Canon has an impressive track record with its ink jet all-in-ones (AIOs), with more Editors' Choice awards in the various ink jet AIO categories over the past several years than any other company. At this point, I approach every new Canon AIO with high expectations—especially a model like the Canon Pixma MX850 Office All-In-One Printer ($279.99 direct), which Canon calls the flagship model for its business AIOs. And once again, Canon doesn't disappoint.

Despite the change in naming convention, with the MP prefix morphing into MX, the Canon Pixma MX850 is the direct descendant of, and replacement for, the Editors' Choice Pixma MP830 Office All-In-One. More to the point, it's a worthy successor. It offers all the features that made the MP830 so attractive, including fast speed and high-quality output, while adding one big extra: network connectivity. Plus, it sells for less.

As a personal AIO, the MX850 can fit nicely into any size office. It prints, scans, and works as a standalone copier and fax machine. It also faxes directly from your PC, and scans to e-mail (using your PC's e-mail program). Its network connector makes it a good choice as a shared printer at home or in a small office, especially since both its scan and PC fax features work over a network or via a USB connection. In addition, it handles photos well enough to make it a particularly good choice for the dual role of home and home-office AIO.

Like most Canon printers, the MX850 duplexes, so you can print on both sides of a page. It also includes two 150-sheet input trays, giving you the choice of loading 300 sheets of paper or loading two kinds of paper at once—photo and plain paper, for example—and switching between them easily.

The scanner includes a 35-page automatic document feeder (ADF) to handle multipage documents easily. Even better, the ADF also duplexes, so you can scan double-sided originals and copy single- or double-sided originals to single- or double-sided copies. The ADF won't duplex for faxing, but you can scan a double-sided original to a file, and then fax the file from your PC.

For home users, the MX850 offers some photo-centric features, including the ability to print directly from PictBridge cameras and memory cards, and preview images on its 2.5-inch LCD. It lacks the ability to print from USB keys, but you can buy a Bluetooth option ($49.99 direct) to let you print from camera phones and other Bluetooth devices.

As you might expect from the mechanical requirements of its paper-handling features, the MX850 is relatively large, at 10.2 by 20 by 19 inches (HWD) and a hefty 30.7 pounds. Physical setup is straightforward. Plug in the power cord, snap in the printhead and five ink cartridges (including a dye-based black for photos and a pigment-based black for text), and load paper. I tested using Windows XP, but the disc also includes drivers and a full set of programs for Windows 2000, Vista, and Mac OS X 10.3.9 up to 10.5.x, with similar approaches to installation.

Network setup is unusual. Most network installation programs can find the printer on the network and automatically set up everything. With the MX850, you have to connect the printer to a PC by both USB cable and Ethernet cable. Only after the installation finishes can you disconnect the USB cable and use the AIO over the network.

The one potential issue with this approach is that if you don't plan to keep the AIO next to your computer, you'll have to move it after the installation and reconnect it to the network. Given the MX850's large size and weight, I can imagine situations—particularly in home offices short on space—where finding a temporary spot to move it to during installation could be a problem.

Once it's set up, the MX850 is nothing short of impressive. I timed it at a total 12 minutes 34 seconds on our business applications suite, an effective tie for first place with the fastest AIOs I've tested. (The Editors' Choice Canon Pixma MP610 Photo All-In-One took 12:18.) More important, it's much faster than directly competitive AIOs. The slightly less expensive Lexmark X9575 Professional, for example, took almost twice as long, at 22:07. Photo speed was also among the fastest yet for an ink jet AIO, averaging 54 seconds for each 4-by-6 print and 1:45 for each 8-by-10.

The overall output quality is better than that of most ink jets as well. All of the fonts on our tests that you might use in business documents qualified as easily readable at 6 points and well formed at 8 points. Unless you have an unusual need for small fonts, or need the kind of crisp text you would want in a résumé, the MX850 should be able to handle anything you need to print.

Graphics were easily good enough for any internal business use, including handouts that need to look fully professional. You'll want to avoid thin lines, however, which tend to disappear—a common issue with printers. You may also want to invest in a relatively heavyweight paper that isn't susceptible to curling; I saw a tendency for full-page graphics to curl the multipurpose paper we use for testing.

Photos are one of the MX850's strong points. All of our test photos qualified as true photo quality, easily a match for what you'd expect from a local drugstore. They're also highly water resistant, although not terribly scratch resistant. If you hand them out for people to look at, you may want to share one photo at a time, rather that a stack of photos to shuffle through.

Fortunately, the relatively weak scratch resistance is but a minor shortcoming. The MX850 offers an impressive balance of features, speed, output quality, and price. It's easy to recommend for home, office, or both, and it's an easy pick for Editors' Choice.

Check out the Canon Pixma MX850's test scores.

More Multi-Function Printer Reviews: