Canon PIXMA MX700 Printer

Canon MX700 is a truly great product. Every time I use it I marvel at how well it works *and* how inexpensive it was to purchase. It is astonishing to think that such powerful and versatile technology can be had for peanuts. I’d expect to pay at least 10 times the Amazon cost for such a product. Cost aside, this is a powerful machine. It scans rapidly and to high resolution. It copies small jobs without a hitch. It is a great color printer for home use. It is also a decent black & white printer. In general, I will always prefer a laser printer to an ink jet for presentation quality work. Not so much because the print quality is that much better (yes, it is very slightly better) but because the laser doesn’t use a wet ink process which causes the cheap copy paper I use to pucker just slightly where the lettering has been laid down. So, the result is not business quality. Nevertheless, we use the MX700 for routine print jobs at our house, and we love it.

BUT, the reason I am so happy I decided to purchase Canon MX700 is its built-in networking. Let me tell you, the networking works and it works perfectly. I agonized over whether to purchase the MP830, which doesn’t have networking, and every time I use the MX700 I thank my lucky stars that I decided (at the last moment) to go with the MX700 instead. Everyone in our house has a computer and we all need to print occasionally. We use Windows XP configured as a workgroup. It was a complete no-brainer to set everyone up to print to the networked MX700. This is a huge advantage over the option of having the printer attached to a specific computer. If that computer gets turned off or has a glitch, printing would be interrupted. With the networked MX700, we can always print when we want to. I am so glad I didn’t have to figure out a way to get the MP830 to work on the network!

Also, I should mention that the scan software works really well in a networked environment. It is easy to scan a single sheet (platen) or multiple sheets (sheet feeder) directly to the computer over the network. You shouldn’t hesitate to install the software on one of your machines to accept scans. I found that the software installed easily and hasn’t caused any problems. However, I don’t like to install unnecessary software and you don’t need it if all you want to do is print. So, I only installed the software on the computer in the same room as the printer and all scans go to that computer.

There is only one minor negative I can think of. Canon MX700 printer needs to be physically turned on before it can accept a print job. It would be nice if it sensed a print job and turned itself on. We had an HP LaserJet that did this and it was really convenient because you could initiate a print from another room in the house so that the printing takes place while you are walking over to pick up your print job.