amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

I use a Canon Pro-100.

If I were shopping today and could find one, I'm not sure I'd buy the Pro-100. It's discontinued and at some point Canon will stop supporting it. Inks and repairs will become difficult to find.

The Pro-200 is essentially the replacement for the Pro-100. Both are 13" wide printers, with eight ink cartridges that use dye-based Claria inks (print life expectancy 125 years, according to Canon).

The Pro-300 is a step up model, also 13" but with nine ink cartridges and pigment-based Lucia inks (print life 200+ years, per Canon).

In the past dye-based inks were much more prone to fading. Today, assuming Canon is telling us the truth, there isn't that much difference. Heck, I ain't gonna be around long enough to find out, anyway.

I do prefer dye-based inks on gloss, semi-gloss and luster papers.... and pigment-based inks on matte papers.

I've been using an HP B9180 printer with pigment-based inks. But it's a discontinued model, so inks and replacement print heads are hard to find now. This is why I say similar might happen with the now-discontinued Pro-100. To continue using the B9180 I'll probably need to go with some sort of third party ink refill setup.... Or maybe just buy a Pro-300. Eventually it will probably be the same with the Pro-100... Or maybe I'll just buy a Pro-200.