Written on September 24, 2009 – 3:50 pm | by CoolGadgetConcept |
Still looking for the coolest office gadget? An all in one printer with high end features, but middle rage price? Keep looking, you will not find it in the next ten years. However, a good middle range features with a moderate price ($199) all in one printer, might just be available on the market. Which is the manufacturer? The manufacturer is no other than Canon itself. Canon still provides the best all in one printers, either its purpose is for home or office.

The Canon PIXMA MX 860 Office all in one printer is a model that combines an affordable price tag with excellent features. Its dimensions can be checked in the average range. The PIXMA MX 860 has a height of 22.61 cm (8.9 inches), deep of 43.43 cm (17.1 inches), wide of 49.28 cm (19.4 inches), it weight (too much) about 11.97 kg (26.4 lb). This all in one printer is not for your indoor regular home activity. The Canon PIXMA MX 860 is marketed as an office device, because of its copy functions, auto duplex scan, and also the latest advanced print engine delivered by Canon. The overall design is, well a little dull, but let's call it less bold than others.

The PIXMA MX 860 is made entirely out of matte grey plastic (it tries to look as a metallic finish). The all in one printer, delivers a great support for memory card. Over ten supported media card, including: xD Picture Card (regular, nut also type H and type M), Memory Stick Duo and Memory Stick Pro Duo, SD Memory Card and SDHC Memory Card, Multimedia Card, Multimedia Card Plus, Micro Drive, Micro SD Card, RS MMC, Mini SD Card, Mini SDHC Card, and others. All this slots are being hidden by using a small plastic (what else) door on the front of the printer for a better usability. Probably the first thing that will trigger your interest is the excellent 2.5 inches LCD display. You can use the menu and controls with the four plus one way pad (up, down, left, right and ok).

The second thing you are going to notice is the large amount of buttons Canon used on this cool office gadget. However, you don't need a user manual to understand their each function and also their real treat when you are on the hurry (just find the button for a setting you needed without going through the actual menu). If you already own a latest PIXMA all in one printer (for home or office) then you should know that setting up the Wi-Fi is not the most elegant feature on this printer. First you have to connect the PIXMA MX 860 with your computer. Install the driver and software.

After install choose from settings that you want to use your device with wireless connection. Shut down the software and disconnect your USB cable that connected the printer to the computer. This is a small explanation of the actual process. However Canon provides with the full and well explained steps you have to take in order to setup the Wi-Fi connection. It will take some time but it is doable, only if you go through all the steps Canon provided. The PIXMA MX 860 provides the 802.11 b/g profile for the Wi-Fi connectivity. However, you can also find on this device an USB 2.0 high speed port, Pict Bridge, and Ethernet. If you use the PIXMA MX 860 for multiple computers, than you definitely have to use the Wi-Fi connection.

However if this office gadget is for one computer only, you should connect it by USB with your computer, because it provides a much faster printing speed. Even Canon recognized this fact. Even so with the inkjet printing method, the black print speed goes up to 8.4 ipm, while the color print speed has a value of 5.6 ipm. You should know that it will take you about 41 seconds to print a color photo. Also the maximum print resolution for black is 600 x 600 dpi, and for the color, the resolution goes up to 9600 x 2400 dpi.  Not only the printer feature from this all in one device provided good results, but also the copy feature, with a copy speed in single mode (not duplex) at about 27 seconds. You also get other great features like auto duplex copy, fit to page, preset copy ratios and other.

The maximum scan resolution in optical mode, goes up to 2400 x 4800 dpi while in the interpolated mode can reach up to 19.200 x 19.200 dpi. The print quality is excellent, from this point of view the PIXMA MX 860 is a great solution. Even the photos printed look great, with vibrant colors and good details. So, you get a speedy printer (depending on the connection used), a good copier and excellent scanner. But you also get a fax, because this is an office orientated device. The fax transmission speed for three black and white pages takes about three seconds, while for the color page will go up to one minute. Canon also included in the fax other features like: scan to memory, network scan, and push scan (with a modem speed of 33.6 kbps).

Canon made the MX 860 compatible with all important versions of operating systems including, Mac OS X from 10.3.9 version to 10.5.x, and Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista (this device will also be compatible with Windows 7). If we take into consideration the excellent package (PIXMA MX 860 all in one printer, documentation - including the user manual, quick install, and CD, USB cable, power cord, special Canon software, print head, telephone line cable, and the six ink tanks), the full specs list (with great results) and an asking price of $199, then one thing is sure, the Canon PIXMA MX 860 Office all in one printer is truly a great balanced device for small and medium offices.