Today for review I’ve got another printer, it’s an all-in-one that is one of the best I’ve ever had the chance to review, it’s just chock full of features that anyone can appreciate. The printer is the Canon Pixma MX870 and it has features like dual paper trays, double sided printing, quiet scanning and printing along with very near studio quality picture prints. The MX870 also does regular printing very well, even on the low setting the quality is outstanding of the printed pages. You can hook the MX870 up via USB, ethernet or even wireless so you’ve got a few options there in terms of connectivity. So read on…

I was going to do a video unboxing for this printer, but unboxing printers is just rather difficult, they’re big and unwieldy.. so this time I’m doing it the old fashioned way.

The Canon Pixma MX870 is packaged very well.

Once everything is unpacked we find the printer itself, five ink cartridges, power cord, phone cord and several papers and driver/software CD.

There is actually 2 black cartridges in the MX870.

Down inside of the printer is the print head.
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The MX870 is a large printer weighing in at 26.1lbs with dimensions of (W x D x H) 19.4″ x 17.1″ x 8.9″

On the top is the auto document feeder, under that is the flatbed scanner.

There is paper tray on the back of the printer.

On the front is the control panel, below that is the paper out tray, and actually beneath that is a second paper tray.

To the right of the paper tray is the card reader, and below that on the bottom corner of the printer is a USB port.

On the back of course you’ll find the USB, ethernet, and phone connections along with the power as well.

The control panel run across the top, in the center is the 2.5” color LCD display.

On the right is the number pad, along with copy buttons. In this picture you can also see the Wi-Fi light is on as I’ve got it connected to my network.

In the center is the display, to the right of the display is the navigation pad, but what’s interesting is that the dial on the outside spins so you can navigate that way as well as just pushing buttons.

Then to the left is the power button along with the main function buttons.

Specifications:

PIXMA MX870 Wireless

Bring the ultimate wireless printing solution to your home or small office. The PIXMA MX870 Wireless1 Home Office All-In-One lets you print from any room in your home and boasts incredible 9600 x 2400 maximum color dpi2 with tiny 1pl ink droplets and a 5 individual ink tank system. A built-in, fully integrated 35-sheet Auto Document Feeder means fast copying or scanning of your originals so you can tend to other tasks while the printer is at work. Its built-in Auto Duplex Printing prints 2-sided documents without having to manually flip the pages and can reduce your paper consumption by 50%. Combine both of those and you can automatically copy two sided documents without having to flip any paper manually at all. Additionally, various security features like password protected PDF’s let you feel safe about creating and distributing your most confidential files.

Super G3 High-speed Fax and networkable Ethernet ensure efficient communication and thanks to Dual Color Gamut Processing Technology, your copies will maintain the integrity of the original while you produce remarkable scans at 4800 dpi. This versatile Wireless Office All-In-One also prints photo lab quality pictures. So, utilize 2 Paper Paths to easily select printing documents on plain paper and pictures on photo paper without having to load one paper at a time. Speaking of photos, take full advantage of Canon’s fantastic Wi-Fi printing technology and print your photos wirelessly from compatible iPhone 3G, 3GS and iPod touch devices with the new Easy-PhotoPrint for iPhone App, available for free on the app store. Enjoy additional computer-less printing capabilities via compatible memory cards, PictBridge and optional Bluetooth4 while images are easily viewed on a 2.5″ LCD.

Whether you’re running your business on a PC or Mac, the PIXMA MX870 meets all of your printing needs in one machine and can fit virtually anywhere!

Features:
Extraordinary Resolution
Realize the power of 9600 x 2400 maximum color dpi firing with 1pl. Benefit? Incredible quality and detail in both your business documents and photos.

High Performance Individual Ink System
This 5-color ink system consists of four dye-based inks plus a pigment-based black ink, producing exceptional photos and crisp, laser-quality text. Only replace the color ink tank that runs out. So, you save money on ink!

EasyPhoto-Print EX
Your days of driving to the store or waiting on long lines at a kiosk to print your photos are over. Do it yourself at home with your Canon PIXMA printer! Print as many images as you want on photo paper up to 8.5″ x 11″. You can even print multiple pictures on one page. Plus, with one touch of your mouse, EasyPhoto-Print automatically crops images, corrects red-eye, smoothes facial lines and skin tone and even brightens and sharpens faces.

Fully-Integrated Duplex Auto Document Feeder
The built-in 35 sheet Duplex Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) makes it easy to copy, scan or fax multiple documents without having to load them one at a time. Its full integration makes it easier to fit into tight spots and once it’s loaded it lets you do, well whatever you want.

