Printer

Review by W. B. Halper:

Review updated on October 13, 2009 to reflect firmware changes and add information on ink consumption –

The Canon MX-860 is an all-in-one printer designed for home or small business. The printing is fast, sharp and clear. The auto-document feeder scans both sides of the page, a tremendous time saver when you work with two-sided originals. Couple that with duplex-printing and it’s trivial to reproduce two-sided forms and documents. The network connectivity also works well…in the six months I’ve had the printer, it’s operated flawlessly in a mixed Mac/Windows environment on both wireless and wired networks.

Let’s look at the MX-860 on a piece-by-piece basis …

Printing

The Canon MX-860 uses a set of five ink cartridges for printing. Two of the cartridges are black, with the other three being the typical Magenta/Cyan/Yellow set. The printed output is easily sharp enough to be used for business letters; it almost rivals laser printers in quality. To save paper, the printer has built-in duplexing. I haven’t measured it, but single-sided printing speed is quite good…I suspect that the 38 pound weight of the printer is due to some good size motors pulling the paper and moving the printhead around. Printing in duplex mode is quite a bit slower. To avoid smearing, the printer waits for the first-side to dry before printing the second side.

Photographs have good tonal gradation and overall appearance, however they don’t equal those from a high-end printer that’s specifically designed to print photographs. The difference, though, is slight and everybody has liked the prints that I’ve made. The printer has the usual slots on the front to allow you to insert your camera’s memory cards.

Scanning

Whoopee! Duplex scanning! Have you ever tried to scan a stack of two sided pages? And get them merged into one file in the right order? I tried. Once. Then I went out and paid 0 for a dedicated scanner (the Fujitsu ScanSnap S510). With duplex scanning capability on the MX-860, I wouldn’t have needed to do that. You put the papers in the feeder, tell the printer that it’s a two-sided original and push the button.

Faxing

Outgoing faxing works fine. The faxes seem to get there. Originally, the designers of the fax system missed an extremely important feature…you couldn’t specify the number of rings before the fax machine answered. Without that ability, it was almost impossible for the machine to peacefully co-exist with your phone service in a single line household. This problem was fixed by a firmware update and current purchasers can set the number of rings before pick-up. Unfortunately, Canon hasn’t posted the new firmware, so owners of older machines are stuck…be careful if you buy one used. +1 brownie point for recognizing and fixing the problem. -2 for not making it available… :>(

Networking and Setup

I had no problems getting both the wireless and wired network up and running. The setup is simple and straight forward. You’ll need a USB cable to get the wireless network configured. It may be possible to wirelessly configure the wireless network, but there are certain insanities that even I won’t try. You can only use one network – wired or wireless – at once. As I mentioned in the intro, it comes with both Macintosh and Windows software. Getting it to work on my additional networked computers was as simple as inserting the DVD and running the install program.

Ink Consumption

Some printer politely sip ink, but this isn’t one of them. It’s not quite as bad as beer consumption at a frat party, but in the last 2500 pages, I’ve gone through six black and two full sets of color cartridges. That works out to slightly over 10.5 cents per page at Amazon’s current (11/11/09) prices for OEM ink cartridges…fine for normal use, but not great if you’re going to use the printer heavily. Your ink consumption will vary, depending on the mix of photos, graphics and text that you print.

Packaging

You know that ubiquitous orange tape that printer manufactures use to hold everything together? It’s there in spades. I wish I owned that franchise. Otherwise, it looks like the printer should ship well. It’s well isolated with plenty of molded styrofoam.

In summary, this is my fourth Canon printer and probably the twentieth printer that I’ve owned. Outside of the faxing issue, it works great. The duplex scanning and printing are valued additions and real time savers…I would have given it a solid five stars if it wasn’t for the faxing problem. I haven’t used the printer enough to get a sense of long-term reliability; after a couple of thousand sheets of paper, it’s been jam free and solid.

Review by Dgden:

Pros: Acceptable printing speed. Good and fast draft prints and copies. Quiet operation. Text quality is nearly laser sharp. Very good photo quality. Duplex printing and copying. Software that works well, unlike HP.

Cons: Can NOT produce proper COPY of documents with margins less than 0.25 inches. Borderless copy doesn’t help. Can’t print from USB keys. Poorly designed USB slot barely fits average USB key. No document preview on copy and scan on the LCD like HP has.

