Canon Pixma MX860 All-in-One Color Inkjet Printer

You'll pay twice as much for this Canon Pixma all-in-one as for the Pixma MX330 I recently reviewed. What do you get for the extra dough? A lot. Wireless / wired network printing. A built-in duplexer. Up to 9600 x 2400 dpi color printing. Truly outstanding colors. Is it worth it? While the cost of replacing five tanks can be huge, the quality is so good that I'd pay the extra money, since I tend to print a lot.

When it comes to all-in-one printers, some extras are truly worth the extra cost. Built-in duplexing, which allows printing on both sides of the page without you having to flip the stack yourself, is one of those worthwhile extras. Network printing is another. This Canon Pixma MX860 offers both. Those options make the printer double the price of the MX330, but it's well worth it.

One issue with network printing is that printing speeds can be slow, particularly if you continue to use the computer while you're printing. A 10-page PDF, printed duplex across the wireless network, took nearly six minutes to complete, including some lengthy warm-up time. Smaller jobs print much faster. For example, three highly colorful graphics pages averaged about 30 seconds each, including warm-up time.

So was it worth the wait? Absolutely. Canon boasts of "laser-quality text," and the black fonts were certainly some of the crispest I've seen. With five ink tanks (the MX330, like other entry-level all-in-ones, uses only two), I expected colors to be excellent and nuanced, and wasn't disappointed. Subtle color gradations looked great even on cheap paper, which didn't get overwhelmed or limp from the ink. A 4x6 took a respectable 1:08 to print and the colors were absolutely remarkable--clear, bright, and finely nuanced.

If you have a home or small office and need a fax and copier, the Mx860 has what you need as well. It also does a great job on scanning--it uses "Dual Color Gamut Technology," whatever that is, to help improve scan quality. As with all Canon all-in-ones, this one seems to go through ink pretty fast, and is fairly large and heavy; they could take a page from Epson's book and make them a bit smaller, which would be appreciated by those of us whose "office" is not much bigger than your average broom closet. But otherwise, this is a best bet.