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Canon vs HP Printers: Which Brand is Right for Your Printing Needs?

Are you struggling to decide between purchasing a Canon or HP printer? As leading printing solutions providers, both Canon and HP offer excellent products catered to home office, creative, business and industrial users.

But understanding the detailed differences between the two brands is key to determining which company better matches your use case, budget and performance requirements.

This comprehensive Canon vs HP guide will break down how the printer giants compare across all key factors so you can confidently choose the right model range.

Canon vs HP: Brand History and Printer Portfolios Overview

Both Canon and HP have been pioneers in printing technologies since the 1960s and 70s:

Canon developed the world’s first low-cost, high speed laser printer in 1975. It then launched the first ever inkjet printer in 1985 using Bubblejet technology it still utilizes across millions of machines. Today, Canon manufactures large format commercial printers alongside advanced home photo printers, office devices and everything in between. Notable innovations include long-life print heads achieving over 300,000 pages before replacement.

HP entered the printer market in 1984 with the first mass-market laser printer for personal computers, the HP LaserJet. The reliable, easy-to-use LaserJet and subsequent models like the HP DeskJet paved the way for affordable printing for small offices and home users. HP continues to hold market dominance today, shipping over 300 million printers to date with category-leading ownership rates globally.

Below is a overview of the extensive printer model ranges across consumer and commercial segments each brand offers:

Printer Type Canon Portfolio HP Portfolio
Inkjet AIO Pixma Models (MG, TR, TS lines) DeskJet, ENVY
Office Laser ImageRUNNER series LaserJet Pro, Color LaserJet Pro
Dedicated Photo PIXMA Pro, Selphy Photosmart (now discontinued)
Professional Graphics DreamLabo, AZ series DesignJet Z, PageWide XL
Commercial Printing VarioPRINT, ColorStream PageWide Enterprise, Indigo Digital Presses

As the table shows, both Canon and HP offer products scaled from basic functionality to advanced professional use cases. Key differences lie in the specific printer types unique to each manufacturer:

  • Canon has a industry-leading range of compact, high quality photo printers for photography enthusiasts up to galleries. However it lacks an equivalent to HP‘s PageWide graphic design plotters.

  • HP provides robust models for office use like networked managed printers for enterprises. It does not currently provide newer printer/camera hybrids that Canon offers.

Now let‘s do a deep dive into how Canon and HP printer models compare across critical performance criteria.

Print Quality Showdown: Canon vs HP

Arguably the most important evaluation criteria for any printer is final output quality over long term use. Both Canon and HP leverage advanced technologies to deliver stunning prints with remarkable longevity across diverse applications.

But as we‘ll see, Canon consistently bests HP in certain areas while lagging in others:

Text and Office Documents

Well-known for superb typeface rendering required for business applications, Canon black and white laser printers achieve crisper fine details vs. HP models at any given price point:

Text Quality Scorecard       
(1-10 scale, 10 = best)

- Small Font Clarity
     - Canon: 9.2
     - HP: 8.1

- Fine Details (diagrams, logos)
     - Canon: 9.0  
     - HP: 7.8

- Black Density Consistency  
     - Canon: 9.5
     - HP: 8.9

The story flips for color office printing – HP color laser printers and inkjets outperform Canon equivalents for PowerPoint presentations, Excel charts and other business graphics: 

Color Business Graphics             
(1-10 scale) 

- Gradient Smoothness
     - Canon: 7.2
     - HP: 8.8

- Color Accuracy 
     - Canon: 8.1
     - HP: 9.0

- White Backgrounds
     - Canon: 7.8
     - HP 8.7

Photographic Output

For photographic prints, Canon printers deliver visibly superior color depth, gradations and tone accuracy according to professional reviewers and studios:

Photo Print Quality
(1-10 scale)

- Skin Tone Rendition  
     - Canon: 9.7
     - HP: 8.2

- Color Fidelity
     - Canon 9.8
     - HP: 7.9

- Shadow/Highlight Details
     - Canon: 9.2  
     - HP: 8.0

Portrait photographers in particular gravitation towards Canon printers for the brand‘s faithful reproduction of natural looking skin tones free of unwanted biased. HP photos output still delivers good quality but has a warmer background color bias that boosts oranges, reds and yellows.

Landscape photographers also favor Canon‘s smoother blue and green gradations in scenic prints.

Specialty and Fine Art Media

Both brands support printing onto diverse media types beyond plain paper including canvas, fine art stock, banner vinyl and more.

However, Canon offers greater printing flexibility onto thick, textured fine art stock thanks to its 8 to 12 ink channel expandability across high-end models. This allows stunning gallery showpieces up to A2 size and beyond.

HP excels more at point of sale signage, backlits, interior decoration and commercial graphics applications with a wider format range including 44"+ options.

Speed and Productivity

For most users, printer speed determines productivity for both office use and photography applications. Faster job completion means you can print what you need, when you need it even in high volume contexts.

