Canon TS9120 Wireless AIO Printer, Gold, with PGI-280XL and CLI-281 Combo Pack

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First thing, out of the box this printer looks great. When I started setting it up the process was extremely easy. The manual is well laid out and easily walks a non-technical individual through the steps that are required. The included CD which contains the required drivers can be used or the manual also provides a link where current versions of both the software and drivers can be downloaded. The complete process, installing the ink cartridges, software, and drivers took about 20 minutes. Part of this 20 minutes was the printer discovering that it had new firmware available, it downloaded and installed it without a hitch. This is time well spent as once completed, using it as a printer, scanner, or copier operation is smooth. The mobile app (iOS and Android) also works smooth and quick, adding the printer was painless. The whole process was simpler than any printer installation, other than another current Canon printer which uses the same software/app, I’ve done in recent years.. Reproduction quality is excellent, this thing does a beautiful job. It doesn’t matter what I send to it, documents, images, a screen capture of a map or anything else. The software does an excellent job of determining the colour correction needs to provide and great looking print without having to tweak any settings. There is a nice little program that comes with the complete driver/software installation for minor image manipulation that works and is easy to suss out. Printing out 4x6 images on the provided sample photo paper resulted in very nice prints. The colour depth and finish were excellent. Each print took about 35 seconds so not the fastest, but for a home printer this will suffice for me. ♦ ♦ ♦: I do have one problem that I am unable to get around, the printer will not see any images on an SD card inserted into the reader slot. I’ve tried formatting three different cards each as exFAT, FAT, FAT32, and even NTFS. I’ve put jpeg and tiff (formats shown as supported by the documentation) images on the various cards. then navigate through the screens to where it simply states that “Data of supported types are not saved”. I’ve had it check to see if theres a firmware update but nothing at this time. This is mystifying as all other printers I use including the other current Canon have no issues with the three cards or images that are loaded on them. I don’t use this onboard feature very often as I prefer to use image manipulation software like Photoshop rather than try to use the limited features that are typically found on printers but there are times when I just need to print a snap shot and be done with it. This is a real let down on an otherwise great home printer. Another negative is the size of colour cartridges. These things are petite. There are six in total which is why the colour reproduction is so vivid and it will also spread the load between 5 (the main black cartridge which is about double the size of the rest, is only used for B&W jobs) whereas a standard printer would use three colour cartridges. I like Canon and their printer products but these ink cartridges could be priced better. They have three size versions, normal, X large, and XX large all within the same physical cartridge. To me this means they just fill them to different levels and then charge according to the amount of ink in each version. Unfortunately, Canon doesn’t yet provide any stats on how many pages a cartridge is good for, not that I could find when searching. Printing speed isn’t the fastest but more than fast enough for average home use. The double-sided printing feature in this small of a package is nice and works well but again it’s slower when compared to larger machines. ► Where it really suffers a loss of speed is duplex printing, specifically the turnaround time between printing on the back side. ► Once the first page is printed it sits in limbo for 14 seconds before being drawn back in to print page two on the back side. ► Total time to print a two-sided colour document is 46 seconds, a very long period in today’s printer world. This wouldn’t be acceptable in an office. I was able to fit 75 sheets of standard print/copy paper into the bottom tray or about a dozen in the back mounted pop up feeder that can be used. In both cases adjustments can be made to hold different sizes of regular paper stock, envelopes, or photo paper. Canon doesnt provide any details here, how many sheets either one will hold. For printing images on photo paper, I found the top feed to be easier for setting up and centring the paper. This feeder this doesn’t work to feed several sheets at one time for scanning, sheets to be scanned need to be placed on the top glass the same as anything to be copied. Given the shortcomings listed above, especially the SD card reader not working, I’m having a hard time thinking of it as anything over a 3-star printer compared to others in it’s class.

