Which Printer to Buy?

[RWL]

I print primarily documents and only occasionally a photo. I print a fair number of CDs. Ability to refill cartridges is a must. I've been using Canons for at least 15 years, but I'm open to other possibilities if another brand is a better choice.

Absolute requirements:
Refillable cartridges
Must directly print onto CDs/DVDs
Duplex printing (Double sided printing)

Desirable features
An all in one with a scanner and ideally one that does well on OCR; the scanner on my MG5420 doesn't scan nearly as crisply as my ancient Canonscan 8400f
Not an ink guzzler
Reasonable printing speed - i.e. not painfully slow

....and if you found a review of this topic more recently than 2016, point me to it.

 

[wilko]

I think you are seeking the impossible. I have 3 different Canon MFPs and none have great scanners, if you are looking for crisp photos with anything like true colours. They're good for documents etc but, IMO, you need a dedicated scanner for realistic scans. I was so fed up with the poor quality scans with my MFPs that I invested in an Epson V550 and the scans are far superior to the MFP ones. Canon MFPs always seem to get good reviews for scanner quality so I don't think you'll find better elsewhere.

Personally I'd stick with your Canon scanner and invest in a cheap Canon printer. I've been using an IP7200 for over 12 months with refillable carts and haven't had one Print Head problem. Personally I don't think that there is a printer on the market that can compare with the IP7200 for value.

Duplex and CD printing and wireless all for less than £50 with OEM carts, in the UK. Refillable carts readily available and you can flog the OEM carts on EBay for about £25. It's the last of the Canon printer bargains.

Personally I haven't found that newer Canon mainstream printers are any better than when the IP4000 was in it's prime. I've printed with the MG6200 6 carts inc grey and can't see any discernible difference in quality for colour or greyscale photos. The Ip7200 is just as good as any of my other Canon printers for photo quality. Obviously the Pro versions are in a different league but they come with a hefty price increase.

I really don't think that any MFP will give you what you want.

 

[PeterBJ]

The Canoscan 8400f is a CCD scanner and the scanner in the MG5420 is a CIS scanner. This might explain the quality difference in the scan. It seems that not even the top models in the new Pixma TS range of multifunctionals offer CCD scanners.

But maybe the default settings for the CIS scanner are not the best? Scanning a nozzle check and scanning a photo is not the same , but maybe some better settings for the scanning of photos could be found?

 

[stratman]

But maybe the default settings for the CIS scanner are not the best?

Thanks for repeating this link. I was looking for it recently.

 

[RWL]

I've been doing a little shopping since posting the inquiry. Canon's MX922 also uses 250/251 cartridges, and they're available with autoreset chips. It's substantially bigger than the IP7200 / 7220. There are some other Canon printers that can print directly to CD/DVDs, but they use the 280/281 cartridges, which requires an extra gray cartridge.

With regard to the scanner, on newsprint, the MG5420 didn't seem as crisp as my dedicated scanner and resulted in more OCR errors.

Are there chip resetters for any of the newer Canon cartridges or are resetters a thing of the past?

 

[arw4]

I've been doing a little shopping since posting the inquiry. Canon's MX922 also uses 250/251 cartridges, and they're available with autoreset chips. It's substantially bigger than the IP7200 / 7220. There are some other Canon printers that can print directly to CD/DVDs, but they use the 280/281 cartridges, which requires an extra gray cartridge.

With regard to the scanner, on newsprint, the MG5420 didn't seem as crisp as my dedicated scanner and resulted in more OCR errors.

Are there chip resetters for any of the newer Canon cartridges or are resetters a thing of the past?

The Canon MX922 is certainly an option for you. It is a big beast, I warn you - I own the MX925. The difference in model number, I think, is that the numbering system is slightly different in the UK. The MX925 takes 550/551 cartridges, so possibly a difference here too.

The MX925 has the capability of printing directly onto CDs/DVDs, and has an identical maximum print resolution to the ip7250 (both can produce ink droplets of 1 pl). In terms of print quality, I cannot compare the two. I have no experience of using the ip7250, but IMHO the MX925 delivers a very good quality print, and does a good job of rendering colours. The difference in print quality is clearly evident when compared with, say, an MG5650 using the same carts.

With regards to chip resetters, AFAIK they are being produced for newer cartridges, and certainly exist for the two printers mentioned above. Perhaps someone else on the forum with more experience of chip resetters can answer this question.

 

[PeterBJ]

The MX925 and MX922 are essentially the same printer, the only difference is different regional coding. The MX925 is for use in Europe and the MX922 is for use in North America (US and Canada). The cartridges are also identical except for the chips. You cannot use American cartridges in a European printer and vice versa. A wrong region cartridge will be rejected by the printer.

 

[RWL]

Just follow up. I ordered a TS9020 from Amazon today. The CLI-271 cartridges it uses have a resetter available. That was a big plus for me.