The Canon Pixma MX350 printer is aimed at the small office or home use. It includes a fax and a automatic document feeder.
The printer has a 62mm colour LCD display, which id ideal for showing the menus and thumbnails of photos selected .
There are four large function keys for copy, fax, scanning and photo upload, each of which has an indicator LED set into its rounded corner. A numeric key pad is available for fax dialling and quick setup of the wireless connection and there are two large illuminated buttons for black and colour print .
It has the one paper tray, which holds 11 sheets of normal 80 – 100 gram paper
The right hand side of the machine is where you will find three memory card slots and a PictBridge socket for plugging in a usb drive .
At the rear are sockets for USB and Ethernet connections, but many people will use the built-in wireless setup wizard to connect directly to a Wi-Fi router. This is a simple process, even if you have to enter a passkey .
There are just two printer cartridges - one back and the other tri-colour – that clip into the machines heads. Canon ink cartridges numbers are PGI-512 & CLI-513 for the high capacity versions which is the cheapest way to buy them.
The enclosed spec sheet claims speeds of 8.4ppm for black and 4.8ppm for colour print. Our five-page black text print took just under a minute, including 14 seconds for preparation, which equates to a speed of 5.5ppm. The longer, 20-page print produced a speed of 6.9ppm, which is not a long way off the stated speed. The five-page text and colour graphics document took 2mins 1sec, though, which is just 2.5ppm, only just over half of Canon’s quoted figure .
Finally, photo prints in standard mode took just over 50 seconds, while in best mode the time rose to 1min 24secs. Good speeds, but beaten by some rivals.
The quality of the printed output is good for an inkjet. Black text is clear and well formed, with little sign of feathering or other plain-paper artefacts. Colour graphics are also well reproduced, with good solid colours and again, few signs of black ink run into colour.
Canon are renowned for producing good quality photos and this printer does not let them down. Colours were good with smooth transitions between different shades. Very good for a 4 colour machine
The two ink cartridges are each available in standard and high-yield versions and, as usual, we use the high-yield consumables to calculate running costs, since these give the best economy. At the cheapest Internet prices we could find, we calculate a black page cost of 4p and a colour cost of 8.6p. This was for genuine Canon cartridges. Compatible cartridges will be available shortly we understand
Verdict
The canon MX350 is a nice quality compact printer, but the price tag does seem a little pricey at around £150. Well worth consideration though.