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This new model TS9120 replaces the dedicated Gray ink tank in the TS9020 with a Photo Blue ink tank. The gray ink tank in the older model is to “stabilize colors so your color prints look true to life” while this newer model uses the blue ink tank “to reduce graininess that can be found in bright colored prints from blues to whites.” I have both the TS9120 and the TS9020 so I compared the prints side-by-side. Here are a couple photos from both models, with two different kinds of subjects; landscape and a toddler. The sky in the landscape photo is more true to the original with this TS9120 model. It captures the deep blue and the fine details of the cloud. The sky printed with the TS9020 is a little bit more pale and without as many cloud details. But the biggest noticeable difference between the two printers is with people portraits. The older model TS9020 has beautiful, true, warm skin tones. This new TS9120 gives the skin tones a slightly bluish tint, for example blue veins in the forehead are more noticeable. I much prefer the older TS9020 with the gray ink tank for pictures of people. For the overall print quality, I recommend this TS9120 if you take mostly landscape photos, and the TS9020 would be better if you take mostly people photos. You can also calibrate and adjust the color profile in the photo application and in the print settings, but these are the ideal uses for each model based on the default settings. As far as other features, I wish it had a larger bottom paper tray to hold more sheets. Canon could design the printer to be slightly taller and dramatically increase the paper capacity. Also the flip out screen feels flimsy and bounces/bends like a lever with the slightest touch (whereas the similar kind of rotating display mechanism on my Epson XP-960 feels solid). But I love the compact width and length, and it looks great on the desk!

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I spent a lot of time researching printers. I have had HP and currently have a 6+ year old Canon Pixma all in one, in another room connected via wifi. I wanted a faster printer (my old Canon took 2-5 minutes to warm up let alone process). I also needed something compact to fit inside my desk shelf (15” wide or so.) I wanted a front tray since it was going to be hard to access. Unboxing is easy and initially it does look a bit cheap, but I am happy with it overall. It comes with 6 inks, easy to install. I do not know if it will restrict use if one ink is out, I’ll have to find out. This printer is set up to our wifi network (the router is within 5 feet of it) which may help my printer process jobs faster! I tried to follow the paper instructions/cd-rom but it didn’t work so I just chose MANUAL SETUP on the actual printer screen, and just chose our WIFI network and entered our password. Easy and seamless! On each computer I then chose the printer and made it our default. We installed the Canon app on our phones and also did test prints. Very easy to use! You do have to go to the app first to initiate what to print however. CON’S: • My ink levels looked dramatically lower for just printing one test page! Time will tell how long ink lasts. I read another review that said to use black & white to save on ink, not Grayscale since it will use some of the new blue ink. • I don’t like that you have to “register” what size paper you put in the tray every time. I hope I can change settings to default letter size paper. • Cord is a bit short for me; I will look into buying a longer one since it says I can’t use an extension cord. PRO’S: • Seems fast to me in printing B/W documents! 30 seconds to come on and spit my print job out! Color jobs and photos obviously will take a little more time. • Auto On/OFF, under ECO SETTINGS. I chose mine to go off after 15 minutes. Then, if you send a job while it is powered off, it comes on automatically. We tested how fast it prints and sent a print job to the printer (not powered on) and within 30 seconds it turned on, tray came out, printed and finished! GREAT! • 2 sided printing (not sure if i can use this feature if i only use my front tray) • Printing on cd’s • Quiet Setting (under Eco settings) • Large Touchscreen • Scanning is fast and saves file right to my desktop. Would recommend this printer and update review as I use the various features. Overall it probably took me an hour to unbox, setup, and connect it to our wifi.

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I purchased this machine for its photo printing, duplex and scanning capabilities. Setup and connection through my wireless network was a snap. No problems printing from either my iMac or IOS devices. My wife printed off a recipe from her iPad and my niece, an email from her MS Surface. Does duplex print operations smoothly, scans and copies quickly. Feels strange printing photos using the rear tray but the 4x6 and 5x7 photos I printed, came out vibrant and rich in tone. In fact, they pretty much look like the images displayed on my iMacs screen. Overall, Id state that the printers functions seem much faster than my MG7520 and even a bit quieter. The wife and I will use this printer for document printing but nothing heavy-duty, a few pages here and there. Im an amateur photographer so will primarily use the printer to print images and portraits, mainly 4x6 and 5x7 photos. So, with all that good stuff stated...the lack of ink cartridge (cli-281) availability + the current cost of refill ink for this machine, I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS PRINTER FOR HOME BUSINESS PURPOSES. The long term cost will be in the ink so Ill try to come back and update this review after the holidays. Should have a pretty good estimate on ink usage by then. Although the ink costs will eventually come down, for now, I give four stars based on my research for ink replacement/availability and price. Update: Ink usage about the same as my previous Canon, continues to work as normal and documentes/images look fantastic. A few issues however. The printer does completely shut itself off after a period of non-use (not sure how long). It irritates the the wife that she has to walk to the study and turn it on before she can print to it from her iPad, so far not a big deal to me. I have to admit that the control panel seems very flimsy to me, especially when using the power button and as a previous reviewer stated, I now also feel the need to place my thumb under it to keep it from wanting to bend down. Touch controls on the panel are not a problem however, light for the touch and responsive. Lastly, if you dont lift the control panel high enough, it will not print as the panel is too close to the feeder tray so the paper cannot feed out normally. I had to lift the control panel almost to its full upright position for the paper to feed. Fortunately Canon anticipated this issue as the notification on the LED screen displays the issue and tells you to lift the control panel higher. Once this is done, it automatically prints the document. Well thats about all I have to state regarding this purchase. This printer has some minor issues but no show-stoppers thus far and the photographic prints are just amazing. Knowing what I know now, I would still purchase this printer. Hopefully this review helps you future buyers out.