Summary: Let me start with the bad. I’ve been bugging Canon support for the past several days because I discovered a big flaw in the COPY feature of the printer. MX860 is utterly incapable of producing a copy of the document that has side margins less than 0.25 inches. If you have an 8.5×11 document with small margins that you want to copy, too bad you’ll have to scan to PC first and then reprint, otherwise your margins will be partially cut off. I’ve tried everything Fit To Page which should be designed just for cases like this, borderless copy, size reduction. I can reduce the doc to 25% original size and still the margin adjacent to the initial horizontal edge of the flatbed scanner will be messed up. I do not believe this is a defect of my particular printer and the tech support didn’t say that either. I’ve sent them scanned samples of my copies to show them that no method can be used to make such a copy successfully. It has been very frustrating and just today my wife asked me to make a copy of some document the credit card company sent her and I couldn’t do it on MX860. I am actually comparing MX860 to HP Photosmart C7280. Canon kills the HP in text quality and sharpness as well as better photo quality especially on Standard quality setting. But when it comes to making copies of such documents, HP easily achieves the desired result using Fit To Page. Canon, what were you thinking?

In addition, try placing a 4×6 photo starting in the corner where the arrow on the flatbed marks the starting position. You will end up with a copy of the photo that is missing 0.25inches on one of its sides. You will have to move the photo away from the scanner edge to get a proper copy.

Needless to say I am very annoyed with this AIO at this point. If you are not bothered by such an issue, this is a very good all around AIO with some very useful extra features. Scanning straight to PDF is very good one and so is duplex copying (unless you have a doc with those margins). Very good quality printing.

But for it’s flaw the machine is getting 3 stars from me. If that copy wasn’t an issue it would have been 4 or maybe even 4.5.

BTW tech support said they will forward my comments to the customer feedback program. There is nothing they can do just as I thought. Unless enough people complain it maybe a while before this is fixed, if ever.

Review by Chad R. Thomas:

I bought the HL-2170W from Amazon at the beginning of 2008. I found it very easy to configure for both wired and wireless networks, although I use mine on a wired connection out of convenience. I print mostly plain text, and the quality is very good.

I have but two complaints:

First, the paper comes out slightly curled, but this is a fact of life for a printer this size.

Second, Brother has programmed the printer such that when its thinks the toner is empty, it stops working. This happened to me when I was printing some important documents. I did some internet searches and examined the toner cartridge. There is a clear plastic circle at each end of the toner cartridge. The printer shines a light through to see how full the toner is. Simply cover one of them with a piece of opaque tape, and the printer will think that the toner is full. I’ve already gotten 1500+ pages out of the starter toner that was “empty” at 983, with no difference in printed quality.

Review by R. Lemieux:

I’ve been buying Brother laser printers for several years now – first the HL-1240, and then the HL-1440. Both were used in my home network via the Windows printer sharing function, which means that the computer to which the printer is attached must be up and running in order to print. The 1440 recently started malfunctioning, and rather than deal with its problems I decided to get something new that I could connect directly to the network.

I went looking for the HL-2070n, but these are no longer stocked in local stores, and I wanted a printer quick. Instead I found this model and the larger, more expensive HL-5250dn. After playing with both of them for a few minutes, I felt that the 5250 was too noisy and clunky sounding, and kind of big. It’s probably a good printer, but I went instead for the quieter and less obtrusive HL-2170w.

The wireless capability is a nice feature, but not really important to me right now, since the printer sits only three feet from my Linksys WRT54G router and I don’t need to move it around the house. So even though I’m able to use the easy wireless setup, I went with a wired network connection instead. Setup on my three computers was a breeze. I followed the easy instructions and everything worked as expected. If I try the wireless installation later, I fully expect it to go just as well.

Now that it’s in place, the printer seems to be doing what it should. Output is fast, paper is not badly curled, and quality looks fine. The printer driver also has the advanced features I’ve been accustomed to with my earlier printers. My only minor gripe is that I don’t like the minimalist control panel that consists of just three LEDs and one big button. Since my earlier printers had the same kind of thing, I know I’ll have to keep referring to the user manual in order to perform routine control panel functions and interpret any unusual alerts.

It’ll take a while to know whether or not the printer has any serious shortcomings, but I’m more than satisifed so far. Considering the low price, the hassle-free installation, and the results I’m seeing, I’ll give it five stars.

Review by C. Goodchild:

I did a ton of research and finally decided to go with this unit despite no reviews at the time. Installation was a breeze (using Mac OS X) except for one part where it asks you to set up a print queue. After doing so, it didn’t recognize it after multiple attempts. I finally decided to click past that step and it worked fine anyway.

We printed about a dozen photos over the first three days. On day 4, the printer booted up and slammed the print cartridge hard to the left, then came up with a “Carriage Jam” error. The nice thing about the touch screen is that it also visually walks you through pictures of the areas that you need to check for paper jams, etc.. Alas, after going through every trouble shooting step provided, it didn’t solve the problem.

