Canon i-SENSYS MF8540Cdn review

The Canon i-SENSYS MF8540Cdn is a colour laser multifunction peripheral (MFP) with an ideal specification for a small firm, provided you don’t need a fax machine. It can print, scan and copy in colour, and connects to your network via Ethernet; there’s no built-in Wi-Fi. Its 50-page automatic document feeder (ADF) can scan both sides of a sheet of paper, which means it can make professional looking double-sided photocopies, or turn single-sided originals into a duplex copy, saving paper.

Unfortunately, its control panel is one of the least intuitive we’ve encountered. Few of its buttons are labelled with text, and the icons used are baffling; the menu button looks like a speech bubble filled with a large asterisk, for example. Setup is fairly simple, but the system date defaulted to 2029 and, despite the presence of a numeric keypad, we had to use the up and down keys to change it.

The MF8540Cdn defaults to duplex printing, which will save paper. Strangely, though, this was applied to our mono letter test. Each page of the 25-page test was re-fed through the printer, but the reverse was left blank. This produced the correct result overall, but it slowed the job down. We switched duplexing off to obtain our timed results: black text was acceptably swift, at 16.5 pages per minute (ppm), while colour graphics arrived at an impressive 15ppm.

This printer produces superb text with razor-sharp outlines, and excellent graphics with a lovely glossy sheen from the toner. There was no sign of banding or other laser weaknesses. Our black and white test photo was also excellent, but colour photos exhibited exaggerated colours: skin tones were unrealistically warm and greens and blues tended toward the lurid. We had to dig deep into the print driver to find the advanced colour options, but couldn’t find a setting with which we were completely happy. Similarly, while mono copies were perfect, colours in copies weren’t entirely faithful to the originals.

Canon’s print driver is generally well thought out …
… but we had to dig around to find the advanced colour options, and we still weren’t entirely happy with colour photos

It has a good scanner, though, paired with one of the best TWAIN scan interfaces. Scans were sharply focused with good colour and exposure control, although their 600dpi maximum resolution isn’t suitable for advanced creative work.

Canon’s scan interface is excellent, offering both simple and advanced modes

At 11.2p per combined (black and colour) page, this MFP’s running costs are a little high. This is more the case when compared to a business inkjet such as the HP Officejet Pro X576dw, as its equivalent cost per page is around 4.2p. The MF8540Cdn has the better print quality, but the HP trounces it for pace and ease of use.