There are printers and then there are PRINTERS. We are all familiar with the small cube-shaped laser printers that spit out some oven-sold leaflets or a school book report that are designed to sit on a shelf next to your home office. Then there are monsters like that Canon ImageClass MF743Cdw from Canon, a printer that moves directly between the average home laser printer and the massive multifunctional office machine.
Although this printer will not collect and staple your projects, it will do almost anything else. It has a built-in scanner – just lift the lid over, place the page, and use the built-in LCD screen to send the file to a mobile device, PC, or, if you’re in 1996, a fax machine — and a pair of paper trays, one for size odd and another for letter / legal.
This guy is big. It weighs 64 kilograms and is 43 inches tall, with a footprint of 21 x 29 inches. It takes up a lot of space. Be aware of this before dedicating a place on your desk.
The printer produces duplex or black and white outputs and supports wifi and Ethernet connectivity. You can also connect it to a computer via USB. A generous 5-inch screen allows you to choose various functions and settings, and you can also use the built-in NFC function to connect phones to the printer with a single touch. There is also a USB port on the front of the device for quick printing of documents and photos.
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The speed was above average in my tests, with about three seconds on black and white printing seven seconds for color prints. This last number was certainly affected by a system in which the printer spat out three color pages at a time and then heated the color toner for the next three pages. Canon estimates about 3,000 prints from the included black toner cartridge and about 2,000 for the color cartridge, although your mileage may vary.
As a standard printer, it works perfectly. It’s one of the few printers I’ve tested recently that connects seamlessly to my home network and has been available for every device in the house, including phones and laptops. This was surprisingly refreshing, as I certainly experienced frustration at trying to get various printers to connect to my local network. MF743 found my network and stayed connected constantly.
The speed, as mentioned above, is about average and I managed to make some pretty strong prints – 50 pages or more – in a few minutes.
The screen on the device is large enough to access the basic functions of the printer. Setup is best done in the remote administration system, which essentially turns the printer into a web server, which then allows you to enter calendar entries for scanner emails and faxes, update user profiles, and change settings. Unless you’re busy setting up this printer for a small office, you’ll be able to use it right out of the box and easily ignore more complex settings.
Canon does not recommend photo paper in this printer, so I tested all of these prints on plain letter-size printed paper. Black and white reproduction was perfect and you will not find any errors in this template for text documents. The color test prints were surprisingly bright and clear and I found the color accuracy to be acceptable. Again, this is not a photo printer, but photos sent from an iPhone directly to the printer came out bright and clear.
The copy function was a bit disappointing. I placed a printout of a color test page I had printed earlier and passed it back through the copier. The result, as you can see, is quite ragged. Each color had an orange hue and there were many artifacts caused by the light shining through the print. I also tested the ID copier on a standard driver’s license and a few other cards. The copied results were sub-par, but readable and, if you’re not picky, usable for keeping records. The printer scans at 600 DPI, which should have been more than enough, but it seems that the integrated scanning and printing system is not working as well as it could.
The scan was a whole other story. The scanned images came out great on the computer, and Canon includes the MF Scan Utility for scanning on Windows or MacOS. Because it is connected to the network, you can start scanning from anywhere and the results are stellar. In fact, scanning and printing from a computer may be the only viable way to copy color documents using this printer.
But look: The best place for this printer is in a small office. The firepower is too high for household use – the paper tray contains 300 sheets, which is much more than even a family with children needs. If, say, you scan documents at a doctor’s office or in another professional situation, it’s the perfect printer. Because it costs $ 400, with black-and-white and color toner replacements that come in for just under $ 100 each, you’ll spend less than you would buy on a more powerful copier / printer combination, and that does almost everything you have. need a small office. Passport identification and scanning are nice supplements (as long as you scan and not copy), and the fax function is, as they say, the icing on Pudding Pop from the 1990s.
There are a few features that standalone devices could do better. If, for example, you bought this for the ID scanner and intend to print the IDs immediately, a separate ID scanner might be the best solution. Or, if you plan to copy many documents and color images, there are some limitations of this printer. But if you are good at transferring scans to your computer and then storing or printing them as needed, you are definitely in good hands.
Canon makes great photo printers. This is not one of them. This is a hard workhorse for a small and medium office printer. Print quality is fast, economical and robust and a definitive upgrade to other multifunction printers we’ve seen in this price range.
readme
- High print speed.
- Sturdy paper tray and design.
- Color copies are not great.
- Perfect for a small office.