canon Pixma G6050
refillable tanks give this inkjet an advantage
the refillable ink tank makes inkjet printing far more economical
£319.99 FROM canon, canon.co.uk
FeatuRes refillable ink tanks, two-sided prints, AirPrint
the growing trend for printers with refillable ink tanks is hardly surprising when you consider the savings that can be made over a cartridge-based system, as well as the reduced environmental impact.
At £320, the Canon Pixma G6050 looks expensive, until you take into account the low running costs due to internal ink tanks that can easily be refilled using low-cost, recyclable bottles of ink, six of which (three black and three colour) come in the box.
The printer integrates four large ink tanks into a surprisingly compact design. There’s room inside for a 250-sheet main paper tray, and you can load another 100 sheets in the rear tray. An A4-sized scanner bed sits on top.
The print resolution is 4800x1200dpi, while scanning is at 1200x2400, which are both reasonably high resolutions.
There’s no ADF (automatic document feeder) or fax and no NFC connectivity or SD Card slot. Sadly, there’s not even a front USB port. It’s a pity there are only four inks available too – other Canon printers often use five or even six colours to compose a photo. The black ink is a pigment (rather than a dye), which is great for text documents, but there’s no additional black dye, which is better for printing photographs.
To set up the printer, you fit two fine inkjet cartridges and then pour in the ink. The nozzles are shaped so that you can fill each tank without spilling a drop.
There are USB and Ethernet ports at the rear and you can also connect wirelessly via your network or using Wi-Fi Direct. There are various options, including AirPrint and Canon’s companion app, for printing from the
cloud or your device. Unfortunately, the two-line mono display is particularly limiting for navigating. It’s very much a case of squinting and cycling through the many options using the two cursor buttons.
Print performance
The G6050 turns out mono pages at around 13 pages per minute. It prints quietly and the black pigment ink helps to make text documents look crisp and bold. Colour documents emerge at around six pages per minute and also show good consistency and detail. The colours look a little muted compared to other inkjets, but they are perfectly acceptable.
Photographs, however, do look a little subdued. Blues and reds could be said to be more ‘natural’ than many overly vibrant inkjet printers. However, greens look a little washed out and blacks appear rather grey. Two-sided printing is slow, but successful (and can be used with A5 and B5 pages) and scans are good and sharp.
Aside from the lack of NFC connectivity and front ports for flash memory, the Canon Pixma G6050 is well featured. The teeny display is frustrating if you’re used to a touchscreen interface and the printer is by no means fast, but it prints accurately and reliably. Text documents look great and photo prints are fine, just not as vivid as some inkjets can manage. The main advantage here is the refillable ink tank system, which makes inkjet printing far more economical. JiM Hill