Canon gold printer
A multifunction inkjet that’s not quite in first place.
Printers are the microwave of the tech world. You need one, sometimes, and then it’s just there — a dispassionate block that neither enhances nor detracts from the room it lives in. Canon’s latest home/small business unit attempts to add a touch of allure, by draping itself in gold paint.
Well, it’s more of a bronze effect, and nowhere near as shiny as the press images would have you believe. Under the matte exterior lies a wireless printer, scanner, copier that will print from your Mac (Mac OS X 10.7.5 and above) and Windows (XP SP3 to Windows 10) laptop or desktop, as well as iOS and Android. Chromebooks aren’t mentioned, but the MG7766 (as with all 7700 series printers) support Google’s Cloud Print apps, as well.
Initial setup is straightforward — we got our test unit running through our router to an office MacBook Pro, and Sony Xperia Z5 (running Android 6.0) in minutes.
Printing on a local network is simple, and the MG7766 communicates via your router, NFC, direct Wi-Fi, USB and even over a LAN. Android and iOS users will have to download a dedicated app, which is fine for printing locally, though files need to be saved on local storage (say, photos). The app will prompt you to turn on your WiFi if it’s off.
However, printing from cloud services takes bit more effort. Flickr, Facebook, Instagram, Google Drive and Dropbox have their logos splashed across the printer’s packaging. We spent a few minutes on our Android phone going back and forth with the printer’s ‘cloud’ registration process, and found that only one Google account can be matched to the printer at any one time. Not so bad for home users, though small business owners may have to look elsewhere if they want staff to send documents back to base without having to convert to PDF first. Connectivity aside, the MG7766 has two trays for holding paper, and the capability of printing directly to DVD/BD/CDs. The top tray holds 20 sheets of 4x6- or 5x7-inch photo paper, and the bottom 125 sheets of A4, as well as myriad sizes of lesser ratios. With a printing resolution of 9,600 x 2,400, you’d expect firm, good-quality images, and doubly so, since the printer requires six individual ink tanks (CMYK, grey and a larger black tank). However, a high-resolution (1,176 x 1,184) photo printed onto the supplied glossy 4x6-inch paper came out dark, with very obvious banding and lack of detail. Colours were vibrant, but the overall picture was disappointing. Canon quotes approximately 3,000 pages in black and white for A4, and 120–180 in colour before having to replace the ink. Although we used the app to print from our Android, SD card and Pro Duo slots can also be employed for images.
Stick to text documents on bog-standard A4 and the results are acceptable. Canon quote 15ipm for black and white, and 10ipm for colour A4 — hardly lightning-fast, but the printer is pretty quiet as it churns out the sheets, and a specific ‘quiet mode’ turns it down further at a slight cost to print time.
You’re buying this for the aesthetic, though. While the gold shell, er, isn’t so much, it’s still a fine-looking unit. The 9cm/3.54-inch touchscreen breaks up the expanse of bronze-y gold, and the panels on the front are capacitive, too, and only light up when required.
“With a printing resolution of 9,600 x 2,400, you’d expect firm, goodquality images, and doubly so, since the printer requires six individual ink tanks.”