Canon Color imageClass MF726Cdw

BY TONY HOFFMAN

One of two small-office color laser multifunction printers (MFPs)being introduced to replace the Canon Color imageClass MF8580Cdw$589.95 at Amazon, the Canon Color imageClass MF726Cdw ($549) offers solid performance and a good feature set, including several mobile printing choices. The MF726Cdw$549.49 at Amazon lacks some of the drivers included with its near-twin, the Canon Color imageClass MF729Cdw, but unless you need to print with PostScript, you probably won’t miss them.

Design and Features
This off-white MFP measures 18.9 by 17 by 19.2 inches (HWD) and weighs 68 pounds with the toner cartridges in place. The MF726Cdw needs a table of its own, and you will definitely want two people to move it. It has a good range of MFP features. It can print, copy, scan, and fax both single- and double-sided documents. It can also print from a wirelessly connected mobile device, and can print from or scan to a USB thumb drive. The MF726Cdw can also scan to a network folder or a PC. Lastly, it can work as a standalone fax machine or send faxes from a PC.

Its front panel features a 3.5-inch, color touch screen, an alphanumeric keypad for entering fax numbers and other information, and buttons identified by both words and icons, including Home, Back, Color (scan), Black (scan), and Stop. Although we’ve seen much larger touch screens, the one on the MF726Cdw is easy to use, responsive, and has a good menu system. A spot on the front panel is labeled NFC, and you can print from a compatible mobile device placed in close proximity to it. A port for the USB thumb drive is on the front of the printer to the right of the output tray, just below the front panel.

A 250-sheet main paper tray and a 50-sheet multipurpose feeder are standard, as is an automatic duplexer for printing on both sides of a sheet of paper. The printer is set by default to two-sided printing as a paper-saving measure. An optional second 250-sheet paper tray ($199) is available from Canon. The 50-sheet duplexing automatic document feeder (ADF) lets users copy, scan, or fax both sides of multipage documents at up to legal size. It first scans one side of a document, flips it over, and then scans the other side.

The MF726Cdw’s range of connectivity choices, both wired and wireless, counts as a plus. It has Ethernet, USB, and Wi-Fi connectivity. It also offers two ways to make a direct, peer-to-peer connection with a compatible device: Wi-Fi Direct and NFC. Mobile protocols and services supported include Apple AirPrint, Mopria Print Service, Canon Print Business, and Google Cloud Print.

The only driver included is Canon’s host-based (UFR II) driver. For those businesses that rely on PostScript printing, which requires a PostScript driver, the Canon MF729Cdw is almost the same as the MF726Cdw, except that it adds PCL5e, PCL6, and PostScript drivers. If you don’t need those extra drivers, you can save some money by sticking with the MF726Cdw.

Printing Speed
I tested the printer over an Ethernet connection with its drivers installed on a PC running Windows Vista. In its default duplex mode, for which it is rated at rated at 10 pages per minute (ppm), the MF726Cdw printed out our business applications suite (as timed with QualityLogic’s hardware and software) at 5ppm, a good speed for its rating. Note that rated speeds are based on text-only printing, while our test suite includes text documents, graphics documents, and documents with mixed content. Not surprisingly, its speed matched the Canon MF729Cdw. The Editors’ Choice OKI MC362w$251.15 at Amazon turned in a speed of 5.9ppm, while the Brother MFC-L8850CDW$546.47 at Amazon, rated at 32ppm, zipped through our tests at 8.6ppm. Although our official timings are done in an MFP’s default printing mode (in this case, duplex), I also did ad-hoc testing of the MF726Cdw in simplex mode, where it turned in a speed of 6.6ppm.

Output Quality
Overall output quality is average for a color laser, with slightly above-par text, graphics that are a bit subpar, and average photo quality. The MF726Cdw’s text should be fine for any business use except ones requiring tiny fonts.

With graphics, colors are bright and well saturated for the most part. One test illustration meant to show a gradation in tone displayed very little change between different zones. The MF726cdw did poorly in printing very thin, colored lines. One illustration showed some misregistration, a slight misalignment between two graphic elements. The graphics should be okay for most internal business use, but I’d hesitate to use them for formal reports. Photos are fine for printing out images from webpages.

Running costs for the MF726Cdw, based on Canon’s prices and yield figures for toner and other consumables, are 2.9 cents per monochrome page and 16.7 cents per color page. The OKI MC362w’s running costs are 2.8 cents per monochrome page and 13.9 cents per color page.

