Canon Pixma MP560

More than just a model refresh, apparently

Wed 21 Oct 2009 // 08:02 UTC

Canon printers normally give very good quality prints. Here, black text shows a little more feathering into the paper nap, thus giving a very slight fuzz to characters, particularly bold ones. Colour graphics are bright and solid and black text over the top of colour is well-registered, with no signs of haloing.

Wi-Fi equipped, so you can dispense with the USB umbilical

Copy quality, using the machine’s 2,400 by 4,800ppi CIS scanner, shows surprising fidelity, for what is essentially a budget scan head, and there was only slight lightening of the colours in our test copy, compared with the original. It’s also a relatively fast scan, producing a single-page photocopy in 35 seconds.

Photo output on Canon’s Photo Paper II Pro is very good, with natural colours and high levels of detail in both bright and shadowed parts of images. There’s no noticeable colour cast and the MP560 manages to produce vivid tints where they’re needed, as well as subtle shades in landscapes and portraits alike.

Running costs, of course, depend on the price you can find for the five cartridges the machine uses. The best prices we could find give a cost per A4, ISO black page – roughly five per cent cover – of 2.6p, with an ISO colour page – roughly 20 per cent – of 7.2p. Neither of the page costs is unduly high and the black page cost is around 0.4p below the average. Although you may baulk at the cost of inkjet printing, per se, it’s still the cheapest form of colour print and the comparative costs for this printer are reasonable.

Verdict

Comparing this machine with its predecessor shows that you’re getting a lot extra: increased print speed, duplex printing and Wi-Fi connectivity, for little extra money. It’s a flexible all-in-one with a good scanner, dual paper sources and high quality print on plain and especially photo paper. ®