We returned it to Amazon (Very hassle free I might add–can’t fault them a bit) and decided to try a second one since we did like the features. I was glad to see that Amazon ships you another even before you return the defective one. So far this one is working fine although it’s only been a couple of days.

Our last HP was probably 4 years old. I have to say the print speed on this one is amazingly fast by comparison. I’m impressed it can print a 4×6 photo as fast as it does. Copy and scan work well too, although I’ve found I have to initiate scanning from the Mac. Didn’t seem to work if I tried to use the touchscreen to scan. I was pleased how easy they make choosing options with scanning. You can scan a document straight to PDF, JPEG, TIFF, Memory Card, USB drive, OCR…

Overall, it does seem as though this printer is very well made. It’s also great having a tray for both paper and 4×6 photos. Unlike so many printer reviews, it doesn’t appear as though this printer is burning through much ink at all.

Although I would definitely recommend it, I can’t give it 5 stars due to the issues mentioned above.

Review by John S. Dean:

I had a not very old Epson Photo printer, the RX580, and was happy with it. However, it did not last long at all. While I may go a month or two without printing, I certainly don’t expect the printer to become inoperable during downtime…

I purchased a new Mac to replace my tablet PC in July, so a few days ago for the first time I tried to hook my mac up to it, and I could not get anything to print well. After some troubleshooting and testing from other platforms, I realized that there was something wrong with the unit physically, and tossed it in the garbage and looked for a printer at a local brick and mortar.

I was half sold on getting one of the Canon all in one units, based on some favorable remarks in some of the apple forums, but the local store by me only had one model of Canon, a lesser one than I wanted, so I looked at the rest of the available printers, and narrowed it down to this HP and another HP, one step below this. The kicker for me was the bluetooth in this one, which was worth the extra for me, since I run an 802.11n only network at home, and had assumed the wireless on this unit was just 802.11 b/g like most. Happily, I was mistaken.

Got it home, unboxed, and like the other reviewer said, this is a nicely sturdy, well built, solid home printer.

As usual, I downloaded the most current version of the software and driver rather than relying on the CD to be current, and indeed the CD had been superceded. The download and install went fine, so when it started nagging me about where the printer was, I hopped into the printer and set up the wireless just to see, since it actually saw my 802.11n network. Sure enough, entered my encryption key, and there it was. And instantly my mac found it, and the install completed.

One thing to note, the little paper manual that came with it didn’t seem to have anything in there regarding setting up the unit, so I’m going to assume detailed instructions are probably on the CD in PDF or TXT files somewhere. But I was able to get the wireless going without any documentation, the touch screen is very well designed and extremely simple to follow. The flow for printing or setup is well thought out.

So I did some printing, both of 4×6 as well as some 8 1/2 x 11 photos, and they turned out just excellent. Superb, better than I had hoped for, and certainly faster than I had expected.

I will also add that the printer loves to do the samba, especially the 8 or 9 minute “first run” it does the very first time you power it on. But it gives the status right on the LCD, and a timer counting down so you know how long it will be. I’m assuming the wiggles after printing are probably cleaning off the heads and parking them to seal them again between print jobs.

I haven’t tried the duplexer yet, but as the other reviewers mentioned, scanning is just as simple and as high quality as the printing.

After I knew it worked and was happy with it, I hopped back into the on screen menu and checked the bluetooth settings, then added it via bluetooth to my mac, and a minute later, was printing via bluetooth.

One surprise was that it actually came with a USB cable for those who will use one – something I’m not used to seeing bundled with printers.

Another nice feature for me is the front paper load – after the Epson I just tossed, it’s nice to be able to get at the paper right in the front, rather than feeding from the top in the back. Makes it easier on my shelf in the computer armoire, i don’t have to roll it out and play around trying to find where things fit back there out of sight.

The finish is nice. And the mac software works well, haven’t booted to my Windows 7 install yet to see how it works there, but I would be surprised if I had any problems on the windows side. This is not my first HP printer, and if it performs and lasts as well as my others have, I will be more than happy with it.

I purchased mine without any review searches at all, since it was an impulse grab at the store when the one I was looking for wasn’t available, but I’m glad it wasn’t, as this one has a few more features and works better than I could have hoped.

Review by Stephen D. Ferris:

We bought this little gem to take to Europe. First impressions are very favorable. It’s small, reliable, and prints beautifully. At just over four pounds, it’s perfect for travel.

