via USB, or connect to a network via Wi-Fi or Ethernet.

Photography enthusiasts might miss the fact that this doesn’t have a scanner built-in, especially given the size. It can’t automatically duplex, either, but if that stops you from printing regular documents on the Pro-200 by mistake, then it’s probably a good thing.

We’ve given this printer a five-star rating because it produced by far the best photo prints we've seen recently and, if that’s important to you or your business, this is definitely the printer to choose. If you want something that’s more versatile but can still print in A3, we recommend choosing the Epson XP-15000 instead - it’s significantly cheaper to both buy and run, particularly if you need to use the same device to print both text and photos.

However, image enthusiasts who end up with one of these in their office won’t be disappointed, as it really does produce the most exceptional prints.

Canon Pixma Pro-200 specifications