Verdict
Canon ’s MAXIFY GX3050 is a hard all - libertine for a small office , with commendably broken running costs . It ’s fleet , and adept at print , scan and transcript jobs , but it ’s rather expensive to corrupt - even by the standards of other refillable tank printer . As such , it ’s hard to powerfully recommend it .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
Canon ’s MAXIFY range of printer is point at home office and minuscule office staff users . The MAXIFY GX3050 is a mid - reach option .
The Canon MAXIFY GX3050 is a multifunction peripheral , enhanced with refillable ink tanks for tawdry impression . It ’s got duplex ( double - sided ) printing and Wi - Fi support , but it ca n’t send or receive faxes . I ’ve put it through its tread to see how it performs instantaneously as well as how it stack up against the rivalry .
Design and features
The Canon MAXIFY GX3050 sits at the junction between two Canon sub - brands : MAXIFY office devices , and MegaTank refillable inkjets . It ’s a happy meeting topographic point , with MAXIFY equipment generally well suited to the needs of micro offices , and MegaTank printer offering a lower cost of possession to small businesses and home that impress in reasonable volumes .
The GX3050 is n’t an especially high - oddment example , but it ’s set out everything you take if you do n’t want fax and you do n’t lean to copy or scan long document . Duplex printing process is a blessing if you want to save composition – or just produce professional - looking document – while its second paper tray is great if you regularly impress things like speech label , or onto pre - printed headed newspaper publisher .
Canon has simplified the setup on this coevals of MegaTank printers . You no longer need to meet the print heads yourself – simply line up the bottles and let them empty into the right tank . I ’ve literally never spilt a drop of Canon ’s bottled ink , and it ’s physically unimaginable to fit bottles into the haywire tank . The system ’s foolproof , supply you do n’t try on to hug ink out of the bottle .
This printing machine is unapologetic about its office - specific legal brief . The supplied ink is paint base , rather than dye , which makes it arrant for smear - proof , sheer printing process on apparent paper . On the impudent side , it ’s near - hopeless on glistening pic composition , sitting up on the airfoil to give an unsatisfying matte cultivation .
The GX3050 hail with a full set of full - sized black and colour inks . It ’ll habituate a percentage of them during the initial setup , but you ’ll likely be left with the huge legal age of their quoted 6,000 - page black and 14,000 - page colour capability . That ’s a huge amount of printing , likely to carry you through at least a year or two in a domicile or micro agency .
Refillable printers can take several years before their eminent leverage price is offset by lower running price , and that ’s specially the case here . At more than £ 350 , the Canon MAXIFY GX3050 is rather pricey , so it ’s a disgrace its standard warranty is only one class . You ’ll get two if you buy directly from Canon , and just to flurry things further Canon offers an extension to three years with registration , no matter where you buy from .
Print enough , and this MFP really will carry through you money . Spend £ 100 on a likewise stipulate cartridge printer , print 5,000 pages and you ’ll fork out around £ 400 extra on ink , whereas there ’s a fair chance the GX3050 might get that far on its provide ink . Even if it did draw out , its ongoing mark price work out at 0.6p per Sir Frederick Handley Page – less than a one-tenth of what ’s typical with cartridge .
Print speed and quality
If this MFP ’s feature set it up for office utilization , its performance seals the deal . It ’s reasonably fast , delivering a first page of black textbook in 19 seconds , and run on to hit 6.6 varlet per minute ( ppm ) over our 20 - page test . It ’s even faster when print multiple copies of the same sheet , reaching a flower of 16.1ppm . In semblance , it hit 6.4ppm on our round-eyed test , dropping to 4.2ppm on our more specialised and demand 24 - page job .
As I mentioned , this equipment really is n’t designed for pic printing , but it will step up if you assert . There ’s no borderless option , but it could deliver a 6×4 ” ( 10x15 curium ) print about every 50 seconds . I timed a single - page photocopy at 14 seconds in black only , or 19 minute in colour . With no automatic papers feeder , I could n’t fill out our 10 - Sir Frederick Handley Page test .
This is a speedy enough digital scanner , completing a trailer in just nine seconds . In just 13 seconds it could capture an A4 page at 150 dots per inch ( dpi ) – a low resolving . The same chore pick out 17 seconds at a middling 300 dpi . High - firmness scans are much more taxing , so it was no surprise they were irksome – the GX3050 needed 104 seconds to capture a postal card photo at a maximum 1,200 dpi .
It ’s hard to find demerit with the timber of the Canon ’s consequence . It ’s a strong plain paper pressman , delivering bold shameful textual matter even in economic system musical mode – which Canon claims extend the ink ’s reporting by about 50 % . It print slenderly less saturated colours than I prefer , but the art were still strong , with no obvious foible such as banding or conspicuous woodgraining . I was impressed with the photocopy , which were comparatively well - uncover and had unusually precise colours .
Canon usually produces decent scanners , and the GX3050 did n’t disappoint here . That said , both it and theCanon MAXIFY GX4050I tested at the same clock time had an odd glitch where the first preview appeared to be skew when it was n’t . I touch on the return by only repeating the preview .
Scanned documents were exposed nicely , with very accurate colours and no obvious bleed - through from depicted object print on the snotty-nosed side of the original material . pic perhaps could have had higher contrast at the default mise en scene , but they were still far beneficial than typical for post - focus devices .
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Should you buy it?
This is a fleet and adequate to office MFP , heighten by low run cost
It ’s an expensive equipment , and you ’ll need to impress G of pages to get the benefit compared to a magazine - based printing machine
Final Thoughts
Take the damage out of the equating and the Canon MAXIFY GX3050 is a good home base office MFP . Sure , it ca n’t facsimile or automatically scan two - sided originals , but it ’s fast , and it produces stiff solvent across the board . cistron in price and thing are more complex . It ’s expensive to buy .
Canon ’s ink is cheap even after you use up the generous in - box supplies , but you ’ll still require to print several thousand pages for it to prove chintzy to own overall than an equivalent magazine - based machine . More straightforwardly , the similarMAXIFY GX4050offers more features for not much more money , finally making it a more compelling choice .
Trusted Score
How we test
Every pressman we reexamine goes through a series of uniform verification plan to gauge key thing including photographic print timbre , speed and price .
We ’ll also liken the feature article with other printing machine at the same terms point to see if you ’re catch sound time value for your money .
FAQs
They can take a footling more setting up , peculiarly if you ask to fit their mark head . However , once set up they usually take less maintenance . Often a single charge of ink will last for thousands of pages , whereas you ’ll be lucky to get a few hundred from a set of cartridges .
MAXIFY printer are primarily destine for billet habit . PIXMA devices are focussed on at - base usage .
