Canon Pixma MP470 – Highly Recommended For Home Buyers

Pros

The Canon Pixma MP470 Printer prints and scans high quality text and graphics; it gives fast photo and graphic prints; it has a PictBridge port and fitted memory. The print cost for the printer is affordable; it has plethora of special photo print and copy features and the printer produces scannable proof sheet.

Cons

The Canon Pixma MP470 Printer’s photo quality requests step up; the scan-to-program feature here is underdeveloped and you can not use flash drives and USB ports. You also can’t initiate the transfer of photos from card to PC through control panel.

Introduction

The Canon Pixma MP470 priced at hundred Dollar  is the entry level inkjet all-in-one printer which produces great quality prints at decent print speed. Though the text prints are bit slow. The best thing here is that the Pixma MP470 delivers the best quality graphics and text prints among the entire $100 multi-function printer we’ve tested. But then it has its own set of limitations and flaws, like you can not use the flash drive with the USB port positioned on the façade of the printer.

On a whole we like this entry-level inkjet multifunction printer and thinks you also will. The printer will be a true value for money printer for the casual home users in need of high-quality prints.

Design

The Canon Pixma MP470 Printer has the same aesthetics as the Canon’s Pixma MP510. The Pixma MP470 measures 13.9 inches deep by 6.7 inches tall by 17.7 inches wide, and has a black-and-silver body. The scanner lid of the printer is of silver color and it conceals an A4-size flatbed scanner. But due to the absence of MP470 you just can not scan the legal size documents.

The paper handling job in 17.7 inches wide is pretty simple. The paper input support flip opens at the rear end of the printer while the front panel of the printer folds opens and functions as an out put tray. Positioned close to the output tray is two memory card slots, which are compatible with most of the memory cards, but for some others you will have to use an adapter (which by the way is not included here). Positioned under the memory card is a PictBridge-enabled USB port, its positioned in such a way that most of the users will not even notice it in first place. This can be used for doing wireless printing by attaching a Bluetooth adapter or can use for attaching PictBridge cameras for facilitating direct printing. But the one thing that you need to keep in mind here is that you can not connect a flash thumb drive to the USB port, but if you really want it then you should go for the Dell Photo 926.

The control panel of the printer is hidden under the flip-panel on the rear end of the printer. A 1.8-inch graphical LCD is entrenched on the base of the panel. The control panel on a whole is rather basic, though well-organized. Some buttons on the printer includes task buttons for scan and copy, menu navigation buttons, two start buttons (one for each, black and white) and memory card modes.

The feature set for Canon Pixma MP470 includes scan, photo print and copy features, as the printer is a home all-in-one photo-oriented printer, but the printer doesn’t have network and fax connectivity. The feature set for the printer is a trademark all-in-one from this price range.

System Configuration

Price: $89.00 – $109.75
Manufacturer: Canon
Part Number: 2177B002
Printer Type: Ink-jet – Color – Photo printer
Inkjet Technology: Canon FINE (Full-lithography inkjet Nozzle Engineering)
Copier Type: Digital
Dimensions (W x D x H): 17.7 x 13.9 x 6.7 inches

System weight: 12.8 lbs
Supported Flash Memory Cards: Memory Stick, CompactFlash, MultiMediaCard, IBM Microdrive, and Memory Stick Pro and SD Memory Card
Ink Palette Supported (Colors): magenta, Cyan, black and yellow
Office Machine Features: Print from memory card
Software Included: ScanSoft OmniPage SE, Drivers & utilities and Canon Easy-PhotoPrint
Direct Printing Specifications: PictBridge
Microsoft Certifications: Certified for Windows Vista
Service & Support Details: Technical support – Phone consulting and limited warranty – 1 year

Performance

In our performance test the Canon Pixma MP470 was comparatively slow in text prints in comparison to some of the similarly priced printers, but it excelled in graphics and 4 x 6 photos. The scan speed for the printer was in line with some of the printers that we had. For text printing, it tool around 5.45pages per minute, while for the same the Lexmark x5470 delivered an imposing speed of 6.90ppm, and the for the same the Dell Photo 926 was even better and gave the results of 7.60ppm. The Pixma MP470 took 2.10 ppm in our color graphics print test, however, none of the three $100 printers we talked here broke the mark of 2.0ppm. The printer scored 0.81ppm for 4×6 photo prints, while for the same the Dell took 0.74ppm. The time taken for scanning was 4.60ppm for black and white and for the color scans its comes 4.49ppm; results for both the media types are a bit average.

The print quality on the other hand impressed and was really outstanding. The text prints were the best of the lot and with it the printer really stood our. The text print was sharp, dark, clean and somewhat acceptable especially from a $100 printer’s point of view.

Support

The Canon Pixma MP470 Printer doesn’t have any dedicated service and support section on Canon’s website and it is expected by August. Though, we know that the printer comes with a one-year warranty, which is pretty standard for these consumer-level printers. You can also get toll-free support on weekdays from 8 a.m. to midnight and on the same on Saturdays is available from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT. There also is an e-mail support available through a web-based form. We think that the support system for this printer will also be the same as we’ve seen with the other printer including online support options such as software and downloadable drivers, FAQs and manuals. The printer delivers really high quality graphics and text prints and scans. The printer comes with PictBridge and en suite memory card reader port, delivers reasonable print cost and has plenty of special print features. There also are plenty of photo print and coy feature well. This printer can also print scannable proof sheet.

Word from the Experts

The Canon Pixma MP470 offers decent print speed, superb graphics and text print quality and has plenty of other decent features for a low price. The $100 multifunction printer beats all its contenders with its print quality, and if you are a home user on a budget, then this printer is highly recommended for you. Trumps all of its budget competitors with printer quality; we highly recommend it for home users on a budget.