Product Listing

Canon PIXMA MX886 All-In-One Printer - An Office Thoroughbred

By Ng Chong Seng - 16 May 2011
Launch SRP: S$499

Conclusion

A Pretty Capable Workhorse

From a feature point of view, there's nothing crucially lacking on the MX886. The dual function panel worked well for the most part, and the large buttons made for easy pressing. We also liked that there were two ways to load paper (the natural arrangement is to leave the front cassette for plain paper and the rear feeder for photo paper), and that the output tray opened by itself when it sensed a print job. The ability to have a fax printed and at the same time saved to an external flash storage device is a neat touch. Despite mentioning it a couple of times in the previous pages, it's worth saying again that the MX886 sports a auto duplex 35-sheet ADF.

On the software front, we appreciate the convenience of Easy-WebPrint EX in managing our webpage contents. Printing from iOS and Android devices were easily accomplished using the Easy-PhotoPrint app. The MX886 also supports a plethora of memory card formats, including CompactFlash which you don't really see on other AIOs these days. In a gist, the MX886 ticked most of our feature checkboxes, and then some.

The Canon PIXMA MX886 has performance to match its good looks.

In actual use, we found the MX886 print speeds to be very good, especially so for copy and photo print jobs. Duplex printing was slow (3.1 and 2.0 ppm for mono and color respectively), but the same can be said for any AIO that supports automatic double-sided printing. Print quality for the most part was very good too. Text was very black and precisely formed. Color graphics turned out vivid, albeit a little soft at times. Most AIOs' text copies would come out paler than the originals, but this wasn't the case with the MX886. Copied graphics however did show lower resolution and duller colors, which was likely due to the quality of the scanner.

Photo print quality was excellent. We couldn't find any distracting dots, lending credence to its 9600 x 2400 dpi resolution and 1 picoliter ink droplet size claims. It didn't manage to render the smallest of details in one of our monochrome images, but hardly any printers in recent memory could. In a nutshell, we've no hesitation recommending the MX886 to anyone who wants to show off the graphics in his documents, or to anyone who wants a printer that can rival the neighborhood photo lab.

A year ago, the MX876 was launched in Singapore at a suggested retail price of S$599 (though that's fallen to S$399 now). Fast forward 12 months and the newer and better MX886 can be had for S$499. While not small change, we reckon its more-than-capable performance as well as slick looks should land itself many admirers.

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8.5
  • Design 8.5
  • Performance 8.5
  • Features 8.5
  • Value 8
The Good
Good print and copy speeds
Very dark text output
Excellent photo print quality
The Bad
Fingerprint-prone due to glossy exterior
Slow duplex print speeds
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