Got this printer couple of weeks ago and it has been performing up to my expectation. I still cannot believe the price of this AIO printer. Even at the MSRP of $99 from Canon, it is still very well below a comparable unit from other brands. I like a good bargain, so originally I had 2nd thought on getting this because it was only $10 cheaper at Amazon than list price. However, after comparing other AIO printers with similar features like wireless, fax, auto-document feeder, this became a no-brainer.
Pros:
- AIO with fax.
- Mac friendly software
- Price point
- Sleek symmetric design vs. other brands (i.e. all trays are closable to create a neat look)
- Self opening output tray if tray is closed. I had other printers where if I forgot to open the output tray, the paper would just cumple up.
- Easy Wi-Fi setup
- reasonable replacement OEM ink cartridge prices.
- iPhone/iPod touch app for printing photos from your iPhone or iPod touch.
- USB cable included, useful and a must for initial setup
Cons:
- so far I have not been able to fax from my MacBook wirelessly, though faxing from PC wirelessly works.
- slow start-up like most other users have experienced
I have owned AIO printers from HP, Lexmark, and Epson before. This model by far has been the best price performance for me. Canon PIXMA MX340 Wireless Office All-in-One Printer (4204B019)
This is a good printer for the price. I had a little problem setting up the wireless because the manual is not very clear in the instructions but I was able to set it up. I work as an IT so I dont know if this is going to be a problem for others. Also, when I tried scanning to the PC wirelessly, I got an error message from the computer about the MP Navigator. I went to the product website and found out that you need to install a separate software to get the scan to PC to work. Now, everything works except for a couple of things that this printer/software leaves to be desired -
1. OCR only scans text into notepad. Scan to Word does not work.
2. When the color ink runs out, you can not even print B/W copies.
The print quality is good and it print fast but Canon needs to fix the above 2 issues. It just doesnt make sense. My older printer which is a Brother MFC 210C can scan to word and I can still print B/W even when one of the color inks run out.
My ancient HP G5 All-In-One finally croaked, so I ordered one of these. I didn't really expect it would be any good considering how cheap it is, but I have been pleasantly surprised. The construction is really excellent, and it looks a lot better than most of the flimsy competition I looked at from HP and the rest. There aren't any floppy pieces dangling off it waiting to get broken. I am using it with an iMac 30" running OS X 10.6.3.
Setup was fairly straightforward using the wireless connection. The manual takes about 50 pages to get round to telling you that all you need to do is hit the menu button on the printer and find the LAN sub-menu, then choose the network and enter the password. The software for the iMac pretty much installs itself.
The included software is good. This is usually a problem with Macs and printers/scanners, but not this time. The scanner will scan straight into Mail, or into your Pictures folder, in jpg, tiff, or pdf. The scans are excellent, much better than the stand-alone HP Scanjet I paid $300 for not so long ago. Print quality is quite good, and reasonably fast, but I really got this for scanning and faxing, with just light duty printing when I don't want to walk over to the laser printer.
I am still laughing to myself over the insane value this represents. I honestly can't remember ever getting such a great piece of gear so cheap. It cost more to buy the Airport Express that hooks it to the LAN. I have never posted a review on Amazon before, but this machine is just so great that I had to.
The Agony:
I've been setting up equipment all my life (and liking it!) and I've got to say this has some of the worst documentation I've ever come across. The printed manual is a joke, leaving out huge blocks of information.
I tried following the manual as long as possible, but after reaching a dead end, my best option was to tinker and hope for a friendly user interface. Fat chance.
Another reviewer had mentioned disregarding the first 50 pages of the manual and setting up the wireless via the LCD display. That was the best advice I'd had all day. Even so, entering the router password was hardly intuitive, especially with caps, lower case, and special characters involved. Hint: cycle through the character types via the * key.
It turns out that the documentation on the installation CD is more complete, though it has more twists and turns than a plate of spaghetti. In Canon's defense, the machine does have a lot of features--but that's still no excuse.
Some of the CD contents seems unnecessary, especially for Mac users. At least Canon allows a custom installation and a pretty good explanation of what you are (or aren't) installing.
I'm used to scanning from within Photoshop and believe it or not, that is possible. I found a plugin and manually installed it in the appropriate Photoshop folder. It worked.
Obviously, Canon won't make any money on this until you go through a few ink cartridges. And judging from the small size of them, finding a reasonable price is a must. If you're considering this machine, remember it locks down functions when the ink is gone AND it uses color ink even when printing / copying in b/w.
The Ecstasy:
Print quality is simply outstanding, and that's coming from a longtime graphic designer who's very particular about output. My first page was for a final logo design and everything was flawless (on Konica glossy stock). No jaggies at all, even under magnification.
The scanner quality was passable and extremely quick (150 dpi color scan 6x4) taking 10-15 seconds. I expect better results once I have a chance to tinker with the software.
My wireless network was automatically recognized and integrated once the password entry glitch was overcome.
For me, the bottom line of quality and value far outweighs the gruesome setup and ongoing costs.
July 12 edit:
After recently installing Adobe CS5, I learned that the Canon scanner plugin (and all scanner plugins, for that matter) will not work with Photoshop CS5's Import menu. It has to do with the switch to 64-bit. So now I can either open Photoshop CS3 to scan within PS or use Canon's funky included scanning software. This isn't Canon's fault, but it is something you should know. - Canon - Wireless Printer - Printer - Canon Multifunction'
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