The good: Large 2.5-inch LCD; built-in memory card reader; stylish design; robust software suite; fast output.
The bad: Output speed prone to intermittent lags.
The bottom line: Like Canon's other printers in its Pixma MX-series, the stylish MX870 has versatile features, including a handy scroll wheel and an ample 2.5-inch LCD, to help you get the job done. We recommend the Canon Pixma MX870 as a do-it-all device with an affordable price tag; just be ready to stomach its intermittent print lag.
If you take the minimalist design of the Canon Pixma MX330, add the functionality of the Pixma MX7600, and throw in built-in Wi-Fi, you'll end up with the Canon Pixma MX870. It offers wireless networking while still maintaining all the features you need to print, scan, fax, and copy. Despite its sporadic hiccups in output speed, we recommend the $199 Pixma MX870 as a worthwhile printer for shoppers that need a multifunctional printer at a very reasonable cost.
Design
The Pixma MX870 is the same shape as the Canon Pixma MX860 is, measuring 18.1 inches wide by 16.2 inches deep by 7.8 inches tall with grooved handles on its bottom that makes it easy to move around. Its curved edges and integrated control panel both exude a very sleek, attractive appeal that works just as well in an office as it does at home.
Its large 2.5-inch LCD screen is fixed inside the neatly organized control panel; the left side houses the power button as well as shortcuts for copy, fax, and scanning, and you also get a convenient jog dial to the right that lets you quickly scroll through the onscreen menus. The rest of the right side contains the usual fare of menu, settings, numerical keys, and navigation buttons. Canon also includes a dedicated "Memory Card" button for copying and printing images directly from the reader at the bottom and some smaller keys that automatically dial your preset fax numbers.
Canon offers three different options for paper input; the easiest method is through the 150-sheet tray that pulls out from underneath the folding output bay. You can throw another 150 sheets into the rear-loading cassette, and both trays have small plastic guides to fit a variety of sizes from four inch by six inch all the way up to legal sized media and No. 10 envelopes.
The versatility of having dual-paper feeds gives you the opportunity to store smaller photo paper in the rear tray and normal 8.5 inch by 11 inch media in the front, while the driver automatically chooses the right tray and paper for the print job. The third and final paper input tray is the auto-document feeder that sits on top of the unit and can hold up to 35 sheets of plain paper to copy or scan. As with most of the other trays that extend out, the ADF tucks neatly back into body of the printer while not in use.
The scanner bay is hidden in the middle of the printer, but you can also prop that open to reveal the MX870's five ink cartridge bay that includes four dye-based inks in addition to a pigment-based ink for black text. We've always been big fans of separate ink cartridge bays because they save money, and the MX870 is no different. According to Canon's Web site, each color ink tank costs $12.99 for a replacement cartridge, while the pigment-based black tanks run for $14.90 each. Canon also estimates a black-and-white document to cost 3 cents, a full-color document costs 5 cents, and it costs 29 cents per 4-inch-by-6-inch color photo; these prices are average for today's typical photo printer.
We're also happy to see that the MX870 includes a dedicated, covered media card reader, especially since we dinged the Canon Pixma MX330 for omitting one. This one is located at the bottom of the printer to the right of the paper output tray and has slots for MemoryStick Duo, SD, and Compact Flash cards.
Once you put a memory card in the system, the MX870 gives you two ways to print the contents: you can either pick several pictures using the navigation pad to create a batch print, or you can view, edit, and print individual pictures directly on the LCD. Manual edits include red-eye reduction, color effects like sepia and black-and-white, noise reduction, image optimizer, and so on. Finally, a PictBridge USB port on the right side lets you connect a compatible digital camera directly to the printer.
Features
The Pixma MX870 prints, scans, and copies via a USB 2.0 connection by default; however, you can connect it to an Ethernet network or a Wi-Fi network. Like many other wireless printers on the market, the software needs to establish a USB connection first to create a wireless connection. The driver's setup assistant had us printing wirelessly in less than five minutes, and we were able to connect to the printer using both a Mac and PC.
The printer comes with a driver installation CD with a robust software suite that will definitely appeal to your creative side. The settings let you cycle between commonly used quality templates like standard, business, paper saving, and photo printing that automatically adjusts paper size and orientation, paper, and output quality. The driver lets you dive deeper into photo editing with options for vivid photos, borderless, monochrome effects, and even manual color adjustments, while the popup status monitor gives you a heads up view of the job status, document name, printer status, and gives you a rough idea of the current ink levels. We much prefer the MP870's status monitor over the MP330's, since the latter one doesn't keep track of print progress.
Post a Comment