Canon Pixma TR4520 Wi-fi Printer Evaluation

The entry-level Canon Pixma TR4520 Wi-fi Printer ($99.99) is designed for light-duty household and home-based-office use. As may very well be anticipated for an all-in-one at this worth, it is considerably sluggish and costly to make use of, nevertheless it comes with a robust function set and prints exceptionally effectively, particularly images. Additionally, like just a few different printers we have seen lately, it contains help for Amazon’s Alexa, permitting for hands-free printing. It is a robust contender for dwelling workplace customers who want a reasonable AIO for light-duty printing, copying, and scanning.

Room on the Desk

Entry-level home-based printers just like the TR4520 spend more often than not sitting idle till you name on them to churn out the occasional picture, just a few doc pages right here, a replica or two there—you get the concept. Therefore Canon and its rivals design them to take up as little desk or counter-top actual property as attainable. To that finish, the TR4520 measures 7.5 by 17.7 by 11.7 inches (HWD) and weighs 13 kilos, which is consistent with its low-cost competitors.

As for paper dealing with, the TR4520 comes with one 100-sheet paper tray, and its manual-duplexing computerized doc feeder (ADF) holds as much as 20 letter-size sheets. Its sibling, the Pixma TR7520, however, holds as much as 200 sheets, cut up between 100-sheet entrance and rear trays. The HP OfficeJet 3830 (the least-expensive of this group) holds the identical variety of sheets because the TR4520, however can not print two-sided pages robotically. And eventually, Epson’s WF-2860 ($104.87 at Amazon)(Opens in a brand new window) holds as much as 150 sheets from one enter supply.

Canon does not publish month-to-month responsibility cycle and advisable month-to-month print quantity specs for its consumer-grade inkjet printers. Given its print velocity score (which I will talk about beneath), low paper capability, and excessive operating prices (additionally developing), you should not depend on this AIO for greater than a pair hundred pages every month; although it might actually churn out extra at times ought to it’s worthwhile to.

Primary connectivity consists of USB 2.0 and Wi-Fi, and drivers for Android, Fireplace OS, iOS, and Home windows 10 cell can be found. Stroll-up duties, configuration, and navigation are dealt with from a really primary management panel, as proven beneath.

Pixma Software program and Good Residence Options

Along with the usual AIO printer driver, the TR4520’s software program bundle consists of the next comfort and productiveness software program: Scan Utility for each Home windows and Mac platforms, Scan Utility Lite for Mac, Straightforward-PhotoPrint Editor, Grasp Setup, My Printer, and Fast Menu for simple entry to printer apps and settings.

You can even print, scan, and manipulate pictures out of your Android or iOS system with the Canon Print and Straightforward-PhotoPrint Editor apps. Lastly, Canon’s Message In Print app means that you can embed hidden messages—textual content, animations, music, video hyperlinks, and different inventive enhancements—straight throughout the picture. You may then use your cell system’s digital camera to view the embedded message within the printed picture.

Canon has additionally begun to incorporate sensible dwelling performance through built-in help for Amazon’s Alexa, in addition to help for Google Assistant and different automation companies through IFTTT (If This Then That) expertise. HP and Epson, too, have lately come onboard with IFTTT voice activation—HP with its Tango X ($219.95 at Apple.com)(Opens in a brand new window) and Epson with all of its machines that help the corporate’s Epson Join service.

With IFTTT voice activation, you may inform your machine to print by way of an app in your smartphone, or through Good Echo speaker and different IFTTT listening units. Up to now, I’ve seen IFTTT expertise constructed into three Pixmas, the TS9520 ($299.99 at Finest Purchase)(Opens in a brand new window) , the TS9521C, and the TR4520.

Not Constructed for Velocity

Canon charges the TR4520 at 8.8 pages per minute (ppm) for monochrome pages and 5ppm for coloration pages, that are, apart from the HP 3830 (8.5ppm), the bottom print velocity rankings I do know of. I examined the TR4520 over USB from our normal Intel Core i5-equipped testbed PC operating Home windows 10 Skilled. The TR4520 printed our normal 12-page Microsoft Phrase take a look at doc on the charge of 8.5ppm. That is slower than each different entry-level printer talked about right here.

See How We Check Printers

Subsequent, I printed a set of extremely complicated coloration Acrobat, Excel, and PowerPoint enterprise paperwork comprised primarily of embedded graphics and embedded images, after which mixed these outcomes with these from printing the 12-page textual content doc within the earlier take a look at, to provide you with a rating of 4.5ppm for printing our complete suite. That rating falls behind the TR7520 by a negligible 0.2ppm, and is 0.1ppm sooner than the Brother MFC-J497DW, 1.9ppm forward of the OfficeJet 3830, and a pair of.9ppm slower than the WF-2860.

Lastly, the TR4520 printed our take a look at 4-by-6-inch snapshots at a mean of 58 seconds, which was about middle-of-the-road (and tied with the G4520) for this group of entry-level AIOs.

Output Price Ready For

Whereas Canon’s TR printer line will not be a part of the corporate’s TS consumer-grade picture printer sequence, the TR4520 proves as soon as once more that relating to imaging, Canon is difficult to beat. Not solely does the TR4520 print colourful and vibrant images, nevertheless it additionally helps borderless prints on media starting from 4 by 6 inches as much as 8.5 by 11 inches. You can even design and print polished {and professional} borderless flyers and brochures.

Photograph output will not be the one factor this little AIO does effectively, although. The textual content in our take a look at paperwork got here out well-shaped and extremely legible, even at smaller sizes right down to about 6 factors. Our enterprise graphics regarded terrific, too, with evenly flowing gradients, clean fills, and distinct, well-delineated hairlines (strokes lower than 1 level thick). As common, I’ve no complaints about this Pixma’s output.

Excessive Operating Prices

Granted, most entry-level fashions price rather a lot to make use of, however at 8.7 cents for monochrome pages and 18.7 cents for coloration pages, the TR4520 is likely one of the costliest I’ve seen. The Brother MFC-J497DW’s operating prices are, for instance, 2.7 cents much less per monochrome web page and a pair of.2 cents decrease for coloration prints, and the Epson WF-2860 is, at 3.2 cents much less for black prints and a pair of.4 cents cheaper for coloration, barely higher.

For actual aid, whenever you subscribe to HP’s Prompt Ink program, the OfficeJet 3830 can ship each black and coloration pages, even images, for as little as 3.5 every. These are terrific financial savings, however, whereas the 3830 prints effectively sufficient; its picture output high quality cannot contact the TR4520’s.

Residence-Printing Companion

The Canon Pixma TR4520 is a low-volume printer, interval. Nothing makes that clearer than its sky-high operating prices, and naturally, its small paper-input tray and sluggish print speeds. What it has going for it, although, is outstanding print high quality, voice automation, the power to edit images out of your cell system, and computerized two-sided printing, which isn’t a given on this worth vary.

Should you’re printing lower than a pair hundred pages every month, the excessive operating prices should not be that massive of a deal. Should you do not require the superb picture high quality or computerized duplexing you get with the TR4520, and wish to save a bit on consumables, the Brother MFC-J497DW and the Epson WF-2860 are each good alternate options that will not hit your pockets as exhausting in the long run. (Should you’re printing 1000’s of pages per 30 days, it’s best to spend extra up entrance for a mannequin just like the Pixma G4210 that may find yourself costing you a lot much less down the highway.) In any other case, the TR4520 is a superb little printer for light-duty use at dwelling.