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DO NOT BUY! Worse purchase I have ever made in MY LIFE! After reading the printer description/price you think GREAT buy. Brand trustworthy. After just a few sheets you will get the message the pre-installed cartridges low on ink. No problem, you buy a pack of the refills, thinking the others were probably “trials”. Wrong. You buy the normal refill pack. After few uses you get the message: Low ink. So the second set you buy XL, and have now paid more for cartridges than you did the printer. So if you make my mistake and buy as soon as you as receive “ink low” toss it and buy you a printer. Buy a printer that the cartridges LAST at least thru one rim of paper and do not cost more than the machine. Don’t believe me: Check out prices for the ink cartridges on internet sites, local office supply stores, EBay, even Amazon. I already notified Canon how “thrilled” I was over their piece of crap. They have ripped-off any consumer who buys this machine. And if you depend upon it for school work-it will cost you as much as tuition to operate it! DO NOT BUY. Did I return to Amazon? No, not their fault Canon put this piece of crap on the market. It was brand new. I just wish they would discontinue selling it on their site. For a young person investing in a printer for academic work or a photographer it is not even worth the cardboard box it comes in.

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The setup progressed quite easily until I got to the scanner function. I looked everywhere on the Web for the driver software, but I could not find it. I saw several references to this software on Canon Web sites, but nowhere could I find the driver download program itself. Finally, a call to Canon solved the problem. They helped me install another program from which I could access the Canon IJ Scan Utility Lite software. I can’t understand why it wasn’t included on the enclosed disk or on the Web. Since I didn’t see any similar problems listed in other reviews, I guess I missed something. Canon tells me the printer has 6656 nozzles, but doesn’t direct me to the scanner’s driver software necessary for its operation. Odd! The scanner works fine. It is quicker and quieter than my dedicated scanner. But I I miss my stand-alone’s ability to scan negatives and slides. I guess I’ll have use my old scanner for those occasions. I spent considerable time trying to figure out how to install that ***** plastic panel that helps hold the paper flat in the bottom tray. If it is not installed correctly the paper won’t feed properly. Canon directed me to two small tabs in the tray. First, the panel must be placed under the tabs, and then dropped into position. I had not recognized the tabs at first. I had thought all those stems on the bottom of the panel had something to do with its installation. The tabs are quite tiny and are flat back against a flat black background. I’m thinking about painting the tabs white to help detect them (after the warranty expires, of course). I wonder if an easier mounting system could be used, such as one with round tabs inserted into round holes. As mentioned in other reviews, the bottom paper tray doesn’t hold much paper (only 75 sheets, I understand.) If the printer were a little taller, more paper could be stored there. Which brings me to another point: my previous printer had only a rear paper tray. If I wanted to print a photo and had plain paper in the tray, I would just remove the plain paper and replace it with photo paper. With the two paper trays included with this printer, I can use one for plain paper and the other for photo paper only. Convenient? Sure. But I’m not sure I don’t prefer the single rear tray configuration for all paper. Sure, I would have to replace the paper in one tray for certain print jobs, but I wouldn’t have to bother loading paper under the front of the machine, like with the TS9120. Out of habit, I almost caught myself adding plain paper to the rear paper tray. The Power button is located on the front cover, along with the LCD touch screen. The panel seems to float and is quite springy. No problems yet, but I’m wondering what would happen to this panel if I should press the Power button too firmly without first positioning my hand under it for support. I have not heard of any problems, however. I think I would prefer the Power button to be placed in the console rather than on this panel. The LCD panel consists of a black, piano finish, which is a magnet for fingerprints. I would prefer the finish to be flat, like that on the printer sides. The printer delivers sharper color prints than my previous 15-year old Pixma printer. But I would expect that. And the inks in this printer are more expensive. No surprise there, either. When I pressed the Off button on that previous printer that was the end of it. There was no further activity. When I press the OFF button on the TS9120, however, it first asks me if I want the paper output tray retracted. Then, if I select “Yes”, the paper tray retracts and the printer goes into a shake, rattle and roll mode. Finally, a lengthy pause occurs before the Power light eventually goes out. I guess that’s the result of new technology. Since I haven’t used the memory card or direct CD/DVD printing features yet, I can’t comment on their use. Although I appreciate the printer’s ability to print directly onto CDs and DVDs, I have to wonder how often I will use it. It looks like CD/DVD technology is on its way out. The 400 page manual is quite informative, but lengthy. I wish some of that legal mumbo-jumbo were placed in a separate document. Although I’m using a wireless LAN connection, I noticed that my previous USB cable, used to connect my old printer to my computer, does not fit this printer at the printer port. I would like to know the nomenclature of a replacement cable. The setup instructions required I enter IP4 and IP6 data for my router during Setup. Somehow, Canon Customer Service was able to circumvent this request. That saved me some research time. I have used the dual tray and duplex printing features and I am pleased with them. In addition, I am pleased to report that the text in scans and prints present a darker black image than my previous unit. Since I usually take landscape photos, I am anxious to see if the blue photo ink will improve my sky images, as noted.. I am concerned about how it will affect my portrait shots, however. I have received excellent phone support from Canon. I found their representatives to be responsive, knowledgeable, courteous and patient.

