Customer Rating: 
Summary: Canon i860 Photo Printer
Comment: I've had good results from this printer. I like it, but I don't create photo prints, so my opinion might not be what you are looking for.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not a happy Canon i860 customer
Comment: I've had this printer for less than 2 yrs and it has stopped printing anything normally. The only colors that will print are black and cyan. I've tried everything, print head cleaning, etc, and it still doesn't print the correct colors. I refuse to pay Canon $9.95 to tell me the print head is shot....I'm assuming this is what's wrong after reading some of the reviews. I think it's an excellent idea that Canon not manufacture any more of these printers.....apparently Canon does too.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Cleaning the i860 Printhead
Comment: 2 years and a super printer. Very fast and stunning photo quality! Thanks Amazon!
The issue of the printhead clogging has an easy solution. 1st, remove all the ink and pull the printhead out. The carrier the ink sets in, not the entire unit, tilts forward and slides out. Soak the printhead for 24 hours in 2/3 cup ammonia and 2 cups warm water. Rinse with clear water and allow to air dry for an hour or so. Reassemble and run test prints. If you have banding or other problems with certain colors (probably photoblack), don't worry.
Take an empty cartridge of the same color and pull the top refill plug out. Fill the cartridge with ammonia based window cleaner (you'll need a syringe), and reinstall the plug. On mine, I blew through the air hole of the cartridge over the sink to purge the cartridge and refilled it a couple of times to get as much ink out as possible.
Install the cleaner cartridge you made, and then run 5 pages with the cartridge. If it is the photoblack, draw a big black square in Word or whatever you have, and set the printer preferences to Photo Glossy Paper. Print 5 pages or until the problem disappears. When done, take the cartridge out and print 1 page without a cartridge to purge the printhead. Reinstall the ink cartridge and you'll be back to normal.
Takes longer to type it than to do it. You've got nothing to lose if you have clogging issue.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Canon i860 print head and cleaning issues
Comment: We have owned a Canon i860 for about 1 1/2 years now. It started out ok but the print heads need cleaning badly because of streaking and gaps in color prints. The head cleaning capability has stopped working and it will no longer perform this maintenance procedure. Also, the color reservoirs are somewhat expensive compared to what you can now get for other printers like HP. If I had it to do over I would get an HP printer that replaces the printer head along with the ink when you need to refill the ink. That way there is less likelihood of a clogged printer head after many months of service. The Canon help reference that came with the printer, both printed and on screen are less than helpful at times. I always like Canon products but have run out of patience with this printer and the accompanying software.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not for snapshot printing in a family setting
Comment: We got this printer to handle all our printing needs for a typical family home that takes a lot of digital photos but doesn't print out very many. Since we don't have a lot of printing needs - occasional web pages, office documents and infrequent photos - the printer sits idle for the majority of the time. Every time we go to print photos it's an hour-long ordeal of cleaning the print heads, printing test pages, burning through an amazing amount of ink - just for a couple photos for friends and family. Even for occasional web documents, if the printer's been idle for any amount of time, the colors are completely inaccurate, the tints are off and the quality is fuzzy.
This printer is capable of printing top-notch quality photos, but if you're expecting a printer that will sit there and be ready for you whenever you want it to go, you'll be disappointed. If you're printing photos every day, you might find this a better printer. My family and I have decided, however, to get a better quality photo-specific printer in the future. Until then, we print photos from online services and are very happy with the results.
Summary: Canon i860 Photo Printer
Comment: I've had good results from this printer. I like it, but I don't create photo prints, so my opinion might not be what you are looking for.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not a happy Canon i860 customer
Comment: I've had this printer for less than 2 yrs and it has stopped printing anything normally. The only colors that will print are black and cyan. I've tried everything, print head cleaning, etc, and it still doesn't print the correct colors. I refuse to pay Canon $9.95 to tell me the print head is shot....I'm assuming this is what's wrong after reading some of the reviews. I think it's an excellent idea that Canon not manufacture any more of these printers.....apparently Canon does too.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Cleaning the i860 Printhead
Comment: 2 years and a super printer. Very fast and stunning photo quality! Thanks Amazon!
The issue of the printhead clogging has an easy solution. 1st, remove all the ink and pull the printhead out. The carrier the ink sets in, not the entire unit, tilts forward and slides out. Soak the printhead for 24 hours in 2/3 cup ammonia and 2 cups warm water. Rinse with clear water and allow to air dry for an hour or so. Reassemble and run test prints. If you have banding or other problems with certain colors (probably photoblack), don't worry.
Take an empty cartridge of the same color and pull the top refill plug out. Fill the cartridge with ammonia based window cleaner (you'll need a syringe), and reinstall the plug. On mine, I blew through the air hole of the cartridge over the sink to purge the cartridge and refilled it a couple of times to get as much ink out as possible.
Install the cleaner cartridge you made, and then run 5 pages with the cartridge. If it is the photoblack, draw a big black square in Word or whatever you have, and set the printer preferences to Photo Glossy Paper. Print 5 pages or until the problem disappears. When done, take the cartridge out and print 1 page without a cartridge to purge the printhead. Reinstall the ink cartridge and you'll be back to normal.
Takes longer to type it than to do it. You've got nothing to lose if you have clogging issue.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Canon i860 print head and cleaning issues
Comment: We have owned a Canon i860 for about 1 1/2 years now. It started out ok but the print heads need cleaning badly because of streaking and gaps in color prints. The head cleaning capability has stopped working and it will no longer perform this maintenance procedure. Also, the color reservoirs are somewhat expensive compared to what you can now get for other printers like HP. If I had it to do over I would get an HP printer that replaces the printer head along with the ink when you need to refill the ink. That way there is less likelihood of a clogged printer head after many months of service. The Canon help reference that came with the printer, both printed and on screen are less than helpful at times. I always like Canon products but have run out of patience with this printer and the accompanying software.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Not for snapshot printing in a family setting
Comment: We got this printer to handle all our printing needs for a typical family home that takes a lot of digital photos but doesn't print out very many. Since we don't have a lot of printing needs - occasional web pages, office documents and infrequent photos - the printer sits idle for the majority of the time. Every time we go to print photos it's an hour-long ordeal of cleaning the print heads, printing test pages, burning through an amazing amount of ink - just for a couple photos for friends and family. Even for occasional web documents, if the printer's been idle for any amount of time, the colors are completely inaccurate, the tints are off and the quality is fuzzy.
This printer is capable of printing top-notch quality photos, but if you're expecting a printer that will sit there and be ready for you whenever you want it to go, you'll be disappointed. If you're printing photos every day, you might find this a better printer. My family and I have decided, however, to get a better quality photo-specific printer in the future. Until then, we print photos from online services and are very happy with the results.