There’s fulfillment in printing photographs. I always feel accomplished whenever I see my work on print wether it be on a glossy magazine or a photo lab print. While the image may look good on the screen, seeing the tangible details right in front of you is a lot more amazing to look at. It’s a good thing I had the chance to print out some of my photos (as well as some from my friends) just to see the quality of Canon’s latest inkjet printer, the Canon Pixma MX927. Will this all-in-one printer be a jack-of-all-trade and master of none? I tested the printer to find out how it performs.
All-in-one Pixma
The Canon Pixma MX927 is one of those swiss-army-knife kind of printers built for multi-function use but does it work with more horsepower and efficiency. I’m sure clerks would rejoice with its 35-sheet capacity Duplex ADF (Auto Document Feeder) capable of scanning and copying both sides of a document in one pass. The printer also works as a fax machine when connected to a telephone line. And behold, there’s Wifi connectivity and interface for connecting to Web Services and “printing-by-email” feature. While all those are wonderful features, as a photographer I was looking forward to the quality of prints it produced.
The Hardware
It’s a bulky behemoth of a printer weighing 11.7kg and does takes up a good amount of space more. The top is where the integrated Duplex ADF can be found and the front-beveled slope has the main controls – a 3″ LCD for the status, menu and settings display, the 12-button panel with buttons activated depending on the functionality, four buttons for the main functions (copy, fax, scan, menu), the power, Black or Colored print modes and the lighted Wifi indicator when active.
As mentioned before there’s Wifi connectivity so it’s possible to print without connecting directly via USB. Though printer and computer should be on the same wifi network and the Canon Pixma driver installed for more control options. There’s LAN connection via ethernet port, a USB interface at the bottom-front and a Disc tray for printing via disc (CD, DVD and Blue-Ray).
There are 2 trays for paper. The smaller top tray is for the 4×6 prints while the lower tray is for the larger sizes like the A4 sized papers. They can be fed on the printer at the same time and selected through the menu interface or computer printing interface. The output tray automatically opens when printing.
Performance
My test was more on photo printing with glossy paper in 4×6 and A4 sizes. First I tried was printing via the USB dongle where images were stored. The Canon Pixma MX927 doesn’t automatically read from the device, I had to select it first on the menu. Once it’s done, it read the JPG images without a problem and displayed them on the 3″ LCD. There are print options available from the quality of print (fast, standard and high), paper type and borderless option. I printed a 4×6 full color photo on a glossy paper set on High Quality and took about 1 minute to fully print. An A4-size High Quality full color on glossy paper took about 3 minutes to print. Switching to Standard Quality, print was much faster about half of the time it took the High Quality print which is understandable. Wifi printing takes a few more seconds more (about 10sec at least depending on the file size) to transfer the document to the printer via wifi).
I just have a problem with glossy paper clumping together. Twice it happened that I have about 5 sheets each on the tray and two or three papers would clump and be fed for printing. It must be because of the adhesive nature of the paper so I just try to put them one-at-a-time on a tray when printing photos.
Print Quality
For a multi-purpose printer, the photo prints turned out decently well, not spectacular but above average I would say. The colors came out as I would expect them, relatively close to how I see it on my MacBook monitor. Details are crisp and the grains quite pleasing. I just noticed that there’s a slight banding when viewed from a certain angle on close inspection but that’s already nitpicking. For the difference on High Quality and Standard Quality, the grains are much finer on the former but viewed from arm’s distance, it’s really unnoticeable.
I have a knack for black and white prints and tried a few of them as well. I’m pretty surprised on how it turned out. The contrast was quite good, the gradients rendered well too. Though the blacks could have been much punchier but for an all-in-one printer, that’s already good. Oh by the way I accidentally dripped water on one of the prints and found out they are water-resistant!
Bottomline
The Canon Pixma MX927 is a true workhorse sporting multiple functionalities. The main control panel is nifty not intimidating. It’s a plus that there are a lot of connectivity and media interface options. The black gloss finish might look nice but it’s a dust, smudge and a fingerprint magnet. It may do a lot of things but it still does well on its main function which is to print. The photo print quality is quite good but I see this printer practically used more in a small-to-medium sized office that usually prints documents, graphics, charts and manuals and doubles as a fax machine. Probably a design or creative agency would be a fit. For its price I would say the Canon Pixma MX927 is of good value for an all-in-one printer as it does pretty well like a swiss-army-knife.
The Canon Pixma MX927 SRP is Php 12,995.
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