Canon i-Sensys LBP3100 review

Canon has undoubted pedigree in the printer market, but its lasers have failed to impress us in recent Labs. And its low-cost entry to this Labs, alas, doesn't break out of that disappointing trend.

On paper, there's little wrong with this printer. Its 16ppm speed isn't the fastest in the world and it's USB only, but neither of those factors should pose a problem for its target market - the one-man home office or small-scale business operation. This isn't a high volume printer and it doesn't try to be.

It impressed in our throughput test, even exceeding its claimed speed: pages were produced at 17ppm, although the more demanding DTP spreadsheet saw that rate fall to 8ppm. Quality is reasonable, with text crisp and graphics banding-free. Only a rather coarse dither serves to irritate.

But in other core areas this Canon fails to deliver. It's relatively compact, but once you've unfolded the flimsy input and output trays it has a considerably deeper footprint than its price rival, the Brother HL-2035.

It also falls behind its rival in terms of how expensive it is to own. Not only is its purchase price nearly 50% more, it also costs more to run. After 10,000 pages, excluding paper, the Canon will have cost you £343 exc VAT where the Brother's equivalent price hits just £239. The principal culprit here is the toner cartridge, which costs £11 more.

In fact, the main problem for the Canon i-Sensys LBP3100 isn't its quality, build, speed or design - it's its direct competition. It isn't a bad printer by any stretch of the imagination, but it's completely outclassed in every single department by the Brother HL-2035.

Author: Jonathan Bray