Conclusion
The Canon Color imageClass MF726Cdw is a solid color laser MFP with a good feature set and a wide range of mobile-printing choices. It lacks the Canon MF729Cdw’s PCL and PostScript drivers, but unless you need to print PostScript files, this shouldn’t be a problem. The MF726Cdw is a good, cost-effective addition to a small office or workgroup with light- to medium-duty printing needs, including printing in color.
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Canon Color imageClass MF628Cw

BY M. DAVID STONE

Based on price alone, the Canon Color imageClass MF628Cw ($399) is an obvious candidate if you need a color laser multifunction printer (MFP) for your micro office or for personal use and want one that can print, scan, copy, and fax. It’s a little larger than most MFPs aimed primarily at micro offices, which may force you to look elsewhere if space is tight. But if you have enough room in your office, it can be worth a look.

The biggest argument against the MF628Cw$249.99 at Amazon is that it’s not hard to find competition that delivers significantly more capability for only a little more money. Most notably, the HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M277dwBest Price at Amazon, our Editors’ Choice light-duty color laser MFP for SoHo use, matches or beats the MF628Cw in most ways—including offering faster speed and somewhat better text quality. It’s also smaller and lighter. If you don’t need the extra capability, however, the MF628Cw’s lower price will make it the more attractive choice.

Basics
Basic MFP features for the MF628Cw include printing, copying, scanning, and faxing—including scanning to and faxing from a PC—as well as standalone copying and faxing. In addition, it can print from or scan to a USB memory key, and it offers support for mobile printing and scanning.

Connect the printer to your network by Ethernet or Wi-Fi, and you can connect to it though an access point from iOS and Android phones and tablets to print from or scan to your mobile device. Assuming the network is connected to the Internet, you can also print through the cloud. If you connect to a single PC via USB cable instead, you won’t be able to print through the cloud, but you can still print to or scan from the printer using a mobile device by taking advantage of the built-in equivalent to Wi-Fi Direct, which lets you connect directly to the printer.

Paper capacity for the main tray is limited to 150 sheets. That matches the HP M277dw’s capacity and is one of the key design choices that make both printers best suited to light-duty use. It’s enough for most personal printing, but it’s on the meager side for a shared printer in a micro office.

One welcome extra is a single-sheet manual feed to let you print one- or two-page documents on a different paper stock without having to swap out paper in the main tray. Unlike the HP M277dw, however, the MF628Cw doesn’t include automatic duplexing for two-sided printing.

Another extra is a 3.5-inch, color touch-screen control panel. In addition to being large enough to make it easy to hit the command you’re aiming for, the backlit screen is highly readable, and it offers well-designed menus. When you’re printing files from a USB key, however, it doesn’t let you preview the files onscreen before printing them.

Setup and Speed
At 52.9 pounds without its toner cartridges, or 57.3 pounds with them, the MF628Cw is heavy enough that moving it is a two-person job. The printer is also big enough, at 16.9 by 17 by 19.1 inches (HWD), that you might have trouble finding room for it in micro or home office. Assuming you have enough flat space, however, 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.

I clocked the MF628Cw on our business applications suite (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing) at 4.4ppm. That’s within the typical range for its rating of 14 pages per minute (ppm) for both color and monochrome pages. It’s also faster than some of its competition, including the Samsung Multifunction Xpress C460FW$180.99 at Amazon, at 3.3ppm. However it’s a lot slower than the HP M277dw, at 8.4ppm.

Interestingly, the MF628Cw was slower in our tests than the Canon Color imageClass MF624Cw$279.99 at Amazon, which managed 5.5ppm, even though Canon says both are essentially identical except for the addition of fax capability in the MF628Cw.

A close look at my results shows that the difference in speed comes entirely from the MF624Cw’s better speed for the first page of each print job. If you count only the time after the first page comes out (which is how engine speeds are timed), and ignore single-page documents, both printers delivered the same speed on our tests. In practical terms, that means there’s only a few seconds difference with single-page documents, and the more pages you print at once, the less of a difference you’ll see in pages per minute. In short, the difference won’t matter much in real-world use.

Output Quality
The MF628Cw’s output quality for text is as the low end of the range that includes the vast majority of color laser MFPs. Fortunately, laser text quality is good enough in general for even the low end of the range to be suitable for any business use, as long as you don’t have an unusual need for small font sizes.

Overall graphics output is one step above most of the competition. Almost all of the individual images in my tests were good enough to use for marketing materials. There was one exception, however, with 1-pixel-wide lines against a black background nearly disappearing. That suggests you should check each individual image carefully before you use it in a situation where top quality matters.

Photo output is one step down from average. The majority of color laser MFPs offer near-photo quality. The MF628Cw’s output quality in my tests was just enough below that that I wouldn’t use it for, say, a real-estate handout or marketing materials. However, they’re good enough for anything less demanding than that.

