December 9th, 2010 | |
Posted in Canon
The Canon Pixma MG5220 is aimed at photo enthusiasts who scan and copy functions also need to print. The focus is on quality prints, but with a faster print engine, improved LCD menu system, and two unusual, albeit limited add-on features that meet your interests. When you go shopping an all-in-one, characterized by photo printing, the MG5220 would be a wise choice. It has to find compromises, but with a low capacity output tray and higher than the average color printing costs.
At first glance you will notice, this printer is painted glossy black. It’s nice rounded edges and is relatively compact for an all-in-one model. The outer structure is mainly made of durable plastic. The printer does feel heavy when you pick it up, which means a fair amount of metal inside.

This model has a relatively low profile, even if the rear tray fully extended to legal-size (8.5×14 inches) paper to accommodate. The double-hinged rear shelf conveniently folds when not in use helps to maintain the printer and its sleek, rounded appearance. You may close the front-side output tray when not in use. If you forget the output tray before your next print job is open again, that not a problem. The tray automatically extends to the outside just before it is needed.
The 2.4-inch LCD is bright (maybe too bright) with colorful graphics and readable text. The on-screen menus work in conjunction with three soft keys directly below the LCD, along with a rotating button and OK button, which let you quickly move through the menus. The main function buttons are well marked, either with text or self-explanatory icons. The online images are particularly helpful. We found it so easy to look at the icons to read the descriptive text below it. The MG5220 is have one of the best printer interface, we’ve seen.

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This model uses five ink cartridges: Four dye cartridges (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) and a pigment-based cartridge (black). Installing it was easy, because the display is automatically an animated guide, if you lift the scanner unit to cover expose on the inside. A separate red LED illuminates when each cartridge is firmly seated. On the other hand, the scanning unit cover in a manner that prevents them from rising all the way to be opened, so you do not have much leeway. All in all, the process was easy and relatively painless.
We had no problems with the printer driver and software installation. The MG5220 supports both USB and wireless connections. There are no onboard keyboard to input your network’s SSID (if your SSID is hidden) or password. For character input, use the cursor keys to move across an alphabet on the LCD. If you have the correct letter or number, hit the OK button.

The MG5220 has two paper input slots: a front and rear cassette. Each can be up to 150 sheets of paper. The paper output tray that is positioned just above the paper tray has a load limit of only 50 sheets. This could be a serious limitation when you tend flyers, newsletters, brochures or print. Canon recommends that you use the rear tray for photo paper and envelopes. It is limited to loading only 10 envelopes at a time, and shows the manual that you remove each envelope from the output tray before the next is to avoid blurring or staining. If you regularly print envelopes, consider an all-in-one, the better equipped for this type of repetitive tasks’s.
Besides the usual applications they support all-in-One Printer, Canon software, which lets you create calendars, posters and multi-image album pages provides. can the ability to single frames from a HD video file to print and an iPhone app that you can print directly to the MG5220: The company also advertises two unusual abilities for this printer. While they are useful, both have limitations. The HD frame Print only works with MOV format files and requires you to use the ZoomBrowser EX Ver.6.5 software. The iPhone App works strictly with stored images. You can not do it for text documents, unless you convert the text to an image on a screen capture.

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We experienced no problems with printing, scanning or copying with the MG5220. Duplex printing works perfectly and was easy to set up either access the printer driver or from one page in Windows applications. The printer does shake when printing, although we do not notice the movement of the printer away from their original position. The MG5220 breaks at regular intervals during printing to perform maintenance routines more often than most competing printers. The breaks were short and not significantly differ, the print times.
One of the criticisms of the Canon Pixma MX350 was his subpar speeds with text documents. While the MG5220 is no speed champ, it’s more competitive than previous models Canon and slightly better than average for an inkjet printer as a whole. With our 20-page text document with the default print mode, closed the MG5220 the first page in 14.7 seconds and all 20 pages in 2 minutes and 3 seconds. This compares with 19.2 seconds for the first side and 2 minutes and 53 seconds for every 20 pages with the MX350.

With our 10-page mixed text and graphics test document using the default print mode, closed the MG5220, the first page in 16.2 seconds and all 10 pages in 1 minute and 42 seconds. The speeds are not bright, but they are still better than average. This compares with 25.2 seconds for the first side and 2 minutes and 47 seconds for every 10 pages with the MX350.
With photo print speeds, where the MX350 was more competitive with models from other manufacturers, the MG5220 was still significantly faster than the MX350. Our 8.5×11 inch photo in 1 minute and 38 seconds compared to 1 minute and 56 seconds printed with the MX350. Our 4×6-inch photo took about 44.2 seconds versus 1 minute and 5 seconds with the MX350 complete. These figures place the MG5220 have tested printing photos of the fastest we inkjet printer.

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Copy and scan speeds were more competitive. We could not copy a full page monochrome text in just 11.2 seconds. The switch to color, was our example of a mixed text and graphics document page in 22.2 seconds completed. And scanning an entire page of plain text only took 10.9 seconds.
We found the MG5220 print quality for documents and photos remarkably consistent through the various modes. As with the Canon MX350 and MX340, which is fast-mode on the MG5220 is not that much faster than the standard mode. The quality is about the same as the standard mode, only lighter, so if you want to save on ink, there is little point in using the fast mode. Similarly, the high-quality print mode darker (presumably with more ink), but not much better. If you prefer a wide scope for the print modes, this may not be the printer for you. Canon has to optimize the print engine for the default mode, which most people would prefer to still use is selected.

The MG5220 really shines when it comes to print quality. Text was also formed without isolated points or jagged character. The text is laser quality, but it is very good for an inkjet printer. Graphics printed on plain paper issued vivid colors. Photos were printed on photo paper really impressive. The colors were realistic, not too boring and certainly not flashy. Contrast levels were very good, and the sharpness was spot on. This model produces some of the best glossy photos we saw on a sub-$ 200 printers have.
At $ 149.99, the initial investment costs for the MG5220 is quite reasonable. Your price goes to the front the cost of consumable items that would be significant if one were to do a lot of pressure. MG5220 is here to compete with similar models at about 5.3 cents for a typical page with black text. For a color page of mixed text and graphics, but this model would be more expensive than the average of about 12.3 cents.

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A big plus in choosing the MG5220 would be the life of the printed photos. According to Canon, the colors are rated for 300 years if the photo is stored in an archival-quality album with a plastic cover sheet and kept in the dark. The inks are rated for 30 years, if the photo displayed in a glass frame in a typical interior from direct sunlight.
If you are looking for a relatively inexpensive all-in-one, characterized by printing photos, buy the excellent MG5220. The print quality is top notch, especially with photos. Canon’s latest print engine is much faster than in previous models found. For business users might be the biggest problems of the 50-page capacity tray and cover limited use.

Tags:
aio printer,
all-in-one printer,
Canon Pixma,
canon printer,
inkjet printer,
photo printer,
wireless printer