Canon Pixma MG3550 Ink Cartridges

Canon Pixma MG3550 Printer Description

The Canon Pixma MG3550 is an all-in-one printer offering around the home printing via PCs or smartphones due to its Wi-Fi connectivity.

Printing from (or scanning to) smartphones or tablets is made possible thanks to Canon’s PIXMA Printing Solutions app. This feature can give users remote access to printer information including details on accessing the printer’s online manual as well as checking the current ink levels. For added support, Apple AirPrint is also provided.

The usefulness of printing from the internet can be helped with Google Cloud Print connecting the printer to the web so you can access and print emails, photographs, Google Docs, etc. Not being in the same room as the printer when you connect will not cause any security issues allowing you to print with confidence.

A print resolution of up to 4800dpi will help to deliver high quality printing and with print speeds of 9.9ipm for mono and 5.7ipm in colour, the MG3550 can offer fast printing. A borderless 10 x 15cm photograph will be printed in approximately 44 seconds.

For added cost savings for customers, there are XL ink cartridges available for this machine. This can make your printing go further and potentially save users up to 50 per cent per page. Paper costs can also be halved due the auto duplexing (double-sided printing) feature that’s included with the device.

Organising and printing your photographs has never been easier thanks to My Image Garden software from Canon. Photographs can even be scanned with this feature and face recognition allows users to search through the pictures on their PC to find the ones they would like to print.

Canon Pixma MG3550 Expert Review

The Canon Pixma MG3550 All-in-One Printer is a compact device that prints, scans and copies documents up to legal size.

In addition to a standard USB connection, the MG3550 also has wireless Wi-Fi support and can be connected to Apple devices via AirPrint. It also supports Google Cloud Print for direct printing from Google applications.

It can produce a 10 by 15cm borderless photo in under a minute, and it can print photos in resolutions up to 4800 by 1200dpi. The printer also comes with two-sided duplexing capability.

The scanner can scan documents up to A4 size and deliver them wirelessly to any attached device.

The printer allows users to scan and copy without using the computer via controls on the left side, although it does not feature an LCD display, so options are limited. The MG3550 uses two standard ink cartridges, one for black and one for tri-colour ink. Both are also available in high capacity versions for those who do a lot of printing.

Pros

• Paper tray folds up for compact storage when not in use
• Easy to set up wireless printing and scanning
• Great for students and home use
• Good print quality for the price, especially since it’s not promoted as a photo printer
• Accompanying software is easy to use and provides many different editing options

Cons

• Front paper tray hatch is somewhat flimsy
• Extra paper trays and ink are expensive
• Some difficulty when trying to set up iPads and iPhones to print
• With no LCD display, diagnosing and fixing errors can be difficult
• Some difficulty with connecting to and printing from the Google Cloud

Star Rating: 4