Canon Office Products MAXIFY MB2120 Wireless Color Photo Printer with Scanner, Copier and Fax

I’m a college student that has to go through copious amounts of drafts and printing out various peripheral documents that go along with the territory (syllabus’s, schedules, notes, flash cards, etc.). So, it wouldn’t be long until I would find that I needed something that could scan and print double-sided and had a stronger wireless connection than my previous workhorse (Canon PIXMA 432). Enter the MAXIFY MB5100. This all-in-one (so far) has met and exceeded my expectations for what this printer can do, particularly within its price point and class.To give some background, I’ve had this thing plugged in and in use for two days, testing out everything that I put into this review and can vouch for the following:The good:Compared to what I was running before, this thing is FAST! What would have normally taken approximately 10 minutes to print on my last rig, takes only 10 seconds with this one. I can’t even begin to tell you what this does for my precious time. As for quality, it is comparable to the last printer and I feel as though that the text might even seem a little sharper. This could be psychological though, seeing as how I just bought it. Take that part of the review with a grain salt.The unboxing was fairly easy and the packaging kept the printer nice and cozy through the rough handling of the shipping people. At this point, make sure that you follow the directions when setting it up and connecting to your wireless. This is important and will touch base on this later in the review.Double-sided printing and scanning? It practically sells itself. For its cost, it’s kind of hard to find something that can do this that is comparable. I’m currently writing this after finishing up a quarter in Business 101. I had four to five chapters from the online book that I wanted to print out and keep for future reference and this printer delivered with efficiency and ease. Again, saving money on paper and time is going to make a huge difference for me and I couldn’t be happier. The printer was also fairly economical with the ink seeing as how the chapters in this book were slightly picture-intensive and may have used up more color than I would have liked.The scanning was a breeze and didn’t give me any hiccups. Using a Mac and the Preview program to do so, was issue-free and fast. Seems as though Canon has provided better drivers these days to support the ease of use.Can I just say that I am totally digging on the back lit color touchscreen display? It seems like such a simple amenity, but it is something that I have lacked. Since I keep my printer resides in a part of the room that is dimly lit, I would generally have to bring a flashlight whenever I had to troubleshoot or ensure that there were no error codes. Problem solved!Things to watch out for:Getting back to setup, it pays to make sure you read and understand the manual to know exactly where you are and what you are doing in the process. If you are using the wireless setup option like I did, it will involve using your smartphone for the hookup and there are some certain things you should know regarding. For instance, it will ask you for connecting up to your Wi-Fi but what it basically means initially is hooking up directly to your smartphone first. That being said, if you have multiple SSIDs running off your Wi-Fi, make sure that you marry this printer up to the [SSID] that you want to use to make it consistent when you add your printer to other computers/tablets you might have. Seems like the Getting Started manual doesn’t go far enough into this part of the process. After that though, the setup should be fairly intuitive to your average computer user. To reiterate, I used the wireless connection option. There is a USB and ethernet connection available to you if that is your preferred method.Play around with this printer at first and get to know it. Its full chock full of features that I have yet to discover/implement at this point. For a college student, it’s got all the functionality that you could ever need. I did try to scan directly to email last night and it appears as though you need to sign on to a proprietary cloud service in order to do so. I haven’t gotten that far yet but intended to post an update review when I do. I also noted that you can direct link OneNote, Google and other popular accounts directly on the printer itself.Get familiar with the settings, specifically as it pertains to the powersaver options. After a considerable amount of time, the printer will power down and when you go to print, it will show that it is disconnected. A minor inconvenience, but one that was fairly noticeable on the default settings. That said, it’s easy to change and go about your business.Overall, I am very pleased with what I received and would recommend this to anyone that is a student, runs a small business, or works from home. Space-wise it doesn’t take up a huge footprint and its functionality is second to none. Some minor things I wished were fixed or made easier, but it would be exceptionally nitpicking. For those of you that are curious to the ink-smudging complaints, I have not experienced this as of yet nor have I had problems with the ADF taking more than one sheet at a time. I believe that it is not a pervasive problem across the product line and, should you encounter it, bring in for service or return it if you are in the warranty window.Cheers!

So I purchased the Canon Maxify MB5120 for a few reasons.Backstory:My previous printer from canon, the Canon Pixma MX892 had lasted me about 5 and a half years, and treated me very well, showing how well these printers last. I had to replace it since it stopped working through the USB cable and since I am away at college, I can't connect this printer over the WiFi like I could back at home. As a result, I was in the market for another printer, that wouldn't be too expensive, and had all the capabilities like a Duplex ADF Scanner, print quickly like my old printer, and connect through USB and Ethernet and more. Since I needed a printer desperately, I needed to get it local, and I was too lazy to do some research. I found the Epson WorkForce Pro WF-3733, that fit all the things I wanted it to do, and It seemed like a great printer. Then I realized how small the ink cartridges were and how short they would last. I had printed only 50 something pages and black ink was half gone. All of the things I printed were text documents, so I didn't understand what the whole deal was. Looking online for refillable ink cartridge solutions, I came across inkowl.com that sells everything regarding ink refilling, including the cartridges, had ones for the WF-3733. But the problem was that Epson had this proprietary thing, where once an ink cartridge ran out, you couldn't reuse it. So inkowl had a solution to that, and that was replacing the chipset on the cartridges, but those alone costed 40 odd dollars, and that would be each time the cartridge ran out. I didn't want the big expense so I returned that printer and purchased this wonderful beast.Deciding:I was torn between the less frequent-to-fill with paper MB2720 and the duplex scanner of the MB5120, and ended up chosing the MB5120. I chose the MB5120 because it truly could replace my old printer, with Faxing Capabilities, and duplex printing, to duplex scanning and Ethernet connectivity. (Duplex means 2-sided. Just wanted to make that clear for those who don't always talk printers with others heh.) I liked that the ink cartridges are much larger than that of the Epson, and they last longer than other starter ink cartridges. To add on, I could get the ink cartridges from inkowl and save a lot of money down the future when it comes towards that. That said, lets talk about the printer.The Printer itself:The printer itself is heavy for sure, but It's like a tank. The printer prints out pages very quickly when you're in a rush. (As any normal college student is in a rush.) The starter ink is beefy and will definitely last you a while. I say this, because I share this printer with my friends and with my roommate and we print a lot for a Pharmacy school. So it's very nice to see that we can trust this printer so far. I have had this for about a week or so, and we've printed a lot of pages, erring on the side of 200-300 pages already, and I haven't come across any of the problems people have mentioned previously. This printer feels and seems like an updated Tank. I hope this printer lasts a good while, and I feel like it will do great.I'll update if anything changes between now and the end of the life of the printer. But I truly love this printer.

I've faxed documents and printed color pages but I wouldn't use it for pictures. Canon ink is notoriously expensive so I've used an off-brand ink. It's pretty big. I used to have a printer I could easily print envelopes with, but this isn't the model. I wish Canon would bring that back. There's ways to change out ink cartridges without doing so on the printer's schedule, search Youtube for this. The quality of the print is fair but I am using off-brand ink. I'll never buy another Canon printer. The OEM ink is a ripoff and this printer is set up to practically force you to use their over-priced ink. I haven't figured out how to keep the fax from answering the phone. Luckily I rarely need to fax anything. I ended up taping the phone line near to the phone port on the printer and just plug in the phone line when I am going to fax something. It does do duplex copying.