 A nicely designed printer... |
| Review Date: April 15, 2009 |
| Reviewer: W. B. Halper, Saratoga, CA |
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 $400 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. |
Good AIO with quality output and one unforgivable flaw!
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| Review Date: March 25, 2009 |
| Reviewer: 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 8.5x11 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 4x6 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. |
Buy now, read review while you wait for delivery truck!
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| Review Date: February 21, 2009 |
| Reviewer: A. Michalove, Fort Worth, TX USA |
The Canon PIXMA MX860 is the iPhone of All-In-One Printers - it is feature packed, easy to use, and exceeds expectations at every turn.
SUMMARY
Excellent quality, clear menus/instructions/software, Wireless setup, printing, and scanning on OS X is flawless. ADF and Duplexer in a high quality wireless printer from Canon is a steal at $199.
PROS
Build quality, setup instructions, feature set is huge, price tag isn't
CONS
Weight, could be quieter, internal paper tray doesn't handle photo media, no wireless faxing
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The build quality is striking. It is very well packed and instructions are the best I have seen of any consumer electronics product including previous Canon products. There is a "kickstand" for keeping the printer open while inserting the 5 ink tanks and closing it reveals that it has a gentle piston like a luxury car's hood. Other details include a mechanism on the output try that automatically opens when printing to keep papers from spewing onto the floor. There is definitely some weight to this device and it is much larger than a printer you might get free with a PC purchase. Still I said to myself as I unpacked "was this really just $199?" as I had been looking at more expensive models and was concerned the quality would suffer to provide the MX860's price point.
PHYSICAL SETUP
Okay, I was flat out scared to insert the print head and break the caps off the five delicate ink tanks to insert them, but I think the instructions were just trying to make a point. In any case, do prepare your setup with lots of light as the print head insertion process is both dark and covered in warning stickers. I had no problems however because the on-screen instructions were clear (both visually and intellectually) and after printing a three step printhead alignment, output quality was definitely promising. I went with the wireless setup so I left the included USB cable (thanks Canon!) and phone lines (don't intend to fax) in the bag. The built in paper tray (letter size only) hides away neatly under the printer and there is a second input on the back of the unit for other media, plain paper, envelopes, or photo paper (hey a free 4x6 sample pack is included, cool!)
NETWORK SETUP
I installed the OS X drivers on a MacBook and it was very easy. Note that there are different instructions for 10.4 and 10.5 which are the only two versions supported as of Feb 2009 (Vista, XP, and 2000 are also supported, though it is unclear if 64-bit drivers are provided for those OSes). Software is as straight forward as the printed instructions. I did not install Canon's included photo software as I am expecting iPhoto to handle those tasks.I put the printer in Wireless LAN setup mode. A couple items to note though: Canon does proide for totally wireless setup though Wi-Fi Protected Setup though I went with the more straight forward USB connection to get the printer setup on the wireless network (turns out that included USB cable was helpful). The second item to note is that the software required a reboot which I am not accustom to with OS X software but none the less went along with. It was very cool to see the results of a two minute Wi-Fi quality test that shows the signal strength from base station to printer. (I was in the green zone from about 50 - 60 feet from the base station through two walls.)
PRINTING
Printing is so subjective I'm not going to try to quantify it. I'll say that it looks very crisp to me - not laser printer crisp, but every bit as sharp as I expected. Have not printed photos yet. The printing is about moderate in speed and as loud as my $300 HP All-in-One from 2004 but lower in tone so not as annoying.
SCANNING
Wireless scanning was what I was very interested in and the MX860 did not disappoint. Can scan from the glass, or the Auto-Document Feeder (ADF) and even do front and back duplex scans from the ADF. The awesome on-screen menu system is intuitive and allows you to choose your target wireless device to scan to. Scanning was faster and quieter than I expected and the resolution is truly excellent for an All-in-One. This is not a dedicated scanner and it won't scan a legal document, but when you want to quickly front and back scan those rebate forms before you send them in, this will be a good friend to have. I also look forward to batch scanning old printed photos for import into iPhoto.
OTHER FEATURES
I haven't had time to test printing from a memory card, duplex or ADF copy/print/scanning, faxing or receiving a fax, or Bluetooth (didn't purchase the optional module for $30). But what I was keenly impressed with is the crisp, intuitive menus. Very easy to navigate and follow. Things are where you think they will be. I wanted to turn down the volume of the keypad confirmation beeps and pleasantly had a whole menu of selection to do so for various volumes including off, as well as different settings for key press or alarms. The attention to detail and user experience really shows.
I hope this review was helpful and you enjoy your new Canon PIXMA MX860. |
Beware of how the fax operates
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| Review Date: March 24, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Iowa Guy, |
First the positive part of the review:
I specifically picked the Pixma 860 based on other reviews. I found the installation process to be very smooth and had no problems getting the printer to work in the wireless mode. Simply follow the instructions in the "getting started" manual and you will be good to go. The printer portion works as advertised.
However, the fax part of the Pixma 860 works very oddly. If you have any intention of using the fax capability - beware. You have 4 options for setting the fax up for incoming calls: one for Fax only and 3 options if using both as a fax and telephone. If set up in a telephone priority mode, you MUST be home to start the fax machine manually or it will ring no answer. If setting up in a Fax Priority Mode, the fax answers on the 2nd ring even if there is no fax and will not allow any phone in the house to pick-up EXCEPT the phone that is connected to the fax machine. I do not have Distinctive Ring Option from the phone company, so I was unable to explore that option.
I spent 2 hours on the phone with two different Canon Techs and they informed me that the problem in in the machine design. I find it darn near impossible to believe that one has to either be home to press the start button to receive the fax or that no other extension in the house can pick up the phone without running down to the fax machine to disconnect the call at the fax.
If you are using this in a one room office, you could make it work for you, but if you are in a home that has more than one extension, than you are out of luck. Canon ultimately offered two work arounds for me: 1) Get distinctive ring from the phone company (no thanks to that added monthly expense or 2) Buy a complete new cordless phone system for the house (7 units needed) and hook the base unit up to the fax machine. While faxes are seldom received anymore, I do need the process to be automatic without giving up the use of other extensions in the home. Neither workaround works for me.
I am concerned that no one else has mentioned this issue and normally that would leave me to conclude that the problem is a user set-up error. But after spending two hours with technicians and engineers at Canon I do not believe that to be the case.
4/5/09 - Another reader has advised that if an answering machine is hooked up to the phone outlet on the fax machine, that the fax will answer after the answering machine has picked up. The key here is the answering machine HAS to be hooked up to the fax. In my case this will not work as my answering and fax are on different floors and they both need to be in different spots (fax machine is for me and the answering machine is for the family). |
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Canon PIXMA MX860 Wireless All-In-One Photo Printer
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