Comparing Canon Pro Printers

Maybe a bit of a niche post, but I thought it might help for anyone looking at buying a new printer or changing their printer!

Back in 2018 when I first registered Hayley Jade Design Studio, I had no intentions of printing products myself. Working as a graphic designer for gift packaging, I had gained knowledge about printers (as in the places where they have humungous printers, and have generally large print runs, not the individual little machines), as so I found one fairly local to me in Kent, went there for a meeting, and had 1200 cards printed.

That was my mistake. I had no idea what sort of print run I would want, just starting out, and so I had I think it was 12 designs, and 100 of each printed. It took me YEARS to shift them.

That was October 2018, and whilst I did start making a few sales on Etsy, I knew that I wanted to properly create a whole new range of products for my little shop.

December 2018 I bought an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. And wow, what a game changer that has been. I don't think I've drawn with an actual pencil since! 😅 I'd been drawing in Photoshop occasionally for a few years, so I'd had some experience in digital art having previously only drawn in pencil. I'd previously only really drawn portraits, with the occasional flower or animal popping in. With my iPad though, I started drawing some botanical designs (as well as the portraits of course, but I can't sell those as most were drawings of well known people or characters), and thus I started some ideas for my new range of products.

Anyway that was a long explanation to say that I decided that I want to print products myself. It meant that I could offer more designs, including custom and personalised, without spending a fortune upfront on printing that might end up going to waste or not selling. So the next task was finding a printer suitable for my needs.

After much research, I ended up buying the Canon imagePROGRAF Pr0-1000. It prints up to A2, and was around £1000 (in 2019), so quite a hefty price tag, but I wanted something I knew would last and cater to what I needed. And for over 6 years, it did the job perfectly! For the most part... it is a printer, and they have their moments!

And then last month, it just decided to throw an error and no matter how many times I turned it on and off again (usually does the trick!), it made no difference, and even my husband, who is very good with technology, couldn't find any information detailing what the error was. It was likely to do with the print head, from the noises it was making, which upon investigating would cost about £500 to replace 😳

So, panicking, because I had orders I needed to fulfill, we made the decision to buy a new printer and I actually decided to go for the next size down and get the Canon imagePROGRAF Pro-310. I realised that I very rarely used it for printing anything bigger than A3+, so it didn't make sense for me to spend an extra £500 to get another Pro-1000 (or what is now the Pro-1100).

And now that I have had the printer around a month or so, I thought I would give my thoughts and experience of both printers!

General overall experience

Both printers print amazing quality. When I first got the Pro-1000, I spent a LONG time and a LOT on trialling different papers to find the perfect one for me. I had to find something that was suitable for inkjet, which a lot of papers like G F Smith Colourplan isn't, and so settled on Arjo Wiggins Keaykolour, which I still use now for my cards. I did change the paper I use for art prints to Canon Matte Photo Paper, as it printed full colour images much more nicely as the paper is a lot smoother than the Keaykolour which has a subtle texture to it and is also uncoated. The Canon matte paper is not suitable for cards however as it's only 210gsm, and is very easily marked (because of the matte finish).

Anyway, I digress, the print quality on both printers is great. I haven't noticed a difference in them, other than maybe a slight hue variation, which would make some sense as the 310 only has 10 inks to the 1000's 12. They both have taken heavier weights paper absolutely fine - I have yet to try the manual feed tray but I rarely used it on my 1000 anyway.

Here's a quick little breakdown of the pros and cons of both printers:

Canon Pro-1000

Pros

• It has 12 inks
• The ink cartridges are large at 80ml, so last a long time
• It prints up to A2 in width (42cm) and even longer lengthways
• Print quality is great
• Borderless printing

Cons

• It's a fair bit more expensive to buy than the Pro-310
• Inks cost around £50 per cartridge to replace (don't forget there's 12 of them!)

Canon Pro-310

Pros

• It's cheaper than the Pro-1000 and great for if you don't need to print A2
• It prints A3+, so can print up to 32cm wide, and even longer lengthways
• Ink cartridges cost £15
• Print quality is great
• Borderless printing

Cons

• Inks are a lot smaller at 15ml per cartridge, so the price per ml is a lot more expensive compared to the pro-1000 and run out a lot quicker too
• It doesn't print wider than 32cm, so if you do want to print bigger, thats where the Pro-1000 is the obvious option

The size of the printers isn't hugely different, the 310 is obviously smaller but not as small as I thought it might be, it's still a big chunky printer!

Conclusion

They both are great printers for if you are looking for a professional at home printer, whilst both more expensive than say a Canon Pixma, if you're looking for something to invest in, then a printer like this is a good one. The amount of printing I got out of my Pro-1000 over six years was a lot! And nothing lasts forever does it?!