I've owned this printer for several years and have been very happy with it. It prints quickly and does a good job. I do not use it to print photos all that much but when I have it does a very good job. The photos are crisp and clear. It does have 5 ink tanks on it that run between $11-$13 a piece. Luckily, they do not all go out at the same time! But compared to the print quality of previous printers I've owned and the cost of ink cartridges for those (like a Lexmark that's ink cost almost as much as the printer itself!) this printer does an excellent job. You shouldn't be disappointed.

There is one key reason why this printer beats them all. You can stop throwing money away on $30 ink cartridges. Most printers today use ink cartridges that have an on board chip that forces you to essentially buy another cartridge like its some sort of "golden ink". I've had Epson, HP, and the others over the years and grew tired of paying for the cartridges. Then I discovered the i860....

The i860 on the other hand has no chips on the cartridges at all. In fact, its one of the few printers on the market that you can get cheapo ink bottles online to refill the original cartridges with and the print quality is really good. For $20 I can get enough ink to last me 2 years! Canon I guess figured this out and discontinued it because they are supposed to make money on the inks and not the printers! You can buy the printer used on ebay for $30-$80. refilling the cartridges takes less than 5 minutes and requires a few napkins and disposable gloves. Not a big deal or the mess hype. I know what your saying...but the inks I buy are from ISO certified companies and don't run or bleed like magazines claim which are biased for ad revenue from the manufacturers.

You can easily save about $150-$200 a year by not having to buy ink cartridges (OEM or generic) if you're the average user with this printer. for $20 worth of ink bottles, some spare cartridges, and 5 minutes of your time once a year is all that is needed. I've had the printer for close to 5 years with the generic inks. My in-laws and dad have done the same route.

And when I need glossy photo printing quality I take it to Sams to print out for a few cents a print (which is cheaper per print,more convenient than to buy and set up the photo paper). Especially when these places got a $10K printer than rivals most anything consumer to print.

I bought my i860 a little over 3 years ago. It still prints, but a few days ago it spat out some gears and springs while printing. Now, it perforates a line through the paper and jams instantly if the page that has just been printed is not manually removed as soon as completed.

In addition, various external parts have broken/fallen off over the years. It also has had various software snafus that have required periods of constant uninstalling and reinstalling of the software, and I never was able to correct a problem where it will not print text of a word document if it is black. It had to be changed to a dark color and then told to print the document in black and white. I also was disappointed when I discovered Kodak digital cameras do not work with Pictbridge (one of the features I had purchased it for). In addition, the media selections were a little limited and didn't include cardstock, which I print half of my jobs on, and a matte photo paper selection for 4x6 photo printing.

My last gripe is that you have to install a small suite of programs (some of which you may not need, such as photo editing software and album creating software) for it to print properly. It says you don't, but everytime I would try to save harddrive space by only installing the basic printer programs, inevitably something just wouldn't print, especially if it was from the internet.

Based on print quality, it was a tremendous value when I bought it and I like the individual color cartridges. With our former printer, I had to throw a combo cartridge away even when only one of the colors was out. All in all it served me pretty well over the years- it keeps on kicking sans a few parts. But I would have expected a great quality printer to have lasted several years longer than this.

I have had my i860 for about 5 years. ... it's still going! .. until today! (it may be the printhead - I will see - just got done washing it in amonia and water as suggested.). However, I have to praise this machine for it's five years. I am a photo buff and it has SERVED me well. Many school papers for the 3 kids including full 8 x 10 pics. I printed over 500 various obits for my mother' funeral, another 300 back and front full color large pics included wedding programs, and another 200 graduation invitations. WOW! - if it's feelin' "down" today - I don't blame it - it has served me well! :)

I purchased this printer five years ago and I have used it with two successive computers. Prior printers that I had went bad in a couple of years. Maybe they would have lasted longer had I used the manufacturer's ink instead of off the wall brands.

You decide. Is it the Canon i860 or their ink that is great? I think the two go together.