Meant primarily as a shared monochrome laser multifunction printer (MFP) for a micro office or small workgroup, the Canon imageClass MF216n ($199) delivers fast speed and suitably high-quality output. It lacks a duplexer (for two-sided printing), but it includes an automatic document feeder (ADF) for easy scanning and an Ethernet connector for sharing on a network. The combination makes it our Editors’ Choice monochrome laser MFP for light-duty micro-office use or heavy-duty personal use.
Design and Features
The MF216n$144.71 at Amazon offers far more than the Panasonic KX-MB2000$190.50 at Amazon that it replaces as our preferred pick. It has the same 250-sheet input capacity, but it adds a one-sheet manual feed, which is a significant convenience. It’s also faster on our tests, and it ups the ante for scanning and copying by supplementing its letter-size flatbed with a 35-sheet ADF that can handle up to legal-size paper.
Basic MFP features include the ability to print and fax from, as well as scan to, a PC and the ability to work as a standalone copier and fax machine. In addition, the printer offers mobile support to let it print from and scan to Android and iOS phones and tablets.
An important limitation for mobile printing and scanning is that the MF216w has to be connected by Ethernet to a network that includes a Wi-Fi access point. Some printers, including the Samsung Xpress M2070FW$129.99 at Amazon, offer Wi-Fi Direct to let you connect to the printer even if it’s not on a network. The MF216n doesn’t even support Wi-Fi, much less Wi-Fi Direct.
Setup, Speed, and Output Quality
At 14.2 by 15.4 by 14.6 inches (HWD), the MF216n is small enough to share a desk with, but tall enough that you may prefer not to do so. At 26.7 pounds, however, it’s light enough for one person to move into place. Setup is standard. For my tests, I connected it to a network and installed the drivers on a Windows Vista system.
Canon rates the printer engine at 24 pages per minute (ppm), which is the speed you should see when printing documents that require little to no processing. On our business applications suite, I clocked it at 12.3ppm (using QualityLogic’s hardware and software for timing). That’s a fast speed for the rating and faster than either the Panasonic KX-MB2000, at 8ppm, or the Samsung M2070FW, at 9.8ppm.
Output quality counts as a strong point, with solid quality for a monochrome laser MFP across the board. Text quality, which usually matters most for monochrome printers, is easily good enough for any business use, even if you need to use small fonts.
Graphics quality is at the low end of a tight range that includes most monochrome laser MFPs. It’s certainly suitable for any internal business use. Depending on how much of a perfectionist you are, you may or may not consider it acceptable for PowerPoint handouts and the like. As with most monochrome laser MFPs, photo quality is good enough to print recognizable images from photos on a Web page, but not for anything more demanding than that.
If you need mobile printing and scanning with a printer you intend to connect to a single PC by USB cable, consider the Samsung M2070FW, with its Wi-Fi Direct support. If you need Wi-Fi to connect to a network, but don’t need Wi-Fi Direct, take a look at the Canon imageClass MF212w, which offers the same capability for printing as the MF216n, but lacks an ADF and fax support. For most offices, however, the MF216n’s combination of speed, output quality, and paper handling—plus its ADF and fax capability—make it the better fit. It’s our Editors’ Choice for personal or light-duty, micro office monochrome laser MFPs.
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