The little Bluetooth adaptor also works very well. Reading the manual (!), I discovered it is possible to mount the adapter permanently inside the printer so that it’s not exposed and doesn’t need attachment every time it is used. This is a simple procedure, and enhances the usefulness of the Bluetooth capability that is all but de rigueur when traveling. The installation / setup information is also in the electronic manual that comes on the CD.

But as good as the printer is, it does not come with (nor does Canon offer) a case of any kind. I found the perfect solution – from Case-Mate: go to http://www.case-mate.com/laptop/macbookpro15/15gblackcases2 and buy the ‘Glovez 15″‘ sleeve (like a large envelope with a velcro closure / flap). It comes in an assortment of colors and is a skin-tight (but very workable) fit in the ‘length’ direction. When inserted, the printer doesn’t take up every bit of the case in the ‘width’ direction, meaning there is just enough room to also accommodate the cord and AC brick. Throw these in, close the flap, and you’re always ready to roll.

Best part: this ‘Glovez’ sleeve is only .99 + .99 S/H, and gets to you in a few days. It’s not bulky – just what one wants to protect the printer but not take up room. (As an aside, the Case-Mate Glovez 13″ [for the MacBook 13" and Air] fits the Lenovo ThinkPad X300 perfectly).

Review by Callie:

Bought this to use while traveling, but once I set it up in an inconspicuous spot in the living room (where I spend way too much time with the laptop), I’ve been using it all the time. Haven’t printed photos, but for letters, Web page copies, even maps, quality matches my Epson printers. It’s at least as fast as any other home printer I’ve had. (But yes, it does spit out the pages from the table onto the floor; I attribute that to where I have it placed, and I don’t care. I don’t have to go upstairs to the desktop printer anymore.)

I use a Mac, which comes with Bluetooth, and bought the adaptor. So no cables, just the print command from the across the room, and I’m in business. I can access all the printer functions, including printer utilities, using Bluetooth — which I can’t with my Epson, which is networked through my Airport router.

Pricey, perhaps, but I’ve already taken this with me on a long weekend and was happy to be able to print out something I needed. I’ll definitely find room in the luggage for this one…..

UPDATE: Still have this printer, and 15 months later, still like it. One hiccup: Upgraded my iBook (Mac OS10.4x) to a MacBookPro (OS10.5x “Leopard”) and could not connect to the printer via bluetooth. In May, found a link via a Mac user forum to Canon driver updates, and I’m back in business. Until I did, was able to connect the printer to my Airport Extreme router and still use it. However, restoring bluetooth functionality made my day. Not sure whether Amazon allows links, and it’s hard to find on the Canon site. But you should look for the ip100sosmosx100us driver package. A google search will bring it up. Perhaps newer printers already have these drivers with the install software. If not, give it a try.

Review by AT:

This is my first Epson printer. I’ve always owned HP but I was particularly interested in being able to print CD/DVD labels. I’ve owned this printer now for a couple of days and am totally pleased. The directions for getting started were easy, and I was able to begin use immediately. The quality of the labels are excellent, good color, looks professional and it prints quickly. I am not one to usually review products but this one, I found well worth the money, value, and am happy that I made the purchase. The only thing I’d change would be for the software that comes with the CD/DVD printer format, I wish it did more but I find it sufficient. I’d definitely recommend. Does well with documents as well.

Review by CD Expert:

This is a fantastic printer for the casual user, but can be problematic for critical uses.

This is the 6th Epson printer we’ve used. When printing out from Adobe Illustrator on all previous models, the size of the printout exactly matches the design.

When trying to print CD inserts on our new Artisan 50, booklets that are designed to be 119.5mm, end up being almost 125mm. May not sound like much, but once they’re cut, they don’t fit in the CD box. It’s very slow and tedious to modify all our layouts that are on file.

Previous models capable of printing on CD’s (such as the Stylus Photo R300) were dead on accurate.

The other annoying problem is that you can’t print from Illustrator directly to CD any longer. That was a great feature of the R300. In the Artisan 50, you have to use their amateurish CD print utility.

Review by J. S. Chase:

I purchased two of these units. I knew what to expect as far as “time to print.” It takes about ONE minute for each print. (4 passes, total. (4th is clear coat.))

So far, I’ve run about 100 prints through each of the two printers without any issue.

Works VERY well with Pictbridge on both the REBEL XTI and the EOS 40D. As for others, I can not state. So far this is the only method I’ve used to print. I have not connected it to a computer, or used memory cards, so I am unable to provide any information as to its functionality in those modes.

The “standard” paper these use is a 4X6 “postcard” prints, which come out beautifully.

