Canon Pixma MG5220 All-in-One Printer Review

Using the Pixma 5220

The scanner at 2400 x 4800 dpi produces high quality scans. As shown in Figure 12, the scanner opens wide and the cover telescopes slightly to accommodate books and thicker items. The software has a feature called Gutter Shadow correction which will compensate for the binding on a book, which is a nice feature. We longed for a sheet feeder, but found none on this unit.

Figure 12: The scanner

As noted earlier, the software can sense multiple objects on the scanner bed and separate them into individual files. The Auto modes make scanning on this all-in-one easier than most. The Auto Scan Mode recognizes the type of document that you are scanning and automatically uses the best settings. The Auto Document Fix automatically analyzes and fixes the document making sure that text is easy-to-read and that pictures have even color tone and contrast. However, the Pixma 5220 also offers all the necessary scanning settings, if you want to set them yourself.

There is a brief warm-up period when turning the printer on or waking from power saving mode, but during this power up and everyday printing, this printer is quieter than several others that we have reviewed.

One nice feature of this printer is that it has automatic duplexing. As shown in Figure 13, the duplexer can be seen as a large bump on the back of the printer. This automatic two-sided printing feature saves on paper costs and is very useful. The duplexer can be easily opened if there is a paper jam, but during our testing we had no paper jams of any type.

Figure 13: The automatic duplexer

Black text prints at 600 x 600 dpi. Text printouts from the Pixma 5220 are excellent. When printed in highest mode the output is very close to laser quality. Color printing goes up to 9600 x 2400 dpi. There is also an ink-saving draft mode for times you want to be a little frugal.

Canon rates the printer at 11 ppm for black and 9.3 ppm for color and says that a 4 x 6 inch (10 x 15 cm) borderless photo will print in approximately 20 seconds. What actually slows down the printer is that it pauses briefly between each document to allow the ink to dry. Because of this, we never encountered any smudging, but print speeds were a little slower than stated. While this printer is no speed demon, it is adequate for average use.

As with other Pixma printers, color photos were also of very good quality, especially when printed on Canon paper. Colors were extremely vibrant. And the longevity of the photos is excellent. Canon states that the inks are rated for 300 years if the photo is stored in an archival-quality album with a plastic cover and kept in the dark. For those of us who like to display their photos, the inks are rated for 30 years when the photo is displayed under glass indoors and not in direct sunlight.

The Canon Pixma MG5220 has five standard capacity ink cartridges: cyan, magenta, yellow, and two black. One black is pigment-based, while the other is dye-based like the color cartridges. Canon states the pigment-based black makes for better text quality.

Ink costs are, as usual difficult to assess. They depend on how much of the paper is actually covered with ink. Also, you have to be aware that all of the colors can go into the printing of a black page and that both black cartridge can be drawn from on a single page. But to give you an idea of the costs: Each of the separate color inks is rated for between 500 and 520 pages and costs USD 14 (2.8 cents of dollar per page). The black ink cartridge is rated for 341 pages and costs USD 16 (4.7 cents of dollar per page). The black pigment cartridge is rated for about 660 photo images and costs USD 14 (2.1 cents of dollar per page).

This makes ink costs reasonable, but not truly economical. As we write this, no high capacity ink cartridges are available, which would bring ink costs down a bit.

Additional features include the fact that the Canon Pixma MG5220 is Energy Star compliant and that there are iPhone and Android apps that allow you to print your photos wirelessly from an iPhone or Android device. It should be noted that the iPhone app works only with saved images. You cannot use it to print text documents unless you capture the screen and convert the text to an image.