Conclusion
If you don’t need a fax capability, consider the Canon MF624Cw, which is less expensive than the Canon Color imageClass MF628Cw and a bit faster on our tests as well. If you need to fax, the HP M277dw costs a little more than the MF628Cw, but offers substantially more capability and is smaller and lighter as well. If you have room for the MF628Cw, however, don’t have the flexibility in your budget to spend any more than you have to, and need fax support, then it may appeal to you with its particular mix of speed, output quality, MFP features, and price.

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Canon Color imageClass MF624Cw

BY M. DAVID STONE

The $349 Canon Color imageClass MF624Cw $349 color laser multifunction printer (MFP) delivers a mix of features and capabilities—most notably a low price and low paper capacity—that make it appealing for personal use or for use in a micro office. However, it’s big enough to look like it should be in a small office or workgroup. Whether you consider it a good (metaphorical) fit for your light-duty use will depend largely on whether it can physically fit in however much space you have available.

The MF624Cw$279.99 at Amazon is in the same category as the more expensive, but far more capable, HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M277dwBest Price at Amazon, our Editors’ Choice light-duty color laser MFP for SOHO use. However, it’s more directly competitive with the smaller and lighter HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M177fwBest Price at Amazon, which is the next step down in HP’s line.

All three printers offer a similar paper capacity, with a 150-sheet main tray, which is enough for most personal use, but limits all of them to light duty for shared use. Both the MF624Cw and the HP M277dw add single-sheet manual feeds, so you can print small print jobs on a different paper stock without having to swap out the paper in the main tray. However, the more expensive HP M277dw is the only one of the three that adds automatic duplexing for easy printing on both sides of the paper.

The MF624Cw falls somewhere between the two HP models in other key features as well. It did better on our tests for speed and text quality than the HP M177fw, but didn’t do as well as the HP M277dw. One clear disadvantage for it, compared with both HP MFPs, is its bulk. It’s bigger than either, and it’s the only one of the three that’s heavy enough that moving it into place is best done by two people.

Setup and Basics
The MF624Cw measures 16.9 by 17 by 19.1 inches (HWD) and weighs a hefty 52.9 pounds without the toner cartridges or 57.3 pounds with them. Assuming you have enough room for it, however, and preferably have someone to help you move it into place, setup is standard fare.

Basic MFP features are limited to printing, scanning, and copying. In addition, it can print from or scan to a USB memory key. The highly readable 3.5-inch color touch-screen control panel offers both well-designed menus and a large enough size to make it easy to hit the command you’re aiming for. However, you can’t use the LCD to preview files before printing them.

Also going beyond the basics is support for mobile printing and scanning. If you connect the printer directly to your network using either Ethernet or Wi-Fi, you can connect to it though an access point on the network to print from or scan to it using iOS and Android phones and tablets. Assuming the network is connected to the Internet, you can also print through the cloud.

If you choose to connect to a single PC via USB cable, you’ll lose the ability to print through the cloud. However, you can still use the MF624Cw to print from or scan to your mobile device by connecting directly, thanks to its built-in equivalent to Wi-Fi Direct

Print Speed and Output Quality
For my tests, I connected the printer to a network by Ethernet and installed the drivers on a system running Windows Vista. On our business applications suite (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing), the MF624Cw came in at 5.5 pages per minute (ppm), which is fast for both the price and the 14ppm rating for monochrome and color. In comparison, the HP M177fw is slower, at only 2.9ppm, but the HP M277dw is significantly faster, at 8.4ppm.

Interestingly, the MF624CW was also faster in testing than the Canon Color imageClass MF628Cw$249.99 at Amazon at 4.4ppm, even though Canon says both are essentially identical except for the addition of fax support in the more expensive printer. Canon also rates both at the same speed. A close look at my results showed that the speed advantage for the MF624Cw comes entirely from being able to print the first page of each print job faster. If you start timing after the first page comes out (which is how engine speeds are timed), and ignore the results for one-page documents, both printers delivered the same speed.

Output quality for the MF624Cw is at the low end of typical for color laser MFPs for text, one step above most for graphics, and one step below most for photos. For text, that translates to being easily good enough for any business use, as long as you don’t have an unusual need for small font sizes.

Most graphics output is good enough even for marketing materials. However, you might need to check your images carefully before you decide to use them. In one particularly demanding test image with 1-pixel-wide lines against a black background, the lines were hard to see. Photos are best described as not-quite-near photo quality. I wouldn’t use them for a real estate handout or marketing materials, but they’re good enough for anything less demanding than that.

