Verdict
Canon ’s sappy - look MAXIFY GX6550 might be expensive to buy , but its radical - low run costs make it good economic value to own over the farseeing term . It ’s a great choice if you require a small office multifunction for a cramped blank space , but otherwise , its oddball scanner musical arrangement might not be ideal .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
The MAXIFY GX6550 is one of Canon ’s produce range of MegaTank refillable ink multifunction peripheral machine ( MFPs ) . strike off out by turgid , refillable ink storage tank in their front panels , these cost more upfront than an equivalent cartridge - base printer , but they should make up for it in the foresighted term through lower running play cost .
This inkjet is aimed at small-scale and home offices , peculiarly those that are poor on space – its scanner has an unusual , front - loading papers bird feeder , which could help you slot it into a smaller shelf space .
This printer arrives with a full set of ink bottleful that are rated for 6,000 black or 14,000 full - colour pages . You wo n’t quite get that from the first readiness , as some ink is used to prime the printer , but even when they run out you should only pay only around 0.6p per full - colour Sir Frederick Handley Page – at least 10 times less than you ’d pay to run a formal equivalent .
The GX6550 stomach wireless networks and has a wired Ethernet interface , but no facsimile modem . Other than that , it ’s well weaponed for place life , offering duplex house ( double - sided ) printing process , rake and copying , a 250 - sheet theme cassette , and a further 100 - sail rear tray .
Design and features
This certainly is n’t the well - count MFP . While its colorful ink tanks tote up a dash of elan , it ’s featherbed by somewhat awkward angles and dated - sounding smoke plastic paper tray . Its tiltable control panel comprises a few buttons and a modest colour touchscreen , but it ’s not as well integrated as some others . On the front gore you ’ll find a USB porthole for walk - up printing and scanning , but , insert away just above the theme yield , it ’s not specially obvious .
The MAXIFY GX6550 might not be gorgeous , but it is compact . Uniquely in this class , its scanner ’s automatonlike document birdfeeder ( ADF ) is orient so that it ’s front - lining , so it can be used even when the MFP itself is pushed back into a tight cubby hole .
This is an interesting feature , and could certainly be useful where space is at a real premium in a micro occupation , but it does result in some via media . The GX6550 is n’t thick enough for a full - length A4 platen , so to run down paper sizes above 5×7 ” ( 13x18 cm ) you have to utilise the ADF . This imposes a maximal 600 dot per in ( dpi ) resolution , even though the image scanner itself supports 1,200 dpi . It also think of that you ca n’t preview an A4 document before scan it .
It ’s important to click the ADF input properly into position when using the scanner , otherwise scan A4 sheets tend to foul on its lower edge and get crumpled up . It took me a while to realise that this involves hard pushing it in . canyon has added a word of advice stumper next to the ADF input , which is almost an admission that the innovation could be serious .
Otherwise , this MFP has good paper handling . With two tray summate 350 sheet , you should n’t demand to reload it often . You could keep a stock of headed or photo report in the rear tray – although you wo n’t be able to if you have put the GX6550 in a cubby hollow . The ADF and printer are both duplex , so you may make two-fold - sided print , scans or copies without repeal a finger’s breadth .
Setting up Canon ’s MegaTank printers is a little more involved than other inkjets . First you fit the print heads , which appear a tidy sum like empty cartridge , and then you start occupy the tank from the supplied bottleful . Refillable ink tank printers are cheaper to run than magazine - based ones , and the MAXIFY GX6550 is no exception . There are thousands of page ’ worth of ink in the box , and when it runs out you could get one thousand of pageboy more for about £ 80 . The resulting price – 0.2p per black page and about 0.4p in colour – keeps this printer cheap to escape , even if it ’s used heavily .
The flip side is that it costs quite a lot in the first place – it ’s at least £ 300 more than I ’d expect to pay for an tantamount , cartridge - using office MFP . ingredient in the ink that comes with the GX6550 , however , and it ’s good value out of the box – you just take to be certain you ’ll publish that much over the MFP ’s life-time .
With this in mind it ’s inauspicious that the GX6550 has a one - year warranty and , at the time of committal to writing , it was n’t eligible for Canon ’s long - running free three - year upgrade furtherance . I ’ve no reason to doubt this pressman ’s length of service , but if it did fail after 13 months , you may not yet have recouped the special disbursement .
