Good printer and fax for general or draft printing (Canon Smartbase MPC600F)

Member Name: DarkestGrey

Product:	Canon Smartbase MPC600F
Date:	19/08/08 (223 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Reliable, cheap ink

Disadvantages: Large, no phone adapter included, a little noisier than I expected

This is a nice, easy to use all in one printer that also has a fax machine too. Nice, but has a few drawbacks:

Firstly, this printer is massive. It looks big in the picture, but that piece of paper is A4 in there! I was shocked (since I ordered mine by mail order) at the sheer size when it arrived. Deskspace is about 2 foot 2 (front to back) by about 17.5 inches wide.

This one is quite a noisy printer for Canon, similar in noise level to many Epsons.

The fax machine and phone connections are on the rear of the printer, but they are US phone connections and not UK standard. This would have been ok if Canon shipped the product with a convertor, but they couldn't be bothered to do this for the UK market - budget one in, should be able to get one for under £5.

Print quality isn't amazing, but inks are cheap. Be warned, don't use really cheap ink however as this will damage the printhead and these can be £45ish to replace. I use mine every day, printing 40 to 60 sheets a day and I am getting bad print now, I will need to change the printhead for the second time. It is about 5 years old.

It can connect via USB to modern computers or by parallel port to older models or those with all used up USB ports.

The copier is great and you can copy in colour. The scanner isn't too bad either (although I haven't used that much).

Faxing is easy, but again, different from the norm, paper goes in face up and not the normal face down. It is easy to forget and fax blank pages!

Canon claim 17 pages per minute in mono. I am unsure what they were printing, perhaps it was a full stop but the printer certainly isn't fast. It is very fast at sending the document to the printer driver and the first print is also very quick, there is rarely that gap where the printer does a five minute warm up before doing anything.

The machine itself feels quite robust and the buttons feel well built. You never feel like pressing a button will have your finger enter the internals of the printer.

Changing cartridges is a doddle, no printer driver needed - open the printer and the cartridges and printhead move straight into view with easy access.

The print quality is a little bit lacking, I get problems with blank lines through the text/printout (very thin lines), I get problems with colours not always printing as expected.

As a draft printer or a bulk printer and fax machine, this is a fairly good product.

Be warned though. If you connect a standard (non-powered) telephone through this fax machine, it won't ring. Canon told me it doesn't send enough power to do this to the phone. Using a DECT or similar phone seems to work ok.

This is a recommended product. eBay is a good place to look, but budget for a new printhead (£45ish), just in case it needs one.

Summary: Not a bad printer, especially if you get an auction one.

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