Canon Pixma G4510 review: Slow and steady

Ink cartridges are expensive, but until now the only alternative has been risking third-party refills or buying one of Epson’s EcoTank printers. Step forward Canon’s Pixma G4510, one of a small range of refillable ink tank MFPs now available in the UK. Like Epson’s EcoTank ET-4750, the G4510 competes with home office MFPs around the £80-£100 mark. It costs significantly more up front, but cheaper ink means it will cost less in the long run – if you use it enough.

READ NEXT: Canon Pixma TS6250 review

Canon Pixma G4510 review: Features

The G4510 has most office tasks covered. You can connect it to a wireless network, make unattended copies with its 20-page automatic document feeder, and send and receive faxes from civilisations yet to discover email. Unfortunately, Canon hasn’t fitted automatic duplex printing or scanning; we’d expect at least the former. There’s a basic control panel and a two-line mono LCD screen, which is practical but not as user-friendly as a good touchscreen.

Setting up the G4510 involves inserting two odd print heads that look like customised, empty ink cartridges, then filling its four tanks with the supplied ink. Unlike Epson’s revamped EcoTank system, there’s no keying, so you need to be sure you’re filling the right tank. We managed it without any splashes, after which the printer seemed quite quick to prime itself.

Canon Pixma G4510 review: Performance

Quick isn’t an adjective we’ll need again. The G4510 lumbered through our print tests, delivering black text at just 7.9ppm and colour graphics at only 2ppm. Borderless 6x4in photos took more than two minutes each. Mono copies weren’t too bad, at 16 seconds each or nearly three minutes for a 10-page copy, but the same jobs in colour took 41 seconds and more than six minutes, which is the slowest result we can remember. At least we measured decent scan times: a 300dpi A4 scan took 21 seconds.

The G4510 isn’t a great photo printer – our results were less striking than we expect from Canon – but on plain paper it’s very good. Text was crisp, and graphics showed bold colours with no trace of common issues such as banding. Scans were excellent, with sharp focus and great dynamic range, ensuring that detail was preserved in very dark and very light areas.

With slow printing, as well as unexceptional features and controls, the G4510 would be lacklustre if not for its low running costs. Supplied with about 6,000 pages’ worth of ink, it could actually prove cheaper than non-ink tank competitors such as Epson’s WorkForce WF-7710DWF, provided you end up printing more than a couple of thousand pages during the MFP’s lifetime.

Buy now from Scan

Canon Pixma G4510 review: Verdict

What a shame, then, that the Pixma G4510 suffers exactly the same issue for which we’ve long criticised Epson’s EcoTank range. Its ink tank system is brilliant, genuinely saving money, reducing hassle and cutting down on plastic waste, but the printer it’s been fitted to is entirely ordinary. The result is a product that’s only truly great if total cost of ownership trumps all other considerations.

READ NEXT: Kyocera Ecosys P5021cdw review

If you simply want the best home office MFP, the WorkForce WF-7710DWF is the inkjet to go for. However, if you’re likely to print more than a few thousand pages and cost is particularly important to you, the Pixma G4510 will be cheaper in the long term.