Buy it on Amazon – http://lon.tv/zcgkn (affiliate link) – This is a budget-minded printer (on the entry point anyways) that adds a fifth ink to the mix for better photo quality. See more printers: http://lon.tv/printers and subscribe! http://lon.tv/s
VIDEO INDEX:
00:12 – Price
00:29 – Hardware Overview
01:04 – Ink cost
01:44 – Ink jet vs. laser
02:16 – Installing on a Windows computer wirelessly
02:35 – Initial setup complexity
03:31 – Paper Capacity
04:02 – AirPrint from iPhone
04:37 – Print speed and duplexing
05:05 – Black and white draft print quality
05:30 – Photo printing/edge to edge printing
08:56 – Scanner test
10:54 – Fax feature
11:01 – Firmware and security considerations
12:06 – cloud printing
12:56 – Conclusion and final thoughts
It’s capable of printing borderless photos on glossy paper, something other printers around this price point can’t really do all that well. It can also print out regular documents at around 15 pages per minute in black and white and 10 pages per minute in color at its lowest quality setting.
This is an all-in-one so it also has scanning capability. Not a great scanner but it’s there and functional. The auto document feeder scans relatively slowly and will not automatically duplex (although it will guide the user for manually flipping the page over). There are options to upload the document to popular cloud services like Dropbox or Google Drive. It can make copies and will also fax thanks to its included fax modem. Many low end all in ones are dropping the fax function these days
Print quality is sufficient for its place in the market. I recommend using a finer (and slower) print mode for the best text quality. Photos look nicer than four color printers output but not as nice as a dedicated photo printer might. My photos had some graininess to them that did not rival commercial photo printing services.
My big gripe is an arduous set up process. The printer has a touch screen and should allow the user to connect it to the wireless network upon initial boot. Unfortunately it requires a direct connection to a PC or downloading an app and running through a multi-step process. Completely unnecessary. The good news is that once you go through that process it does not need to be repeated – every device on your network should find the printer/scanner automatically. You can also change the WiFi settings from the control panel after the printer is initially set up.
The other consideration is long term ink cost. Canon is not yet offering an alternative consumable plan as HP and Epson are doing. HP of course has their mail in service that’s a little less expensive than buying ink at retail. Epson has printers now that have huge tanks offering a year or two of ink with low replacement costs. So far I have not seen something competitive from Canon. Full replacement cost on all five inks is about $62 – about half the cost of the printer.
One last thing: security is becoming increasingly important and Canon buries the firmware update screen deep inside the printer’s interface. It would be nice for the printer to either autoupdate firmware or put a notification front and center for the user to know when it’s time to install an update.
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brother hl-3170cdw, FTW!
This is going too sound weird, but .. .. That is one ugly printer.
I don’t have a smartphone. Does this mean I can’t connect it to my wifi?
ink jet printers dont do well with infrequent printing. what color laser printer do recommend that has 3rd party toners? i will leave photo prints to the pros.
at around 8.20 on the side by side of the toy picture it looks as though it had cropped the photo compared to what was shown on the phones screen.
Lon what do you think of the Canon TR8520 vs. a HP 5660 ? Which might be quietest? I have a mx712 pixma which is slow and noisy and wakes everyone up in the house. LOL
6:43 WTF
top left image
Would like to see you review the new HP Pagewide printers. Looks promising as a Laser competitor.
How can you get in the amazon vine program??
We want remote controlled car. We want remote controlled car. We want remote controlled car.
Good review. I bought the one without the fax but haven’t unboxed it yet (thought I had a problem with my epson but it fixed itself). So I’ll keep the cannon as a backup in case it happens again.
If you were to have left the front panel up for paper and later the little hood flap down for the rear photo manual feed, wouldn’t it have printed those without you having to touch it!