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Canon Pixma MG6250 review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £138
inc VAT

Astonishing photo, scan and print quality combined with an excellent interface and quick print speeds make this our favourite photo MFP

Canon’s MG6250 is one of the best-equipped photo inkjet MFPs around, with five dye-based inks for photo printing, a dedicated pigmented black cartridge for document printing and versatile connectivity via 10/100 Ethernet, Wi-Fi and USB, as well as the usual PictBridge and memory card slots. The printer has a 7.5cm screen and a touch panel that shows different buttons depending on which of its stand-alone features you’ve selected.

Two paper trays can each handle up to 150 sheets of plain A4. Both can take photo paper, too, and the type of paper in each tray is auto-detected. Photo printing is the MG6250’s most obvious strength. It has a dedicated grey cartridge alongside its dye-based black, cyan, magenta and yellow ink tanks.

This means that it produces black and white photos with true monochrome shading, rather than having to create composite grey tones from the other colours. Colour photos also look stunning, with fine detail, vivid colour and beautiful shading.

They print quickly, too – our full-quality 6x4in borderless photos took about 50 seconds each to appear. Document printing is also fairly quick, at 8.8ppm for mono text, 3.5ppm for illustrated colour and 2.5ppm for a duplex version of the same colour document.

For duplex printing in particular, you may want to use heavier 100gsm paper rather than cheaper 80gsm or lighter copier paper, as ink can leave heavily printed areas a little wrinkled. Once again, prints are sharp and smoothly shaded all round. Copy quality is also excellent, with good black and white reproduction of dark areas and only a slight touch of graininess in colour copies.

Canon Pixma MG6250 slim

The MG6250’s scanner has a high optical resolution of 4,800×4,800dpi and a wide colour gamut. It managed an accurate reproduction of our test image’s subtle shading, even in high-contrast areas. We were also impressed by the clarity of finely detailed areas, such as the iris of an eye. We’re fans of Canon’s versatile scanner interface, which retains previews and settings, as well as allowing you massive control over colour and image correction in its advanced settings.

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Basic Specifications

Rating*****
Maximum native print resolution9,600×2,400dpi
Max optical resolution4,800×4,800dpi
Output bit depth24-bit

Quoted Speeds

Quoted speed, mono A413ppm
Quoted speed, colour A49ppm

Tested Print Speeds

Time for two 10x8in photos 1.04m 23s
Time for six 6x4in photos 1.04m 53s

Physical and Environmental

Standard printer interfacesUSB, 10/100 Ethernet, 801.11n wireless
Optional printer interfaces£55
Size173x470x367mm
Weight9.2kg
Noise (in normal use)46.5dB(A)

Paper Handling

Maximum paper sizeA4/legal
Maximum paper weight300gsm
Standard paper inputs2
Standard paper input capacity300
Maximum paper inputs2
Maximum paper input capacity300
Duplex (code, cost if option)Yes

General

Printer technologythermal inkjet
Supported operating systemsWindows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X 10.4.11 – 10.6
Other inkjet features7.5cm TFT screen, automatic print head alignment, replaceable print head
Other inkjet optionsnone

Buying Information

Price£138
Consumable parts and prices£9.49
Price per colour A4 page5.3p
Quoted life of supplied black cartridge311 pages (ISO/IEC 24711)
Quoted life of supplied colour cartridge(s)478 cyan, 447 magenta, 466 yellow pages (ISO/IEC 24711)
Quoted life of supplied photo cartridge(s)635 black, 337 cyan, 334 magenta, 301 yellow, 165 grey photos
Warrantyone year RTB
Supplierhttp://www.dabs.com
Detailswww.canon.co.uk

Print Quality

Number of ink colours5
Number of ink cartridges6
Maximum number of ink colours5
Maximum number of cartridges6
Quoted photo durability30 years
Quoted photo durability sourceCanon

Tested Scan Speeds

Full scan area preview5s
A4 document at 150dpi16s
A4 document at 300dpi44s
6x4in photo at 600dpi42s
6x4in photo at 1200dpi2m 28s

Tested Copy Speeds

Time for single A4 mono copy 1.012s
Time for single A4 colour copy 1.020s
Time for 10 A4 copies using feeder 2.05s

Photo Features

PictBridge supportYes
Borderless printingup to A4
Direct (PC-less) printingYes
Supported memory cardsSD, SDHC, Memory Stick Pro/Duo, MMC
CD printingYes

Copy Features

Maximum number of copies99

Fax Features

Max mono fax resolutionN/A
Fax memory (maximum mono pages)N/A