Canon MF4690 Laser Printer All-In-One Review
The MF4690 is a compact yet speedy multifunctional all-in-one. I was looking for a printer that had a small footprint, but came with many features that I needed for my business. I tried many HP printers, but the scanning and network integration left me wondering which direction HP was headed. The loss of quality on the latest LaserJet printers pushed me into looking at Toshiba, Bother, and finally Canon printers.
I’ve found that Canon printers are generally little less than HP printers, but the toner is a bit more expensive. The printer engine is similar between the two manufactures (in fact, HP leases the technology from Canon). I believe that Canon’s strategy is selling a cheaper printer and making up for the difference in profits through toner. This ensures that the printer needs to last longer.
After getting this printer out of the box, it was noticeably small in comparison to my previous HP LaserJet 3390. The cartridge is a bit smaller, but it’s should suffice for my needs of 2,000 pages @ 5% coverage. The speed of printing is at 21ppm which is also just fine for my occasional printing. I require most of my printed material to be double-sided so a duplexer was a must.
The MF4690 has some nice features including scan-to-email, scan-to-flash drive, and scan-to-network drive. I tried to configure the device to use my websites email but I was blocked by my ISP from using outbound email ports. I tried Gmail’s secure ports but was unable to get it to work. So for now I just scan in the documents to a flash drive and email them with my computer which has worked out just fine.
Overall, I’m impressed with the quality and size of this all-in-one. It’s a little more expensive then other models Canon offers, but the scanning functionality make it worth it to me. I expect this printer to be a part of my business for quite some time.
Pros: Small footprint. Scan-to-flash drive is fast and efficient. Fast print speeds. Networks well with Macs and PCs.
Cons: Couldn’t get scan-to-email feature to work with Gmail, provides no errors related to my issue. Randomly “calibrates” every 24 hours or so which is something I’ve never seen a black and white laser do. When the toner is low, an “alarm” is consistently on make it difficult to scan in anything or use the printer, it also doesn’t go into energy saver when in “alarm” mode.