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Not sure what the issue is with this printer. I have owned multiple Cannon printers and have never had an issue before. Im able to set up the air print without any issues . . . our iPhones can print easily (not necessarily quickly, however). The issue arises when trying to connect our tablet and laptop. I was able to print from my Windows 7 laptop one time but was never able to get the tablet to connect to the printer. Ive tried printing via WiFi and direct with no luck, just a "Printer is not on-line" message every time. Very unfortunate . . . One other note, the paperwork states that the printer will automatically "wake-up" when you send something to print (if hibernated), however, this is not a true statement for mine. Anytime I sent something to print from my iPhone, it would tell me that the printer was not available. I would have to go to the other room where it is located and hit the power button to wake it up, then print.

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I had no problems setting up the printer, and it worked fine for a short time. But then, every time I wanted to print on both sides of the paper (duplex), the second side jammed. I followed the error message, but Canons website just informed me how to remove the jam. There was scant information on how to fix the continuing problem. I looked on Canons Community Forum, and lots of people had the same problem with their same model printers, but the Canon moderator had little advice. He suggested turning the printer off for 5-10 minutes and then on again. If that didnt work, he said to click on the Contact Us page that was supposedly below. There was no such link. The other problem with this model is how long it takes when it does do a duplex print job. It does a fine job with the front page, but then there is a very long pause during which nothing seems to be happening, although the display indicates that the printer is processing. Finally, the backside of the paper is either printed, or it jams. My old Epson Artisan would not pause at all to print the backside of the paper. Sadly, I cannot recommend this printer.

