Take off with a bubble jet

Home Office Computing, Dec, 1990 by Eva J. Blinder

Canon BJ-10e

Rating: * * *

AT A GLANCE: Spiffy, easy-to-use printer that offers excellent portability and good print quality. Not quite the lightest or smallest on the market.

DOCUMENTATION: Very good; clear instructions throughout.

SETUP: Extremely easy; just pop in the ink cartridge and printhead.

EASE OF USE: No problems experienced.

VALUE: Very good as a companion to laptop computers or as a second printer.

LIST PRICE: $499

STREET PRICE RANGE: $399 to $499

MANUFACTURER: Canon USA, Printer Division, One Canon Plaza, Lake Success, NY 11042; (516) 488-6700.

TYPE: Plain paper, ink jet

HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS: Computer with parallel port

EMULATIONS: IBM Proprinter X24E, Canon BJ-130e

PRINT SPEED: 83 characters per second

BUILT-IN TYPEFACES: Courier, Elite

TYPE SIZES: 10, 12, 17 characters per inch; proportional spacing, double-high or double-wide or both

PAPER HANDLING: Friction feed; automatic sheet feed

PAPER WIDTH: 8.5 inches

BUFFER: 37K

OPTIONS: NiCad battery ($50), automatic sheet feeder ($90), replacement BJ cartridge ($25)

WEIGHT: 4.6 pounds (including battery)

DIMENSIONS: 12.2 by 8.5 by 1.9 inches

WARRANTY: One year

Only the most jaded computer user would fail to concede that there's something inexpressibly cool about a printer so small you can carry it in one hand. That said, the Canon BJ-10e Bubble Jet portable printer gets a mixed but essentially positive review. Its high marks for portability, small size (although not as small as the Kodak Diconix 150 Plus), and ease of use are tempered somewhat by lower marks for print quality and print speed.

The printer posed no setup problems whatsoever. The BJ cartridge, which combines an ink cartridge with a printhead, popped into place without a hitch. Canon has cleverly located the DIP switches within easy reach under the printer's cover; you probably won't even need to use them since the default settings cover most situations.

An AC adapter is included for everyday use. Be warned that the battery's rated life is a mere 30 pages.

Operation was as easy as setup. That attractively designed printer takes single sheets of regular typewriter or photocopier paper, which can be fed from the top or the bottom. (You stand the printer on its side for bottom feed, a boon if you're at a tiny hotel-room desk.) The printer automatically advances the paper at the touch of a button, and it takes letter- and legal-size paper as well as standard business envelopes. Printing was slow compared to dot-matrix printers; a full page of text took as long as two minutes. The printer is extremely quiet.

Ink-jet printers have a reputation for ink smearing, so I was curious to see how the BJ-10e would perform. Directly out of the printer, the ink is dry and doesn't smudge, even when rubbed hard. I was able to make the ink smear only by putting water directly on the page.

The print quality left something to be desired. The characters are similar to those created by a typical nine-pin dot-matrix printer; the print is perfectly legible even in the BJ-10e's smallest built-in font, tiny Courier 17-character-per-inch half-height (approximately equivalent to six-point type). The printer has 15 built-in fonts, from very large to very small, including some handsome double-height fonts and a set of proportional fonts. It handles graphics easily, although I found the paper had a tendency to wrinkle in areas of high-density graphics. (This happened only in large, very dark areas, however.) The printer operates in two modes, native BJ-10e mode if a driver is available or IBM Proprinter mode.

The plastic case seemed somewhat flimsy, but I experienced no problems worse than occasional difficulty opening the cover. That probably won't be a problem, however, if you intend to use this printer as a light-duty second unit or strictly for your travels.

Overall, the Canon BJ-10e seems like an excellent companion to a laptop computer. It's small enough to fit in a briefcase but versatile enough to handle the kinds of printing you're likely to need on the road.