Although small enough to use as a personal monochrome laser multifunction printer (MFP), the Canon imageClass MF227dw ($249) is capable enough for a micro office or small workgroup. Its speed and paper handling are suitable for up to moderate workloads by micro-office standards, and it adds such niceties as a well-designed touch-screen control panel. More important, it offers all the features the vast majority of micro offices need, which is more than enough to make it our Editors’ Choice for moderate use in a micro office.
The MF227dw$189.39 at Amazon is one of four similar models, including the Canon imageClass MF216n$144.71 at Amazon, which is our Editors’ Choice monochrome laser MFP for light-duty micro office use or heavy-duty personal use. It’s also a big step up from its lesser cousin.
Compared with the Canon MF216n, the MF227dw offers a faster engine rating, adds Wi-Fi to Ethernet and USB as a connection choice, and it features duplex (two-sided) printing. If you want to connect to a network, and don’t want to string wires, its Wi-Fi capability makes the MF227dw the better choice. For most offices, however, the more important difference is duplexing, which, if you need it, easily justifies the additional cost.
Basics
Basic MFP features for the MF227dw include printing and faxing from, as well as scanning to, a PC plus the ability to work as a standalone copier and fax machine. In addition, mobile printing and scanning features let you print from and scan to Android and iOS phones and tablets.
Unfortunately, the mobile printing and scanning is limited to working only over a Wi-Fi access point. Unlike the Samsung Multifunction Xpress M2875FW$239.99 at Amazon, another top pick in this category, the MF227dw doesn’t offer Wi-Fi Direct or the equivalent. If you connect the printer to a single PC by USB cable, that leaves you with no way to connect from a mobile device.
The printer’s paper handling counts mostly as a plus. In addition to the duplexer, the MF227dw offers a 250-sheet tray, plus a one-sheet manual feed. This should be enough for most micro offices, but if you need more capacity, you’ll have to look elsewhere, since Canon doesn’t offer any upgrade options. For scanning, it includes a 35-sheet automatic document feeder.
Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
The MF227dw weighs 28.2 pounds, which is light enough for one person to move the printer into place, and it measures 14.2 by 15.4 by 14.6 inches (HWD), which makes it tall enough that you may not want it sitting on your desk. Setup is standard fare. For my tests, I connected it to a network using its Ethernet port and installed the drivers on a system running Windows Vista.
Canon rates the printer at 16 pages per minute (ppm) in its default setting, using duplex mode, and 28ppm for simplex (one-sided) mode. In each case, these are the speeds you should see when printing text documents or other material that doesn’t need much processing. In my tests (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing), it came in on our business applications suite at 9.7ppm in duplex mode and 13ppm in simplex. That makes it just a little faster in simplex mode than the Canon MF216n (12.3ppm), and essentially tied with the Canon imageClass MF4880dw$150.40 at Amazon that it’s in the process of replacing in Canon’s line. More impressive is that it’s almost as fast for duplex printing as the Samsung M2875FW is for simplex (10ppm).
Output quality is solidly average across the board for a monochrome laser MFP. Text, which for most offices is the most important type of output for monochrome printers, is good enough for anything short of high-quality desktop publishing.
Graphics quality falls within a tight range that includes most monochrome laser MFPs, although it’s in the bottom half of that range. It’s certainly suitable for any internal business use. Whether you consider it acceptable for PowerPoint handouts or the like will depend on how much of a perfectionist you are. Photo quality is roughly equivalent to newspaper-quality photos, which makes it good enough to print recognizable images from photos on a Web page.
If you don’t need duplex printing or Wi-Fi, your best choice will likely be the Canon MF216n, which will give you nearly the same speed and capability as the Canon imageClass MF227dw at a lower cost. If you need duplexing, as well as the ability to connect to the printer directly—or want additional mobile features like faxing from mobile devices—the Samsung M2875FW will likely be the right fit. For most offices, however, the MF227dw’s faster speed will give it just enough of an edge to make it the better choice, which also makes it our Editors’ Choice monochrome laser MFP for up to medium-duty use in a micro office.
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