Canon Pixma MX850 Office All-In-One Inkjet Printer (2436B002) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)My brief observations seem to indicate that the MX850 really doesn't improve upon the MP830 in some important areas.
I've owned the Canon MP830 for almost a year and and I just bought the Canon MX850 for a friend, so this is a direct user comparison. The 830 has been 100% reliable, producing excellent scans, prints, copies, and faxes. The MX850 is shorter in height, but otherwise just as bulky and heavy as the 830. Canon seems to be using a less robust scanner in the 850 than in the older MP830. Scans on the 830 are consistently over 4 times as fast: a 300 dpi 8.5x11" import scan into Photoshop CS3 took about 7 seconds with the 830 and about 33 seconds with the 850. The 830 wins in the noise category as well: it's roughly 60% quieter than the 850 when scanning. The 850 produces an annoying high pitched tone while the 830 has more of a low "murmer" sound. The 850, to be fair, will not be considered to be overly loud for most environments. With scanning, the color reproduction seems fairly close between the two machines, though I'm getting more color accuracy from the 830. Copies on the 830 produced more accurate colors, too: a copy of a TIME magazine cover on a matt photo paper (with settings set to "Matt Photo Paper" and "High") yielded extremely accurate reproductions of the original, while the the 850 veered too far toward the yellow end of the spectrum. Both produced excellent detail, though. Scans of dot-screen images were well rendered with the 830, while the 850 exhibited substantial moire effects.
Not sure about energy consumption comparisons though the 850's scanner seems to be using a more compact, (newer technology?) low lumens light-producing element than the very bright 830, so it probably uses less power.
Both machines will not disappoint, but with the advantage of my brief side-by-side comparison I'd recommend that you save $40 bucks and get the MP830. They both use the same ink cartridges. One last observation: the 850's LCD screen has a much higher pixel count, but that's only one small improvement amid the 830's superior traits.
3/18/2008 - Update: I've learned that the MX850 is using "contact image sensor" technology (CIS) where as the MP830 is using the more common "charged-coupled devices" (CCD) technology. For those with an interest in the tech aspects I've included some info I found online:
"Most of large format scanners in use today use CCD (charge-coupled devices) as the primary data capture element in their construction. Recently this position has started to be challenged by the lower cost CIS (contact image sensor) technologies, which have come mainly from the small flatbed scanner market. The traditional CCD or camera scanner is able to produce a very high number of colours from the scanned original and copes with folded documents reasonably well. These scanners tend to be preferred where the image to be scanned is either photographic or has extensive use of tones and shading. CIS scanners have the advantage in providing all the optics in a space of 20 mm or so, which in the CCD scanner equivalent would occupy more like 600 mm. The secondary advantage is that CIS scanners have no need for magnification, lenses or a rigid frame - a major saving in construction costs and weight. However, CIS scanners do not do so well when scanning very pale colours or photographs."


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This is an All-In-One powerhouse. Thanks to its patented print head technology and 5-color ink system, youll create spectacular photos with 9600 x 2400 color dpi resolution1, and its fast: A photo lab quality 4" x 6" borderless print takes only about 21 seconds2. Copies will be remarkably true to the originals, and when scanning photos youll produce impressive 4800-dpi results, with vibrant 48-bit color depth. The built-in Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) holds up to 35 originals and enables automatic duplexing, so you dont have to manually turn over your 2-sided original. This versatile machine is networkable via an Ethernet connection, and offers an optional BU-30 Bluetooth interface3, so you can print wirelessly from a PC or PDA. You can also print photos right from memory cards4 selecting and enhancing images on the high-resolution 2.5" color TFT display or directly from a digital camera.

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