LunchWithLions
I got this printer to use in my home office because the last one I had eats two sheets at a time. I’ve had Canon Pixma printers before, so this wasn’t too hard to set up. For the life of me, I can’t ever get these things to work wirelessly. I’ve been through a couple of different service providers and routers at this point, so I’m pretty sure the problem is me, but just know that I didn’t get to test that part. I ended up connecting it with a printer cable I had on hand. I didn’t use the enclosed CD Rom to install the software, mostly because I didn’t realize it was included in the box. I just figured I would be directed to the company website to download it directly. When that didn’t happen, I went there and did it manually. We print a lot and have gone through a few printers at the office, so this wasn’t hard. I think I would just get it from the website anyway because these things are almost always updated by the time you get them. The only frustrating aspect of getting the printer up and running is that all the flaps and trays have to be in position before it will print. If something is in the wrong place, it will stop and it won’t move until you figure out which thing to move. Sometimes it will show you a picture of what’s wrong on the front LCD screen and sometimes it won’t. A couple of these didn’t seem essential to the moving parts inside, and after the tenth time of getting up from the computer, moving an outer flap and clicking OK, hitting this thing with the hammer of justice was seeming like a viable option. In the end I did manage to get that first test print out. Note that no matter how far out you pull the bottom tray, it will spit the paper onto the floor. It comes with a sample pack of photo paper, so you can try out some photo printing right away. The Pixma printers in general have printed some gorgeous photos and this one is no different. I was able to scan, copy and print documents with no trouble, either. Have a multi-functional printer like this is kind of important because I don’t just do photos, and my mom likes to have me print tax documents for her to save her trips to the library. You can print things from your phone, and this is compatible with Alexa as well as some other apps, but most of this stuff is not really useful to me. I edit images in Photoshop on a big screen before I print them, and I would never print something directly from a phone. If you do stuff without a computer this may be a great feature for you. I didnt find any instructions for doing this, but I wasnt exactly looking, either. It also seemed that the phone app may have only been for Android devices. Again, if this is important to you, you should research this for yourself. There is also some idiot software that gets installed with the printer drivers that I didn’t get any choice about and will never use. I got to say no on some of it, but the rest of the bloatware is there now. This printer uses Canon CL-281 cartridges and a PG-280 black, which are available in XL and XXL, and cost as much or more than the printer itself. There are no third party cartridges at this time, and I don’t know if these are refillable yet. There are no bargains on this stuff. I don’t think I would buy the XXLs unless I knew I was going to do a lot of printing. Overall, this printer has most of the perks and annoyances of most printers on the market right now. You’ll get great quality photo and color documents, but you won’t get any bargains on ink for now. Once you get past any quirks of initial set-up, you’ll have all your printing needs met. If you’re not doing a lot of photos and ink cost is a concern, I would probably go with an older model that has third party ink available. Otherwise this is a good choice if you need a lot of good quality color prints.