The cartridge design means you will have EXACTLY the amount of each color for the number of prints in the cartridge. (Paper/INK in the same cartridge!)

YOU WILL *NOT* RUN OUT OF INK BEFORE YOU RUN OUT OF PRINTS!!!!

Device appears to built quite well. Nothing feels “flimsy” and the unit does not “sound like” it’s working hard while running prints. (You can tell a cheap printer quite easily by listening to the motors. It they sound as though they slow down as a print starts, then the motors are junk.)

I will probably buy yet another…..

Review by Laurentiu Badea:

The prints look just like the photos you get at a photo lab. A tad smaller, as many have said, maybe 1/8″ narrower and 1/16″ shorter than the standard 4×6. Quality-wise, vibrant color and good detail, just as a lab print. Photos are coated with a waterproof and UV-resistant layer.

Cost, ~26 cents a photo (or a bit more if you take printer cost into account, which you should), worth the convenience. The paper/ink kit to buy is Canon E-P100 with two 50-page cartridges. Caution, the E-series printers are not compatible with the paper kits for the CP-series.

As in all dye-sub printers, you make exactly the number of photos indicated on the cartridge, no matter the color coverage. You won’t run out of ink before the paper, because the “ink” is in a film form sized just for the paper. For that same reason, you don’t need to worry about ink drying in a printer left unused for a while. It will be just as ready to print months from now as it is today. Just keep it away from dust.

A 3:2 format photo – as from a DSLR – fits the 4×6 paper better than one from your common point-and-shoot 4:3 camera, which will have to get chopped top and bottom or printed with white space on the sides to fit. You already know this if you have ever had photos done at a lab. You can choose how this is done using the LCD and you can even print a portion of the picture.

The scrolling wheel is useful at going through many pictures. The LCD is better than the older CP models, but still can’t be used to gauge colors. The menu has options for automatic or manual color adjustments (saturation, contrast, brightness, that sort of thing). Useful thing too, as some of the photos came out a bit too saturated. You can add borders or print a month calendar alongside your photo if you want.

You can print straight from a memory card, which I suspect will be the mode used by most. It supports many memory cards, Compact Flash, SDHC and Memory Stick for sure. There is a dedicated slot for the mini versions of the latter two cards so you won’t need an adapter. Insert the card, select the photos, edit if you need then print. Alternatively, you can prepare a “print order” right in the camera: when you view your images in PLAY mode look for a “Print” or “DPOF Print” option. Then stick the card in the printer and it will get to work automatically.

Another way is to hook the camera directly to the printer and use the so-called PictBridge mode. This way you can send photos from the camera to the printer over the USB cable. I do not find this mode very useful, as it wastes camera battery.

You can also print wirelessly, straight from your phone or laptop, by sending photos to the printer via Bluetooth. Canon says to buy the BU-30 adapter but I am happy to report that a 3rd party laptop Bluetooth adapter worked just fine for me.

Finally, you can print from the computer via USB, for which Canon provides a CD with software (Win/Mac). Didn’t try this yet. Not supported by Linux currently. Possibly a later version of Gutenprint-cups may know this printer, that’s the Linux print driver to use for the Selphy printers.

Major plus over the CP-series is that the ink and paper come in one cartridge which can hold 50 photos (the CPs use a lower capacity external paper tray). Also, the power adapter is integrated and all you need is a power cable. This is a step forward towards a portable solution. However, Canon took two additional steps back by making this printer roughly twice as large and twice as heavy as say, the CP-760 model with tray and power adapter. See the product photo I uploaded. That is the reason for the four stars. This isn’t something I want to take in my backpack on a trip or on a flight, though I would definitely take it in a car and the convenience of having 50 photos packed inside is not to be overlooked.

The ES-30 is slower in printing than the CP-760 by a good ten seconds, taking almost a full minute for each photo. As I patiently waited for my first print, it became quite clear why it is so, and also discovered the reason for the hefty weight. The printer spends all that extra time doing some alarming gymnastics with the paper in order to position it where the CP-760 already has it. I could barely stop myself from grabbing that first paper as it was slowly pushed out the front slot, almost all the way, then rotated in place like a card being dealt, finally coming to rest in a crooked orientation which brought flashbacks of horribly torn laser printouts caused by bad manual feeders, while the printer whines some more so as to confirm my growing suspicion that it has failed to grab the paper. But as I move to try to “fix” the problem, the printer snatches it and goes to print as if nothing happened. Turns out, that is how it works, and there is no cause for alarm, although I learned to protect it from similar instincts of well-intended friends seeing it print for the first time. Other than that, it’s quite entertaining to watch it work.