Canon PIXMA MX860 Wireless All-In-One office Printer

Customer Reviews

Review updated on October 13, 2009 to reflect firmware changes and add information on ink consumption -
The Canon MX-860 is an all-in-one printer designed for home or small business. The printing is fast, sharp and clear. The auto-document feeder scans both sides of the page, a tremendous time saver when you work with two-sided originals. Couple that with duplex-printing and it's trivial to reproduce two-sided forms and documents. The network connectivity also works well...in the six months I've had the printer, it's operated flawlessly in a mixed Mac/Windows environment on both wireless and wired networks.
Let's look at the MX-860 on a piece-by-piece basis ...
Printing
The Canon MX-860 uses a set of five ink cartridges for printing. Two of the cartridges are black, with the other three being the typical Magenta/Cyan/Yellow set. The printed output is easily sharp enough to be used for business letters; it almost rivals laser printers in quality. To save paper, the printer has built-in duplexing. I haven't measured it, but single-sided printing speed is quite good...I suspect that the 38 pound weight of the printer is due to some good size motors pulling the paper and moving the printhead around. Printing in duplex mode is quite a bit slower. To avoid smearing, the printer waits for the first-side to dry before printing the second side.
Photographs have good tonal gradation and overall appearance, however they don't equal those from a high-end printer that's specifically designed to print photographs. The difference, though, is slight and everybody has liked the prints that I've made. The printer has the usual slots on the front to allow you to insert your camera's memory cards.
Scanning
Whoopee! Duplex scanning! Have you ever tried to scan a stack of two sided pages? And get them merged into one file in the right order? I tried. Once. Then I went out and paid $400 for a dedicated scanner (the Fujitsu ScanSnap S510). With duplex scanning capability on the MX-860, I wouldn't have needed to do that. You put the papers in the feeder, tell the printer that it's a two-sided original and push the button.
Faxing
Outgoing faxing works fine. The faxes seem to get there. Originally, the designers of the fax system missed an extremely important feature...you couldn't specify the number of rings before the fax machine answered. Without that ability, it was almost impossible for the machine to peacefully co-exist with your phone service in a single line household. This problem was fixed by a firmware update and current purchasers can set the number of rings before pick-up. Unfortunately, Canon hasn't posted the new firmware, so owners of older machines are stuck...be careful if you buy one used. +1 brownie point for recognizing and fixing the problem. -2 for not making it available... :(
Networking and Setup
I had no problems getting both the wireless and wired network up and running. The setup is simple and straight forward. You'll need a USB cable to get the wireless network configured. It may be possible to wirelessly configure the wireless network, but there are certain insanities that even I won't try. You can only use one network - wired or wireless - at once. As I mentioned in the intro, it comes with both Macintosh and Windows software. Getting it to work on my additional networked computers was as simple as inserting the DVD and running the install program.
Ink Consumption
Some printer politely sip ink, but this isn't one of them. It's not quite as bad as beer consumption at a frat party, but in the last 2500 pages, I've gone through six black and two full sets of color cartridges. That works out to slightly over 10.5 cents per page at Amazon's current (11/11/09) prices for OEM ink cartridges...fine for normal use, but not great if you're going to use the printer heavily. Your ink consumption will vary, depending on the mix of photos, graphics and text that you print.
Packaging
You know that ubiquitous orange tape that printer manufactures use to hold everything together? It's there in spades. I wish I owned that franchise. Otherwise, it looks like the printer should ship well. It's well isolated with plenty of molded styrofoam.
In summary, this is my fourth Canon printer and probably the twentieth printer that I've owned. Outside of the faxing issue, it works great. The duplex scanning and printing are valued additions and real time savers...I would have given it a solid five stars if it wasn't for the faxing problem. I haven't used the printer enough to get a sense of long-term reliability; after a couple of thousand sheets of paper, it's been jam free and solid.

