Canon Pixma TS6350

No handsome prints ints

Printer fails to make its mark

Although it seems to be a prematurepremmature replacement for the TS6250250 (££100 from Currys www.snipca.com/m/33660),3366 60), this is really a quite different printprinter/ter/ scanner/copier, and not a betterbettter one. Instead of rounded styling,stylinng, it’s all sharp angles and asymmetry,mmettry, distinctive but perhaps off-putting. It also comess in white, which has a certainain

Star Wars charm. Wheree the TS6250 had a tiltablee control panel with a big colourur touchscreen, this has a jumbleumble of buttons and a tiny monochrome display. It’s all right for the basics, but without resorting to your PC or a mobile app,pp, there’s no way to scan to an online service, ffor example.

Printing is good but this upgrade is no great improvement

Mechanically, the design is practical enough, with a 100-sheet paper tray underneath and a second input at the top rear, which knows what size of paper you’ve loaded when you adjust the guide. We’re still not convinced motorised output trays save more trouble than they cause, but you get one anyway, and duplex (double-sided) printing is automatic. There’s no sheet feeder for the scanner, so you have to place each side you want to capture on the glass.

Our black-text test dawdled out at 11.4 pages per minute (ppm), rising only to 12.7ppm in draft mode. Colour speeds were pretty average, at 3.7ppm for a complex document or under two minutes for a glossy 6x4in photo. At about 20 seconds per page, whether colour or

SPECIFICATIONS

4800x1200dpi maximum print resolution • 1200x2400dpi maximum scan resolution • 100sheet paper tray • 100-sheet rear feed • USB 2 • 802.11n Wi-fi • 141x376x359mm (HXWXD) • 6.3kg • Two-year warranty www.snipca.com/33662 black-and-white, photocopying wasn’t particularly quick either. An A4 scan at 300dpi took a reasonable 16 seconds when connected to our PC by USB, but thish rose to 30 secondsd over Wi-fi. Scanning a photo print at an enlargeable 1200dpi took over a minute.

Quality was more impressive, with the five-ink system delivering crisp, dark text, punchy graphics and detailed photos, though one shot came out with a slight blotchiness in a subtly graduated blue sky. Scans were sharp, accurate and with good dynamic range.

Costs for the largest XXL refills work out at a reasonable 5.8p for a standard colour page (photos will use a lot more), but black alone is a little pricey at 3.1p. We’d prefer to see a physical keying system to ensure you don’t mix up the colours.

Overall, this is a decent printer, but has little sign of any real advantages to justify either the midrange price or the brutal design.