The Canon Pixma MX700 is a multifunctional home office printer. At a suggested retail price of $179.99, it is geared to the mass market that desires functionality and flexibility, but doesn’t want to break the bank on something top of the line. It can print, scan, copy, and fax, and is network ready with an Ethernet interface.
With a print resolution of up to 600 x 600 dpi for black and white, and 4800 x 1200 dpi for color printing, the MX700 is fairly impressive in this department, but not nearly as good as a comparable Epson. But its 30 black and white pages per minute and 20 color pages per minute are definitely above average for a printer in this price range. In addition, it will print borderless photos, which is a must have feature if you are going to do any photo printing with your device.
The copying features are pretty standard, with black and white or color copies. The MX700 will also reduce the image down to 25% of the original, or enlarge it up to 400%. The maximum document size is the standard letter size – 8.5 x 11”, so if you work with legal documents a lot and have a need to make copies of them, you may want to spring for an appliance with a larger bed.
Scanning is done on the same letter size bed, but the automatic document feeder makes it easy to scan a large document if you have the right software that supports this functionality. The scan resolution is a maximum of 2400 x 4800 dpi at a 48-bit color depth, which is most likely more than you’ll ever need in a home scanner. If you have a need for anything more, then you are probably a professional or serious hobbyist, in which case you’ll want a more specialized scanner instead of a multifunction appliance.
Faxing is supported as well up to 33.6 Kbps, with a memory capable of 40 speed dial numbers. It can also store up to 100 pages in case the tray is out of paper, which is a nice feature.
Network connectivity is also supported, so you can make this printer a part of your home or office network and share it between all of your computers. One disappointment is that it doesn’t have built-in wireless networking, which comes with a lot of similar devices in this price range.
But what it lacks in that arena, it makes up for it with the user friendliness of its photo printing. A flash memory card slot is built into the device, which supports many types of cards including SD, CompactFlash, Memory Stick, and too many others to list here. As with a lot of HP printers, it has a user interface on its built-in screen to allow the user to print photos directly from the memory card without having to go through a computer. The device will even fix your photos if you so desire, by selecting the Auto-Image Fix feature.
In all, the Canon Pixma MX700 is a very nice multifunction device for the price. It has most of the standard features one would expect in such a device of this price range, and is above average in several areas.
