12 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
Excellent Quality & Ease of Use
Date of Review: Oct 19, 2008
The Bottom Line: I woul recomend this unit with complete confidence to anyone. I am totally happy and very very satisfied with its performance and funcionality
My panasonic dedicated Fax machine died so I began to look for an All in one figuring I would also replace the Epson RX600 I had. After doing so searching I saw the Canon MX 850.
The overall size of this machine is larger than the Epson but smaller than the two other machines combined. So it does work out very well. Dimensions are 20" wide x 19" dep x 10.2" high (its not at all terribly oversized)
Lets talk a moment about the ink cartrdiges.
Canon did what I think is really very smart, there are 2 Black cartridges in this unit 1-dedicated for Fax and the other for photo's etc. The PBGK (Black) lasted for over 75 faxes received and an average of 15 pages per fax for an average total of 1125 pages. At a cost of $16.99 for a cartridge that means about $0.02 per page recd.
I have not yet used up the color ink tanks and have printed over 100 pictures in varied sizes. The printer on it screen has an ink level indicator which are still showing 50% capacity. So if I use an average of 200 various size pictures and a total cost for ALL the photo ink cartridges of $50.00 the average print cost for photo/color is $0.26
Fax Machine: Is SIMPLE to set up, it is like setting up any fax machine, plug in the telephone wire and you are done. If you choose (which I have) to have your telephone/answering set up as well to this unit. Simply plug your phone back into the Canon as well. No special wiring or switches needed.
The Canon by itself will recognize an incoming fax and pick up the call before your anwering machine does. Yes if you are home and have a need for ring differentials (dedicated ring for incoming voice calls versus fax) some telephone companies require you contact them. With my phone provider I was able to do this over the internet with little trouble and only a matter of a couple of minutes. The printer itself has a built in Distinctive Ring Pattern Detection (DRPD) ability you can set this up in 4 steps on the Canon in about 1 minute. It is great and really easy to do.
The fax machine is very fast, and fery accurate in it receipt and sending of faxes.
The fax machine as with the scanner and printer has built in Duplex ability which is a great plus when you need to scan or fax two sided documents. This took a little getting used to and does slow down the process a bit but it is great to watch the unit work.
Copy function. Works as good as any of the full size copy machines and has all the functions you would ever want in a copy machine. Brightness, contrast upto 99 copies in one pass and much much more. Copy to paper, Copy to computer, copy to fax for a broadcast fax to multiple recepients.
ADF (Auto Doc Feeder) Also works great, this machine has the ability to auto feed documents for fax, copy, or scan. The nicest part is when you are starting a particular job it asks each time what your prefeerence is, including duplex or single side. It takes all of 2 seconds to go throught he very frienldy on screen (printer) menu, hit ok and off you go.
Phot Printer: The quality of 9600 x 2400 dpi is as good as anything I have ever seen. It is acutally better and crisper than my Epson RX600 was (and for the record I loved the Epson RX600) The colors are vibrant and fantastic. The speed is more than acceptable a 4x6 photo prints in about 30 seconds, an 8x10 in about 70 seconds.
Borderless is an option.
Paper feed trays: The printer has a paper tray at the bottom which hold enough paper to satisfy any personal needs you may have in addition there is a rear feed tray for Specialty paper, photo paper and various sizes as well. When you choose to print from your computer you choose where you want the paper feed to come from in the printer properties for that specific print job.
Photo memory cards: Well it reads them all. It is very fast and easy to use. The reader is behind a cover on the right front of the machine. Simple to get to and use.
There are literally hundreds of functions built into this machine making it the most versatile I believe is on the market today.
Don't be intimiated by the instruction manual or the on screen menus they are very easy to follow and even easier to find what you are looking for when you want to change or customize an option.
You will Enjoy this product I do.