Built-In Auto Duplex Printing
Keep it green and automatically print, scan and copy on both sides of the page without the hassle of turning it over manually. This saves you time, money and paper – plus you’re helping the environment!

Easy Scroll Wheel
Easily and quickly access and select the various features available for faster operation.

2.5″ LCD Screen
Easily view, select and edit your images for simple computer-free printing. No downloading needed, just pick your pic and print!

Specifications:

Print Resolution (up to):
Color: Up to 9600 x 2400 dpi
Black: Up to 600 x 600 dpi

Paper Sizes: 4″ x 6″, 5″x 7″, 8″ x 10″, Letter, Legal, U.S. #10 Envelopes

Standard Interface:
Wireless LAN (IEEE 802.11b/g)1, (Compatible with IEEE 802.11n)
Ethernet
USB 2.0 Hi-Speed
Card Slots (See Memory Card Support)
PictBridge (Cable not included)
Bluetooth v2.0 (Optional)

Dimension (W x D x H): 19.4″ x 17.1″ x 8.9″
Weight: 26.1 lbs.
Warranty: 1-year limited warranty with InstantExchange Program. 1-year toll-free technical phone support.

Price: $199.99 (from Amazon at time of review)

I had no issues with installation, it says it should take 20 minutes but it took about 5 total. It does install quite a few things.

Once done there are several shortcuts on your desktop now:

Here’s something interesting that I’ve never seen on any other printer, there’s LED in the print head that light up when you install the cartridges. Nothing special, but I thought it was a nice touch, this way if the LED is lit then you know the cartridge is in correctly.

When installation is completed the control center opens up with several options for you:

The My Printer section is where you can access all of the settings, and there’s a ton of them.

Let’s take a quick look at the control panel. There is a template section where you can print lined paper and graphs along with checklists and even calendars.

Scanning with the MX870 is easy and the scanner is very quiet and fast. There’s several options when it comes to scanning like scanning to PC, PDF, Email and OCR.

I did one scan, the same as my other printer reviews and it came out decent, but a bit cut off for some reason. I did do another afterwards and it seemed to work fine, not sure why the first was cut like it is.Then I scanned another one and it was cut off, not sure what’s going on here. One of the things I look for in a scanner is the crop feature, the MX870 has this feature but it handles it differently, after you scan and before you save you can crop it then save the cropped scan.

I printed several pages, just text and pictures taken from this site actually and they look very good. The text looks crisp and clear, and the pictures are decent, and this was just on the regular quality setting. Here’s pictures of the prints and close ups as well. You’ll notice there’s really no bleeding at all in the text, nicely done.

I also printed several pictures as well and they came out beautiful honestly. The print quality is excellent, I used good photo paper and I had the settings on high as you should when printing pictures. So the print quality is very near studio quality, there are no lines in the pictures and they look perfect really. With the settings on high most printers do take a while to print pictures, but the MX870 was fairly fast really.
The MX870 has got a ton of features truly that anyone can appreciate.

There is one thing that I could complain about and that’s the size, it’s a big and heavy printer. If you’re limited on space you’re going to have a hard time finding somewhere to put this printer. On the other hand though it is wireless so you could put it most anywhere and still be able to print, so it doesn’t necessarily have to be in the same room as you are.

The ink cost isn’t too bad really. If you go and buy it from Canon they’ve got a nice bundle package for $54.99 that includes black and all three color cartridges and you get 50 sheets of 4×6 glossy photo paper, or you can get three black cartridges for $41.99, or just the plain four pack of cartridges with black and colors in there for $47.99. That comes to about $12 each which is cheap for ink these days

Conclusion:

The Canon MX870 is in my opinion a great printer really, it’s got a ton of features that any business would appreciate but the average user can appreciate as well.

All in all I like this printer a lot, it has all of the features that I want in a printer, the ink is inexpensive, it’s fast, it’s quiet and it produces quality prints even on the low settings. It has an auto document feeder which is something I can appreciate, but the MX870 will take two pages and print them onto one piece of paper for you, one on each side and you don’t have to flip the paper, it does it for you.

Pros:
+Easy installation
+Fast prints and scans
+Quiet
+Inexpensive ink
+Easy to use
+Double sided printing, no flip
+USB, wired or wireless connection

Cons:
-Scanning is a bit off at times
-Large size printer

Grades:
Overall
Design
Performance

This product was given to technogog for review by the company for review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the review, we do not, and never will, accept payment from companies to review their products. To learn more about our review policy please visit this page HERE.