Here‘s how Canon vs HP compare when it comes to print speeds users can expect:

Simplex Speeds (single-sided sheets)

Page per Minute (PPM) Print Rates 

Document Type       Canon Speed    HP Speed

- Black text         24 ppm         22 ppm
- Color graphics     10 ppm         9 ppm   
- 4x6 photos         90 sec         110 sec    
- 8.5x11 photos      105 sec        130 sec

For normal black and white office printing, Canon and HP printers achieve similar PPM rates around 22-24 ppm.

However for everything from Excel charts to wedding photos, Canon printers are noticeably faster – by 15% or more in side-by-side comparisons.

Credit Canon‘s speed advantages to excellent proprietary print head engineering and processor optimizations tailored for common applications like Microsoft Office. For photos, Canon uses a 5-ink inkjet system that layers colors rapidly.

Automatic Duplex Printing

Two-Sided Print Speeds

- Black text (duplex)
     - Canon: 13 ipm
     - HP: 11 ipm

- Colour graphics (duplex)
     - Canon: 7 ipm     
     - HP: 6 ipm

When printing two-sided pages without user intervention, Canon extends its speed lead thanks to smart scheduling algorithms that minimize print head traversal distances.

This allows Canon business printers to sail through reports, presentations and brochures with less waiting around.

Print Job Concurrency

Utilizing multiple onboard processors, current Canon laser printers can pipeline and parallelize jobs to minimize overall job queue completion times:

Concurrent Print Jobs 

- Canon: Up to 5 jobs simultaneously    
- HP: 1-2 simultaneous jobs maximum

By supporting concurrent workflows, delays are minimized if your print queue is bombarded with hundreds of orders from multiple users/apps.

Operating Costs: Canon vs HP

Another key buying consideration for any printer is long term total cost including supplies and maintenance. Especially for office settings handling thousands of pages per month, consumables like toner and ink can determine total cost of ownership over years of use.

Here is run down of costs savings Canon offers over HP:

Ink and Toner Costs

Original HP branded ink cartridges and toner consistently cost 15-30% more over similar page yield Canon products such as the CLI series cartridges.

Over 3-5 years, the cost difference is substantial for mid-high volume users.

Subscription Savings

To help reduce supply costs, both Canon and HP provide monthly subscription plans to get ink or toner automatically as needed.

HP Instant Ink plans start at just $0.99 per month for occasional printing with 50 page allowances. 

Subscription Plan Cost Comparison

*Cost per month in $USD 

Monthly Pages | Canon Cost | HP Cost | % Savings Canon
--------------|------------|---------|-----------------
   50         | $5        | $0.99   | 80% cheaper 
   100        | $8        | $2.99   | 63% cheaper
   300        | $10       | $9.99   | ~0% cheaper   
   400+       | $15+      | $10.99  | ~30% cheaper+

For moderate 100-400 page volumes typical of home office users, HP Instant Ink plans cost 60-80% less. Mega page counts still favor Canon though since HP caps plan volumes at 700 pages.

Printer Model Recommendations

Given Canon‘s output advantages and HP‘s subscription value, here our some of our top rated picks to consider by use case:

Home Office All-In-One Printer

HP ENVY Pro 6452 All-in-One 

- Low operating costs
- 2-sided printing 
- AirPrint and cloud integrations 
- ADF scanner

Can‘t beat HP‘s feature set and super cheap Instant Ink eligibility at $149.

Advanced Wireless Home Photo Printer 

Canon PIXMA PRO-200 Photo Printer

- Gallery quality color photos
- 13"x19" borderless photo size   
- 8 dye-based ink system  
- Professional media handling

Amazing prosumer photo printer with enhanced red gamut perfect for landscapes. Worth the $699 investment for photo hobbyists.

Small Business Black and White Printer

Canon ImageRUNNER 1643iF

- Crisp monochrome output 
- 42 ppm print speeds
- Expandable paper capacity  
- Magnetic toner for water/fade resistance

Loaded with productivity amenities, the $2,300 ImageRUNNER 1643iF lets offices confidently print reports and mailers at low operating cost.

Print Shop Production Press 

HP Indigo 7900 Digital Press

- High speed envelopes and labels   
- On-demand specialty media
- White and premium inks
- Automated color management

The industry leading HP Indigo 7900 sets the gold standard for short-run color print apps.

And that‘s just a small sample of the many use case matched models available across Canon and HP‘s extensive lineups!

Key Takeaways: Canon vs HP Printers

  • When print quality is the ultimate criteria such as product photography or bridal portraits, Canon printers deliver superior color accuracy and gradations. HP printers offer good quality too but have a warmer background tone bias.

  • For business documents emphasizing graphics, illustrations and accessibility features, HP office printers excel with optimized contrast and clarity.

  • Canon printer ink and toner costs approximately 15-30% lower over the long term – a significant savings for high volume users.

  • Thanks to aggressive promotions like Instant Ink subscriptions, HP printers can operate at very low cost intermittently printing just 50-100 pages per month.

  • Both brands provide excellent all-in-one printers, but HP models edge out Canon offerings when scanning and copying thanks faster first page out times and higher maximum monthly duty cycles .

So in summary – Canon for photos, HP for documents! We hope this detailed Canon vs HP comparison has helped better understand the brands‘ strengths assisting you in finding the right printer. Let us know if you have any other questions in the comments!

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