Canon PIXMA PRO-200S Printer Review

Made of thick plastic, the Canon PIXMA PRO-200S feels very well built, with no obvious gaps in the construction. The input and output trays are extendable and also feel sturdy. Its power cord is removable, making it easy to replace if damaged. The design allows for easy access to the ink cartridges, though people with larger hands might have trouble reaching the sheet rollers (also accessible via the cartridge bay) to remove paper jams due to limited space. Unfortunately, there's no cover for the rear feeder, leaving the paper exposed to dust.

This printer doesn't need a lot of maintenance. Like most inkjet printers, there's a risk of printhead clogging if you don't print for an extended period of time. There are many built-in maintenance functions to resolve print quality issues, including Nozzle Check, Cleaning, Deep Cleaning, Print Head Alignment, Roller Cleaning, and Bottom Plate Cleaning. Except for the black ink cartridge, the other cartridges yield a large number of prints and likely won't need regular replacement unless you print a lot. The cartridges are easily accessible—the cartridge bay moves to the middle as soon as you lift the cover (with the printer on). You can access the sheet rollers via the cartridge bay, but there isn't much space, so those with larger hands might have some difficulty reaching the jammed paper.

You can download the online user manual here.

The Canon PIXMA PRO-200S has a great display. Though on the smaller side and lacking tilt adjustment, the display is easy to see, even when viewing from the sides, above, or below. The interface is user-friendly and responsive to inputs.

The Canon PIXMA PRO-200S uses a total of eight ink cartridges, adding a Gray, Light Gray, Photo Cyan, and Photo Magenta cartridge to the usual Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black cartridges. The posted black cartridge yield applies only to the black ink cartridge because the printer only uses the Gray and Light Gray ink for halftones when printing photos. A separate yield test shows that the Gray and Light Gray cartridges last much longer, churning out 303 pages before any visible signs of fading, so you likely won't need to replace them as often as the other cartridges. The printer warns you and pauses the print job when an ink level is low, but you can continue printing by pressing 'OK.'

As with its predecessor, the Canon PIXMA PRO-200, this printer uses multiple inks to produce the Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow primaries. Changing the Color Intensity setting from 'Automatic' to 'Manual' overrides this behavior but results in significantly lower page yields. There's also an issue with the connection used, as using a wired USB connection increases the yield considerably compared to printing over Wi-Fi. The posted color page yield shows the number of pages obtained using a wired connection with Color Intensity set to 'Automatic.' It's worth noting that the color page yield is still much lower than that of the Canon PIXMA PRO-200, though it's hard to say whether it's related to the issues mentioned here. We'll update the review if Canon pushes a firmware update to address this.

This is a print-only unit.

• Power cord
• Documentation
• Set of CLI-65 ink cartridges:
  • 1x Black
  • 1x Gray
  • 1x Light Gray
  • 1x Cyan
  • 1x Magenta
  • 1x Yellow
  • 1x Photo Cyan
  • 1x Photo Magenta
• Multi-purpose tray (not shown)

The print quality of black and white documents is outstanding and is as good as it gets for an inkjet printer. Text looks incredibly sharp, and fine elements, like the lines in the graph, are all present.

The quality of color documents is also outstanding. There's very little to complain about; only some minor artifacts here and there, like the barely visible lines in the table's blue column and some color bleed in the red row.

The cost-per-print is excellent, as the ink cartridges yield are relatively inexpensive and yield a large number of prints. We included the Gray and Light Gray as color cartridges here for the calculation, but as mentioned in the cartridge section, those ink cartridges last much longer, reducing the total cost of the color cartridges. You can buy the cartridges individually or as a bundle.

The posted video above shows the print speed when using a wired connection, as printing over Wi-Fi causes the printer to push out blank pages or prints with a single line. This is likely an issue Canon will fix via a firmware update; we'll update the review if anything changes.

The top feeder holds up to 100 sheets of regular (Letter size) paper, 20 sheets of 4" x 6" photo paper, 10 sheets of 8.5" x 11" photo paper, or one sheet of 13" x 19" photo paper. The manual feeder can only take one sheet at a time, regardless of the paper type or size. You can print on CDs/DVDs using the multi-purpose tray—the tray can only hold one CD/DVD.

The top feeder supports paper sizes from 3.5" x 3.5" (88.9 mm x 88.9 mm) to 13" x 39" (330.2 mm x 990.6 mm). The manual feeder supports paper sizes from 8" x 10" (203.2 mm x 254 mm) to 13" x 39" (330.2 mm x 990.6 mm).

The Canon PIXMA PRO-200S has an outstanding color gamut, producing a wide range of colors with minimal banding or graining. It mainly struggles with bright, highly saturated reds, purples, cyans, and greens. Though not quite as good as its predecessor, the Canon PIXMA PRO-200, the differences between the two models are extremely minute and hard to spot in most pictures.

This printer has good color accuracy. Again, this is slightly worse than the older Canon PIXMA PRO-200, even though both models use the same cartridges. The differences are most noticeable in the skin tones, blues, and grays.

The Canon PIXMA PRO-200S is outstanding at reproducing small details. Fine elements look clear, and distant objects are easily recognizable. However, the contrast is a little worse compared to the older PRO-200, making edges and contrasting elements look a little softer overall.

Canon has updated the wireless connectivity to always prioritize the strongest signal available. This theorically helps maintain a more stable connection; however, it causes the printer to output blank pages or prints with a single line. This is likely an issue Canon will fix via a firmware update; we'll update the review if anything changes.

You can use the Canon PRINT mobile app to print, scan (with your smartphone camera), check on the printer's status, access the user manual, and perform maintenance tasks. You can also manage your ink subscription and buy consumables.