Digital BW, The Print

I am looking at the Canon I9900 for printing large format b&w prints. 
Does anybody have any experience with this printer and its quality? 
My current Lexmark Z42 printer give me a poor quality b&w when I use 
black ink only and when I print b&w using the color setting there is 
a color tone that is not acceptable. And of course it only give up to 
8-1/2x11 prints, I would like to get 11x17 or 13x19 sizes.