Labs

Canon's PIXMA MP610 is far from compact, but this large MFP contains five ink cartridges, an automatic duplexer and two paper feeds, including a front tray cassette that can handle various photo paper sizes as well as A4. The ink cartridges include both pigment and dye-based black. A colour screen is hidden under a panel on the scanner lid, and its controls include an MP3 player-style control wheel for navigating the well-designed menu system.

Draft

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prints had no broken or jagged letters, and while draft duplex prints were paler, they were still readable. Normal correspondence-quality documents printed incredibly quickly. It took under six and a half minutes to print 50 pages, and text was as sharp as anything a laser printer could produce. Colour document prints were slower but looked excellent, with deep colours, sharp text and no trace of any printing errors, even on large blocks of colour. High-contrast and brightly coloured photo prints were particularly accurate, as were skin tones, but greys and browns had a yellow tinge and our photo of a clear blue sky looked grainy.

Although the scanner has a maximum optical resolution of 4,800x9,600dpi, the TWAIN driver lists resolutions up to just 1,200x2,400dpi. However, you can enter higher resolutions manually. Scanned photos were sharp and in focus, and even low-resolution text scans were clear. Scan and copy times were quick, and copies were clear, although areas of dark colour showed slight striping.