Conclusion
If you need a color laser MFP for a micro office or personal use, be sure to consider the HP M277dw. It costs a bit more than the Canon Color imageClass MF624Cw, but it delivers substantially more capability—including fax support, print duplexing, and better-quality text. Also consider both it and the HP M177fw if you don’t have much space available. Compared with the Canon model, either one will be easier to find room for. The MF624dw’s balance of speed, output quality, and price makes it a more-than-reasonable choice, however, if size and weight aren’t an issue, and you don’t need the extra features in the HP M277dw—or can’t afford it.

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Canon Color imageClass LBP7110Cw

BY M. DAVID STONE

Canon’s color laser printers are usually in the range of good to outstanding, which makes it surprising that the Canon Color imageClass LBP7110Cw ($279) isn’t. The best that can be said for it is that it doesn’t have any serious problems. However, it loses points for any number of small issues—unimpressive speed, subpar output for text, graphics, and photos, meager paper capacity, and a high running cost—without balancing the weak points with any particular strengths. It works well enough to use, but there’s no compelling reason to pick it over the competition.

As a point of comparison, the Samsung CLP-415NW$280.99 at Amazon—our Editors’ Choice for a heavy-duty, personal color printer or a medium-duty micro-office shared color printer—costs only a little more, but it outdoes the Canon printer on almost every score. Compared with the LBP7110Cw$179.99 at Amazon the Samsung printer is faster, it prints better-looking output, and it offers better paper handling, with a 250-sheet input capacity plus a manual-feed instead of the LBP7110Cw’s single 150-sheet tray. Surprisingly, despite the higher paper capacity, the Samsung printer even manages to be a little smaller than the Canon model, making it easier to find room for. The LBP7110Cw measures 10 by 16 by 17.9 inches (HWD) and weighs 41 pounds 14 ounces with toner cartridges installed.

The particular combination of size and paper capacity creates another minor issue. The printer is too big to fit comfortably on your desk to serve as a personal printer, but with just the 150-sheet tray, it’s also too meager to serve well as a shared printer. Quite simply, the LBP7110Cw doesn’t fit well in either role.

One potential plus for the printer is mobile printing support, with the ability to print from iOS and Android devices. However, you can connect to the printer only through your network access point, and only if the printer is connected to the network by Ethernet or Wi-Fi.

Setup
Setup is standard fare, but only if you ignore the instructions that come with the printer. The easy choice is to simply install the driver from the supplied disc. However, the Quick Start guide doesn’t mention the disc. Instead it tells you to download the driver and manual from Canon’s website.

Not only is the lack of any mention of the disc potentially confusing, but the download instructions in the Quick Start guide don’t work. Even if they did, making you download the driver manually is an unnecessary complication. Many printer installation programs include an option for the setup program itself to check online for updated drivers and download them automatically if necessary. There’s no good excuse for Canon making you do the work instead.

Speed, and Output Quality
For my tests, I connected the printer to a wired network and installed the driver on a Windows Vista system. On our business applications suite (timed with QualityLogic’s hardware and software) I clocked the printer at 5.5 pages per minute (ppm). That counts as a suitable speed for the 14ppm rating for both color and black and white, but not an impressive speed for the price.

The Samsung CLP-415NW was significantly faster, at 6ppm, and both the Brother HL-3140CW$210.54 at Amazon and the Brother HL-3170CDW$239.05 at Amazon were faster still, essentially tied at about 6.8ppm. In that context, the LBP7110Cw’s speed is acceptable, but no better than that.

The printer’s output quality is equally unimpressive. Text, graphics, and photos in my tests were all slightly subpar for a laser, meaning that for each type of output, the LBP7110Cw scored just below the range that includes the majority of its competition.

Fortunately, the news on output quality isn’t all bad. Text is still suitable for almost any business use, as long as you don’t have an unusual need for small fonts. Graphics output is good enough for any internal need and potentially good enough for PowerPoint handouts or the like, as long as you’re not too much of a perfectionist. Photo quality is good enough to print recognizable images from webpages, but it’s not suitable for anything much more demanding than that.

One other issue that counts against the printer is a high running cost, at a claimed 3.6 cents for a black and white page and 20.6 cents for a color page. That’s not very different from the Samsung CLP-415NW’s claimed costs, but it’s not balanced by any of the advantages the Samsung printer offers.

If you need a printer for heavy-duty personal use or for medium-duty use as shared printer in a micro office, the Samsung CLP-415NW remains the obvious pick, with its balance of speed, output quality and paper handling keeping it solidly in place as our Editors’ Choice. If you need faster printing, you’ll also want to take a look at the Brother HL-3140CW and the Brother HL-3170CDW. There’s nothing really wrong with the Canon imageClass 7110Cw, which means it could be worth considering if you find it at a low enough price. But there’s also no compelling reason to choose it over its competition.

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