Canon Pixma Pro-10 printer review

Published Apr 23, 2013 | By Kenneth J Smith
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The Pixma Pro-10 pigment inkjet printer falls squarely in the middle of Canon’s professional printer offering, strengthening what appears to be a sustained challenge to Epson's dominance in the fine art desktop printer market. Sitting below the top of the line Pixma Pro-1 and above the dye-based Pro-100, the Pro-10 is well positioned as an attractive option for any photographer looking to produce high quality A3+ (13”x19”) prints. Like its larger and more expensive sibling, the Pro-10 uses Canon's LUCIA pigment ink set, which provides greater print longevity than dye-based inks like the ones found in the more affordable Pro-100.

In our earlier in-depth review of the Pixma Pro-1 we found Canon's flagship desktop model to be very  impressive performer that stands up quite well against the rival Epson 3880, although at a list price of $999, it is also the most expensive desktop A3+ inkjet printer on the market.

By contrast, while the Pro-10 features its bigger sibling's resolution and printhead technology, its much lower list price of $699 nestles it between Epson's R2880 ($599 list price) and the R3000 ($799 list price) printers. The question then is whether the Pro-10 can deliver results on the order of what we saw with the Pro-1. And that's exactly what we aim to answer with this hands-on review.

Pixma Pro-10 specification highlights

  • Maximum 13 x 19 inch paper size
  • 10 color LUCIA pigment inkset includes 3 monochrome inks and a chroma optimizer
  • 14ml ink cartridges
  • 4800 x 2400dpi print head resolution
  • 4 picoliter ink droplet size
  • Wireless print capability
  • Built-in Ethernet port

The Pro-10 prints to a maximum paper width of 13 inches and uses pigment inks. Pigment inks are capable of greater print longevity than dye inks and are therefore now commonplace in the fine art professional printer arena. Technological advancements in the past decade such as smaller droplet sizes and a greater number of ink channels have allowed for both fine image detail and a wide color gamut. The Pro-10 is certainly up to par in these areas, delivering 10 colors in droplets as small as four picoliters from individually replaceable cartridges.

Key differences compared to the Pixma Pro-1

  • 3 monochrome inks (vs. 5)
  • Smaller capacity ink cartridges (14ml vs. 36ml)
  • Built-in wireless connectivity

Looking at the specifications the Pro-10 has a smaller footprint than the Pro-1, one inch less in height, three inches less in depth and virtually the same width. Though substantially lighter by 17 pounds, at 43.9 pounds, it has the same solid feel of the Pro-1.

What's in the box?

  • Pixma Pro-10 printer
  • CD/DVD printing tray
  • PGI-72 ink cartridges (10)
  • Power cable
  • Print head
  • Installation CD
  • USB cable

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions held by dpreview.com or any affiliated companies.

Comments

Total comments: 19
Finsku
By Finsku (2 months ago)

Where I'm at the price for Canon Pixma Pro-10 is 735€ where as the Canon Pixma Pro-1 is 799€. I dont know how's that possible, but at these prices I think I'm going with the Pro-1.
I know the Pro-10 is new but...how are those prices possible?

0 upvotes
BobHBrooklyn
By BobHBrooklyn (2 months ago)

Re: fine art paper, I posted a question on the Canon printer forum
http://forums.usa.canon.com/t5/Professional-Photo-Printers/Will-Pro-10-print-borderless-on-fine-art-papers/td-p/35265

and got this response from a canon rep: "As long as you don't choose the Fine art media type setting and use the ICC profile for the Fine Art paper you are using you can print borderless. Most ICC profile manufacturers I've seen recommend using the Premium Matte driver setting along with their ICC profile which will allow you to print borderless.... The reason for this is that Canon has found that when you print Borderless on Fine Art Paper using the Fine Art settings, curling of the paper often occured, so it was decided to prevent this that option would be disabled when Fine Art paper was chosen from the Media Type."

I'm not sure if the workaround prevents curling, or if there is really a firmware upgrade coming as is suggested here. I've gotten no answer to my follow up questions. Stay tuned.

0 upvotes
BobHBrooklyn
By BobHBrooklyn (3 months ago)

Re the issue with fine art paper.
Has this been corrected by a firmware update as suggested in the review?
If not:
Does this also apply to photo paper?
Does this only apply to the canon print program?
Does using Photoshop or Elements etc work around the problem?

(Actually after reading the Pro-1 review, it appears that even there by default there is a 3mm border. Is there is no way to produce a full bleed print - on art paper or otherwise?)

