Canon Pixma MX300 – An Efficient Inkjet All-In-One

Pros

The Canon Pixma MX300 offers great quality prints and scan; delivers quick photo prints; is reasonably priced; it also has plethora of capacity alternatives when it comes to replacing the ink; the in built memory here can store fax for later.

Cons

The Canon Pixma MX300 is a bit slower than most of its competitions in most of the tasks it is subjected to; the printer is not network-ready; doesn’t have ADF; doesn’t have memory card slots and finally the LCD here is not backlit.

Introduction

The Canon Pixma MX300 is the entry level, office oriented all-in-one inkjet printer from Canon. Priced at $100, we don’t expect that much from MX300, especially in terms of performance, but we are pleasantly surprised  that even though the printer is not the fastest all-in-one printer in $100 range that we’ve tested, but it makes up for its slow speed with its high quality scans and prints.

But the Pixma MX300 is not network ready, and hence this is not the right printer choice for the people buying printers for their militiaperson office, and to make it even worse for the printer, it doesn’t have an ADF, which means the batch copies, faxes and scans surely will be a laborious task. So, if you want an ADF its better that you get the Lexmark X5470, and if the network-ready all-in-one is what you are looking for then the Lexmark X4550 is the best choice for you. Both the above mentioned printers deliver great speed, but struggles way behind the Canon Pixma MX300 when it comes to print quality.

Design

The Canon Pixma MX300 is rather huge, considering its all-in-one class, but the good thing is that it is an economical all-in-one. Measuring 17.3 inches deep by 6.9 inches tall by 18.4 inches wide, the printer is comparatively lighter than its class and weighs only 15.5 pounds. The printer is light-gray-and-black in color but lacks an automatic document feeder, which is bit uncommon for any office oriented multifunction printer, but considering its low price its not surprising for sure. But at the same time it is the only all in One from Canon that doesn’t have an ADF. The scanner lid of the printer covers the A4 size scanner here, and with no an ADF, the maximum original size scan you can have is the A4 size. The Pixma MX300 doesn’t have memory card slots, but there is a PictBridge-enabled USB port compatible for PictBridge-compliant camcorders, camera phones and cameras.

The paper handling here is rather simple. There is a paper input support that unfolds from the top-rear rim of the printer and can hold about 100 plain paper sheets. The control panel of the printer is rather straightforward and clean. The centre point of the control panel is the two-line text LCD, but at the same time it is not backlit. There are three task buttons that lets you choose in between fax, scan and copy tasks. Most of the options given here are pursued using the menu navigation and menu button buttons. Two other buttons are completely dedicated for changing the fax quality and copy settings for the printers. Completing the control panel are the start and stop/reset buttons and an alphanumeric keypad. For direct printing there is a front-mounted USB port, that lets you print pictures directly from PictBridge cameras, but as it is an office-oriented machine, it would have been better if the printer would have offered support for storage devices like USB thumb drives.

System Configuration

Price: $114.98
Manufacturer: Canon USA
Part Number: 2182B002
Printer Type: Ink-jet Color Photo printer
Operating System Supported: Microsoft Windows 2000, Microsoft Windows XP, Apple Mac OS X 10.2.8 – 10.4.x and Microsoft Windows Vista
Copier Type: Digital

Dimensions (W x D x H): 18.4 x 17.3 x 6.9 inches
System weight: 15.4 lbs
Software Included: Drivers & utilities
PC Connection: Hi-Speed USB
Direct Printing Specifications: PictBridge
Supported Media Type: Labels, Cards, Plain paper and Envelopes

Included Accessories: Black fine cartridge, Cross sell sheet, Power cable, Color fine cartridge and Telephone line cable
Microsoft Certifications: Certified for Windows Vista
Features: Transmission reception memory and Speed dialing
Bundle:  Power cable and Telephone line cable
Media Type Supported: Labels, Cards, Plain paper and Envelopes
Service & Support: One year warranty

Performance

In terms of performance the Canon Pixma MX300 is a middling performer in compare to all the other similarly priced office all-in-ones, with the only exemption of photo printing. The Pixma MX300 printed text at a respectable speed of 6.32 pages per minute and was only behind the two Lexmark models: the X4550 and the X5470. While for color graphic printing the printer delivered the 1.45 pages per minute, and was right in between the two aforementioned Lexmark models. The scenario changed significantly in photo printing where the printer printed 1.06 pages per minute, and was topping the range. But for the scan the speeds when back to middling and the printer delivered 4.42 pages per minute for color and 4.50 pages per minute for grayscale.

Like speed the print quality delivered by Pixma MX300 was also pleasing on a whole. The black text appeared sharp and dark with clean characters. Now from an all-in-one’s point of view this is something really huge. The same was the result for rest of the media type as well, and on a whole the Pixma MX300 delivered much more than what you expect from a $100 range printer.

Support

The support and service for Canon Pixma MX300 is also pretty standard and it comes with a one-year standard warranty from Canon. The toll free telephonic support is available from 8 a.m. to midnight on weekdays and from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. PT on Saturdays. There also is e-mail support available through the web-based form on the website.

Word from the Experts

The Canon Pixma MX300 is a decent option for the people who are looking for a printer for their one-person office and are a little tight on budget. The output quality delivered by Pixma MX300 is the best you can get from any similarly priced all-in-one inkjet printer. But if you are looking for a fast print delivering and built-in networking then keep on looking.