Despite being one of Canon's photo inkjet MFPs, which is usually synonymous with being a home-oriented printer, the Canon Pixma MG4220 Wireless Inkjet Photo All-in-OneSEE IT is just as suitable for a home office, in a distinctly low-end kind of way. It doesn't offer any office-centric features like a fax capability or an automatic document feeder (ADF), but given its better-than-average text quality, it's a good choice for light-duty home office printing. In addition, its Wi-Fi capability makes it easy to share, which in turn makes it a potentially good fit in the dual role of home and home office printer.

The MG4220 has a lot in common with the lower-priced Editors' Choice Kodak ESP 3.2 All-in-One Printer that I reviewed earlier this year. Both can print, scan, and copy, and both can print JPG files directly from memory cards. In both cases, you can also preview the images on memory cards before printing, with a 2.5-inch color display in the case of the MG4220.

One limitation for the printer is its paper handling. The low paper capacity, with a 100-sheet input tray, is enough for only light-duty use, even in a home office. On the other hand, the MG4220 also includes a duplexer (for two-sided printing), a welcome extra that doesn't show up on many inexpensive printers aimed at home users.

Setup and Speed

For my tests, I connected the MG4220 by USB cable to a system running Windows Vista. Setup was standard fare, with one annoying exception. Most inkjets include a printhead alignment step, either as an automatic step in the installation program, or with instructions in a Quick Start guide. The MG4220 simply shows a message suggesting that you align the printheads and saying that the instructions are in the User Guide.

Less sophisticated users are likely to be frustrated by this. More knowledgeable users are likely to skip the User Guide and go directly to the driver menus, where they'll find a manual alignment procedure. However, there's also a much simpler, semi-automated procedure hidden in the printer's control panel menus. Installation would be a lot easier for both groups if the Quick Start guide or onscreen message gave the steps for the second choice.

Once installed, the printer works as promised. Speed, however, is not a strong point. I timed the printer (using QualityLogic's hardware and software for timing) at an effective speed of just 2.1 pages per minute (ppm) on our business applications suite. That translates to being far slower than the similarly priced home-oriented HP Photosmart 5520 e-All-in-OneSEE IT, at 3.7 ppm, and slower even than the less expensive Kodak ESP 3.2, at 3.2 ppm.

Photo speed was also unimpressive, with an average 2 minutes 7 seconds for a 4-by-6 print on our tests. That makes the MG4220 far slower than either the HP printer, at 1:03, or the Kodak printer, at 50 seconds.

Quality, and Other Issues

The good news for the MG4220 is that its output quality largely makes up for any deficiencies in speed, thanks largely to above-par text. The text doesn't offer the kind of crisp clean edges I'd want for, say, a resume, but it can match many lasers for overall readability at a variety of fonts and font sizes. It's certainly good enough for any business use. The one potential issue is that it smudges if it gets wet.

Graphics quality is at the high end of the tight range where most inkjets fall. It's easily good enough for any internal business use, including PowerPoint handouts. Depending on how much of a perfectionist you are, you may consider it suitable for output that’s going to an important client or customer. Somewhat oddly for a printer that's supposed to be aimed at home use, the photo quality is less impressive than either graphics or text quality. It falls at the low end of par for an inkjet, or roughly the low end of what you would expect if you went to a local drugstore for prints.

One last feature worth mention is support for mobile printing, including AirPrint and Google Cloud Print. To use any of the mobile printing features, however, you have to connect the printer to a network, which means using Wi-Fi, since the printer doesn't offer Ethernet.

The saving grace for this printer, and what makes it worth considering, is the overall above-par output, with particular emphasis on text quality. The HP 5520 offers much better speed at the same price, and the Kodak ESP 3.2 offers somewhat better speed and most of the same features at a lower price. But for a home office where text quality is a key consideration, the Canon Pixma MG4220 Wireless Inkjet Photo All-in-One can easily be the best fit.

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