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The first thing that I saw upon powering up this printer is a wall of text where it wanted me to agree to some fairly standard and non-intrusive licencing terms. After reading the agreement, I determine that its nothing malicious and agree. The next thing that I saw was another wall of text that wanted me to agree to submit personal data to Canon to help their marketing department and to help make their corporation more successful. Well Im not a Canon employee, nor are Canon paying me, so why should I help them to make money? I merely bought a printer from Canon that I expect to print documents and pictures, nothing more. I promptly declined the "offer" and went about doing the initial printer setup, which included installing the ink cartridges, then printing and scanning a calibration sheet. Easy so far. The next thing I tried to do was pair my phone to the printer via Bluetooth, but nothing happened when I tapped the printer from the Bluetooth device list on my phone. That was when I found out that I had to install a massive 50MB (code efficiency and optimisation must mean nothing to Canon "developers") app just to be able to pair with the printer and use it. Ok, I give in and install the app. I print a test photo on glossy photo paper and it came out looking pretty good. I then use the Canon app to try to print a document but whats this? Nothing is showing up. Apparently it doesnt recognise PDF files as documents...just great. The most used document format in the world, which also happens to be an open format, and Canon doesnt know what it is. When I tried to print from my PDF scanner app on my phone, it couldnt find the printer, so apparently the Canon app doesnt make the printer known or available to other apps. After that disappointment, I wanted to see what other functions the printer was capable of. Cloud printing? Hmm, I supposed I could put documents I want to print up on my Box account and see if the printer will be more cooperative through its "Cloud Print" ability. Against better judgement, I set up the printer to connect to my WiFi router in order to see if this will work. When the list of compatible online storage providers appeared, I was happy to see that indeed Box was among them, so I tap on the Box icon and a wall of text appears on the Canon Pixma TS9120s tiny screen. Reading the first page, it seemed like normal stuff like wanting me to agree to let the printer connect to Box and to access my files on Box, so I accept. Then a second wall of text appears looking much like the first, only this one wants me to agree to allow Canon, the corporation, to store my user names, passwords and any documents, images or files that I have on my Box account. Naturally, like anyone who values security/privacy and doesnt like entitled, middleman busybodies I decline and I am met with a message claiming that I simply cant use the "Cloud Print" service because I dont think Canon has any business harvesting my sensitive data and having access to my files. There is absolutely no valid reason that Canon needs access to any of my information or files. The printer itself is a computer that is connecting to my Box account. That should be a direct connection and have nothing to do with passing through any third party systems. Im returning this spyware infested printer and buying a printer from a company that respects people. Its such a shame, because I liked a lot of the functions that I saw, such as direct Bluetooth connection, the quality of the test photo print, being able to print my own ruled and graph paper direct from the printer and theoretically being able to print documents and images straight from my Box account. Its really too bad that Canon had to go and mess all of that up by being entitled, snooping scumbags who think that their customers owe them something beyond the purchase price. Addendum: Before I packed up the printer to return it, I powered it on one more time to remove any settings and personal information, like my WiFi SSID and password when the printer displayed a message saying that a firmware update was available. Are you kidding me Canon? I did not tell the printer to phone home and check for updates, so why is it doing that without being explicitly told to do so? I have owned quite a number of various electronics from Canon over the years and there were never trust issues like this before so if this behaviour is indicative of an unscrupulous, anti-consumer change in their business strategy, then I am very disappointed. They should be ashamed of themselves.

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Bought it a month or so ago. Arrived inside a much larger box with literally a single sheet of packing paper lying on top. I complained to Amazon, but never heard back. I needed it so set it up. The wireless set up was a bit quirky, but worked great once I got it going..until it stopped two days ago and I can’t get it back. USB still works fine. Maybe it rattled around during shipment and ruined the network ‘card’? Prints, scans and copies really fast and quality is great. However, I have been doing a project and just blew through an entire 500-sheet ream of paper in the past couple of days. This is the original ream that I opened when I set up the printer, so this data is accurate. These pages have almost all been in ‘Draft’ quality; some entirely grayscale. Maybe 20 or 30 in ‘Standard’ quality. They contain mostly black text with photos copied from Google and snippets of genealogies from Ancestry. Ayone who uses Ancestry will know that they use blue for males and pink for females, so about every third or fourth page contained these. I am now on my second tanks of C, Y, M, and PGBK (280 tank). The black (281) is about half gone. The Photo Blue seems pretty full, as it should. Doing some quick and generous (to Canon) math, it has cost me, say, $100 in ink to do 500 pages in mostly Draft. That’s about 5 cents a page in black and 10-15 cents for color per page for 300 pages with black and about 200 pages of CYM. It’s early on a snowy Saturday, so that math may not be fully accurate. Lol But obviously Canon has seen the beauty of greed and profit in HP’s “razors and razor blades” model – give ya the printer and sell you ink after ink after ink tank. Sad to see Canon go this way. Maybe Epson is still playing it fair? My old Canon MP600, that finally died after 10 years, forcing me to buy this/a new one, printed just as well and far more pages at $12 per tank vs. these $25 tanks. When the tanks run out, the printer simple goes off line and won’t even print in grayscale, so have back up tanks handy. If you are doing Standard or above printing with rich colors, have several!!!

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