Product Reviews

Canon has two ranges of multifunction printers. One is the Pixma MP, which offers six-ink photo print and is intended for enthusiasts. The other is the Pixma MX, with four-ink, general-purpose print and an extra pigmented black for high-speed text in soho environments.

The Pixma MX850 is the current top-of-the-range machine, with all the extras you'd expect from a £150-plus price tag. These include CD label print, duplexing, fax and network connectivity.

This is a big unit - deeper than its publicity shots suggest and deeper still when you raise the paper support at the back and extend the output tray at the front. As is common with Canon's Pixmas there are two paper sources - a rear, near-vertical tray and a cassette which slots in underneath. You can put plain or photo paper in both, ranging from 15 x 10cm to A4.

In addition, the machine can print on printable CDs by folding down an internal tray and feeding in the supplied disc holder from the front.

The control panel juts out from the front and includes a 62mm LCD, a number pad for entering phone numbers and a four-way control for menu navigation.Below this on the right are twin memory card slots, which between them take all the common types as well as a PictBridge socket.

Installation of heads and cartridges is a simple snap-in affair and red LEDs shining through each cartridge's translucent catch confirm correct insertion - a nice touch.

The same LEDs flash when ink is low. However, somebody should explain to Canon the concept of a 'moment', as the head alignment message reads: 'Please wait momentarily - about 13 minutes.' Fortunately though this is a one-off process.

Software supplied with the printer includes Canon's Easy-PhotoPrint EX and CD-LabelPrint - a handy tool for setting up and printing on CD labels and printable discs.

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Also there's a copy of OmniPage, providing document management and OCR.

Leopard users should have no problems installing the Canon driver as there's one on the accompanying CD, though use of the memory card slots via the Pixma MX850's network port isn't supported. You have to use USB.

Canon quotes a time of 21 seconds for a 15 x 10cm photo print. The best we could manage was 33 seconds, which is still impressive. A straight text document gave a print speed of 7ppm, though a text and graphics test brought the speed down to 4.2ppm. These are nowhere near the claimed speeds - our tests include page rasterising time, which printer-makers' ones don't - but they're still not bad. What isn't good is the duplex print time. A 20-side document took a numbing 8 minutes and 34 seconds, mainly because of a 9 second pause between sides.

The Pixma MX850 can scan as well as print duplex, so you can make a double-sided copy in one pass. Although it's quite slow because of the duplex print speed, it's a useful feature, particularly in a small office. The ability to fax straight from the scanner, using direct dial or up to 100 quick-dial numbers, is also appealing.

Print quality is as good as you'd expect from Canon - text is black and dense, and graphics' colours on plain paper are bright and smooth. Even reversed-out text, often a stiff test for inkjets, produces very presentable results.

In addition, photographs on Canon's glossy photo paper are natural and well-detailed, even in darker, shadowed areas that often trick printers into over-using black. Photocopying results show the usual lightening of colour hues and some faintness in black text. Nonetheless the results are still very usable.

Print costs depend on how cheaply you can buy the five ink cartridges for, but at current prices you should be paying about 2p for a black page and 5p for colour, neither of which is exorbitant. A 15 x 10cm photo print should cost about 6p for the ink, plus another 9p for the glossy photo paper. As 15p is around the going rate, the machine can hardly be accused of being greedy on consumables.

Canon's Pixma MX850 is certainly feature-packed, cramming in almost all the features you could ask for.

The only real chink in its armour is its duplexing speed. Provided that you don't mind putting up with that, the Canon Pixma MX850 is a stylish, top-of-the-range multifunction printer at a reasonable price.