Print speed and quality
This is a sensibly easy MFP to use , but it ’s not perfect . Aside from its fiddly ADF input , I find that the touchscreen could be a act slow and ungainly . This was particularly on-key when diving into the written matter menu to plant up a duplex , multi - page written matter . Rather than a exclusive 2>2 - sided place setting , you must coif duplex house scanning and publish separately .
I found the USB document and photo printing process menu slowly , and the screen is big enough to show a amazingly crisp preview , but there ’s no thumbnail mode . If you wanted to select , say , seven images from a USB marijuana cigarette contain 40 , you ’d need to scroll through them all , waiting a few second gear for each to load .
The MAXIFY GX6550 win back some points with a couple of first-class usableness features . First , it can multitask , letting one user scan while it ’s still servicing a photographic print occupation , and frailty versa . It also display the identification number of pages remaining to be print in a multi - page copy . That sounds fiddling , but it can aid keep people milling around cluelessly while a retentive job ’s finish up .
This is a reasonably quick inkjet , have a first page of textual matter in 27 seconds , and going on to hand a level best of 5.8 Page per minute in our 20 - page test . Like other printing machine , this one tends to be firm to bug out short documents . As such , it was much quicker when publish multiple copy of a single text page , hitting 20.5ppm . It reached an impressive 7.7ppm when publish coloration nontextual matter .
This MFP is also a fairly quick copier , particularly for single Page , which need only 16 seconds in black or colour . A 10 - pageboy copy from the ADF lease 68 indorsement in smutty only , or nearly two and a half minutes in colour . I ’m always impressed by MFPs that can make out a doubled - sided copy of a dual - sided original . The GX6550 took a lengthy five hour to finish this job in color , but it ’s a outstanding potentiality to have .
I could n’t complete our common A4 prevue tryout , but previewing a 10x15 cm photo postulate just seven second . A4 text file scans completed in 18 arcsecond at either 150 or 300 dots per inch ( dpi ) . At the maximum 1,200dpi , scan the photo took a minute and a half .
Canon ’s TWAIN scan port is one of the expert , and I did n’t have any major grumbles about the consequence of my pic scans . This image scanner did a peachy job of preserving the item from heavily shaded areas and in very lightheaded areas . However , it was less telling when capturing papers , which seemed subtly underexposed at 150 dpi .
While this MFP delivered excellent , bold black school text , I was underwhelmed by its graphical photographic print . These were fair sheer , but seemed undersaturated and drab when compared to the good inkjets and optical maser – this critique applied to color photocopy , too . Although the GX6550 will impress decorous exposure on particular written document , it wo n’t print borderless press stud , and its pigment - based ink ca n’t produce a gamy - gloss finish .
Like other inkjets , the GX6550 use a modest amount of world power . I measured a 29 - watt peak , throw away to four Watts in standby , and less than a James Watt when slumber .
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Should you buy it?
It ’s a reasonable performer , and its imposingly humble running monetary value mean you wo n’t be scared to impress off long colour documents or adjudicate the occasional photo .
The GX6550 ’s unusual design is a little compromise , especially if you want to scan A4 documents from a platen . It ’s a shame , too , that its excellent running monetary value are n’t backed up by a strong warranty .
Final Thoughts
This is n’t a speculative MFP , but its compact design does mean it ’s a little compromise . I would n’t urge it if you often ask to run down A4 paper or big , duncish master . And while it ’s outstanding in a blotto spot , remember that place it in a cubby hole in effect prevents you from using its second newspaper tray , which could be a pain in the neck .
If you do n’t need the compact packaging – and you’re able to live without a duplex house scanner – the more conventionally arrangedMAXIFY GX5050is a standardized but better pick . Otherwise , you could find swell alternative in ourbest printer 2023guide .
Trusted Score
How we test
Every printing machine we review goes through a serial of uniform halt design to gauge key things including print tone , speed and cost .
We ’ll also liken the features with other printer at the same price gunpoint to see if you ’re start good value for your money .
FAQs
Yes , like any pressman the MAXIFY range can print photos . That said , as an power - focused gimmick it ’s not the best . While it supports lusterlessness and glossy photo paper , it wo n’t publish without borders . It also does n’t drive home the high - semblance finish you ’d get from a specialised photo inkjet . MAXIFY printer are fine for episodic photograph print , but not if you want the best quality .
Canon ’s scanners are ordinarily very good , and its scan interface is one of the best . The MAXIFY GX6550 has a maximum visual resolution of 1,200 dots per inch ( dpi ) . That ’s not the high-pitched you ’ll find , but it ’s more than good enough for spot archiving . It ’ll even make a comely fist of scanning photos .
Test Data
Full Specs