Comment edited 15 minutes after posting
0 upvotes
teribithia
By teribithia (4 months ago)

The review is just list the product spec ? Oh I see the in-depth review

Comment edited 36 seconds after posting
0 upvotes
Nilskash19
By Nilskash19 (4 months ago)

It's great !

0 upvotes
hellocrowley
By hellocrowley (5 months ago)

My Pixma died just after the warranty expired. Never buy from Canon again.

0 upvotes
bigbikerjoe
By bigbikerjoe (6 months ago)

Thank you very much for a great review.

Printers can be expensive kit and for people like me looking to buy their first, quality, printer this was great reading.

For those of you not interested in these reviews that is fine too just don’t bother reading them but please, for the sake of those of us that are interested in all things in the photo field, give up the complaining.

Thanks again for the review.

2 upvotes
wkay
By wkay (6 months ago)

Very poor review, no attention paid to the economics of each print. Many alternative sources available and I have no idea where this ranks.

1 upvote
NIRMOY
By NIRMOY (6 months ago)

In case of 8x12 glossy paper color printing what is the approximate print cost? rply please.. thanks in advance

1 upvote
Joerg Rockenberger
By Joerg Rockenberger (6 months ago)

The review fails to highlight that the additional ink in the Pro-1 compared to the Pro-10 is worth $264 (12 x 22ml x $1/ml). So, that accounts for almost the entire price difference between the two printer models...

Also, please note that the spec list on page 2 seems to show the specs of Pro-1 (e.g. inks are the same, no wifi, weight & dimensions). And that there is a missing B&W image on page 5(?).

Poor review...

Joerg

4 upvotes
Barney Britton
By Barney Britton (6 months ago)

The specs are fixed, apologies.

0 upvotes
CAcreeks
By CAcreeks (6 months ago)

Is the red ink really necessary? Reds look good to me with just CMY. Photo cyan is the most critical. We have a printer without it and I see problems. Photo magenta, hard to say. Grays might be useful for people who print B&W, which we do not. The gray cartridge just sits there for years waiting to clog.

0 upvotes
oldfogey
By oldfogey (6 months ago)

How much ink gets used in a printhead cleaning cycle?? One of the problems of the small ink tanks on my i9900 and 9500Pro is that whenever one changes one the machine goes through a printhead cleaning cycle - which consumes quite a lot of the remaining inks in the other cartridges. This makes for rather high operating costs - if you use Canon cartridges.

8 upvotes
donut
By donut (6 months ago)

probably a great printer, but i see a problem with 10 ink cartridges of only 14ml..
You always are changing them.. they are just too small; meaning that you have to have them all 10 extra just in case ; and the change that one of them is finished while printing is also substantial ; and you can do it again.
I have a HP 9180 ( 8 inks of 27 ml)
I imagine Canon choose for small tanks to make it cheaper to buy them all...
Usually printer do not print borderless with matte papers -there must be a good reason for this...

1 upvote
Mssimo
By Mssimo (6 months ago)

I would like to know how something like this compares to "XYZ" photolab.

0 upvotes
photoreddi
By photoreddi (6 months ago)

Page 1 of the Pro-10 review states :

> Though substantially lighter by 17 pounds, at 43.9 pounds, it has the same solid feel of the Pro-1.

But the spec's on page 2 shows this for the weight of the Pro-10 :

> Weight 60.90 lb
> Dimensions 27.4 x 9.5 x 18.2? (696 x 241 x 462 mm)

The stated dimensions are also those of the Pixma Pro-1

Comment edited 58 seconds after posting
0 upvotes
Barney Britton
By Barney Britton (6 months ago)

thanks for spotting that, checking the specs now...

0 upvotes
wootpile
By wootpile (6 months ago)

Thanks for making this printer review. I'm i the market for a new one and this could well be it.

0 upvotes
Dianoda
By Dianoda (6 months ago)

Regarding the arbitrary fine art paper margin limitations - just use a different program to print. This is exactly what I do with my Pro 9500 Mark II printer (which suffers from the same margin limitations when using Canon's software to print on fine art papers) - I print using Photoshop CS6, which lets you set any margin you'd like regardless of the paper type/color profile you print with. Using this method I can do borderless prints on any paper type, and I suspect you can do the same thing with the Pro-10.

Comment edited 2 times, last edit 3 minutes after posting
7 upvotes
Total comments: 19