The Canon PIXMA MX860 is the iPhone of All-In-One Printers - it is feature packed, easy to use, and exceeds expectations at every turn.
SUMMARY
Excellent quality, clear menus/instructions/software, Wireless setup, printing, and scanning on OS X is flawless. ADF and Duplexer in a high quality wireless printer from Canon is a steal at $199.
PROS
Build quality, setup instructions, feature set is huge, price tag isn't
CONS
Weight, could be quieter, internal paper tray doesn't handle photo media, no wireless faxing
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
The build quality is striking. It is very well packed and instructions are the best I have seen of any consumer electronics product including previous Canon products. There is a "kickstand" for keeping the printer open while inserting the 5 ink tanks and closing it reveals that it has a gentle piston like a luxury car's hood. Other details include a mechanism on the output try that automatically opens when printing to keep papers from spewing onto the floor. There is definitely some weight to this device and it is much larger than a printer you might get free with a PC purchase. Still I said to myself as I unpacked "was this really just $199?" as I had been looking at more expensive models and was concerned the quality would suffer to provide the MX860's price point.
PHYSICAL SETUP
Okay, I was flat out scared to insert the print head and break the caps off the five delicate ink tanks to insert them, but I think the instructions were just trying to make a point. In any case, do prepare your setup with lots of light as the print head insertion process is both dark and covered in warning stickers. I had no problems however because the on-screen instructions were clear (both visually and intellectually) and after printing a three step printhead alignment, output quality was definitely promising. I went with the wireless setup so I left the included USB cable (thanks Canon!) and phone lines (don't intend to fax) in the bag. The built in paper tray (letter size only) hides away neatly under the printer and there is a second input on the back of the unit for other media, plain paper, envelopes, or photo paper (hey a free 4x6 sample pack is included, cool!)
NETWORK SETUP
I installed the OS X drivers on a MacBook and it was very easy. Note that there are different instructions for 10.4 and 10.5 which are the only two versions supported as of Feb 2009 (Vista, XP, and 2000 are also supported, though it is unclear if 64-bit drivers are provided for those OSes). Software is as straight forward as the printed instructions. I did not install Canon's included photo software as I am expecting iPhoto to handle those tasks.I put the printer in Wireless LAN setup mode. A couple items to note though: Canon does proide for totally wireless setup though Wi-Fi Protected Setup though I went with the more straight forward USB connection to get the printer setup on the wireless network (turns out that included USB cable was helpful). The second item to note is that the software required a reboot which I am not accustom to with OS X software but none the less went along with. It was very cool to see the results of a two minute Wi-Fi quality test that shows the signal strength from base station to printer. (I was in the green zone from about 50 - 60 feet from the base station through two walls.)
PRINTING
Printing is so subjective I'm not going to try to quantify it. I'll say that it looks very crisp to me - not laser printer crisp, but every bit as sharp as I expected. Have not printed photos yet. The printing is about moderate in speed and as loud as my $300 HP All-in-One from 2004 but lower in tone so not as annoying.
SCANNING
Wireless scanning was what I was very interested in and the MX860 did not disappoint. Can scan from the glass, or the Auto-Document Feeder (ADF) and even do front and back duplex scans from the ADF. The awesome on-screen menu system is intuitive and allows you to choose your target wireless device to scan to. Scanning was faster and quieter than I expected and the resolution is truly excellent for an All-in-One. This is not a dedicated scanner and it won't scan a legal document, but when you want to quickly front and back scan those rebate forms before you send them in, this will be a good friend to have. I also look forward to batch scanning old printed photos for import into iPhoto.
OTHER FEATURES
I haven't had time to test printing from a memory card, duplex or ADF copy/print/scanning, faxing or receiving a fax, or Bluetooth (didn't purchase the optional module for $30). But what I was keenly impressed with is the crisp, intuitive menus. Very easy to navigate and follow. Things are where you think they will be. I wanted to turn down the volume of the keypad confirmation beeps and pleasantly had a whole menu of selection to do so for various volumes including off, as well as different settings for key press or alarms. The attention to detail and user experience really shows.
I hope this review was helpful and you enjoy your new Canon PIXMA MX860.

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 17.1 x 8.9 inches ; 26 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 34 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001R4C5BK
• Item model number: 3301B002
  

Price : $329.99

Product Description

From the Manufacturer
Wireless Office All-In-One Printer with 2.5" LCD ; Built-in Two-sided copying and printing
This Canon PIXMA MX860 Wireless wonder lets you print from any room in your home and boasts incredible 9600 x 2400 maximum color dpi with 1pl and a 5 individual ink tank system. A built-in, fully integrated 35-sheet Auto Document Feeder means fast copying or scanning of your originals so you can tend to other tasks while the printer is at work. Its built-in Auto Duplex Printing prints 2-sided documents without having to manually flip the pages. Additionally, various security features like password protected PDF’s means you can feel safe about the creation and distribution of your most confidential files. A Super G3 High-speed Fax along with networkable Ethernet means every aspect of your business can run as efficiently as possible. Thanks to Dual Color Gamut Processing Technology your copies will maintain the integrity of the original while you produce remarkable scans with 4800 dpi. With computer-less printing capabilities via compatible memory cards, PictBridge and optional Bluetooth your images are easy to view with a 2.5 inch LCD. Its versatile feature set also makes for a top-of-the-line photo lab so all of your printing needs are met in one machine that can virtually fit anywhere whether you’re on a PC or Mac.
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Technical Details

• Fully-Integrated 35-sheet Auto Document Feeder for rapid built-in two-sided document copying and scanning
• Super G3 High-speed fax with memory to store 100 coded speed dials and up to 250 incoming pages when receiving ITU-T No. 1 Chart
• Various security features including password protected PDFs
• Max Printing Resolution up to 600 x 600 dpi (mono) / up to 9600 x 2400 dpi (color)
• Max Printing Speed up to 8.4 ipm (mono) / up to 5.6 ipm (color)