By Canon PIXMA MG6450 is a mid-range all-in-one printer/scanner with a bias towards creative home use. It replaces the MG6350, the most obvious difference being that this model is slightly cheaper and is available in black, white or a strange metallic plum color. There’s no fax modem or automatic document feeder, but it does support duplex printing, is wireless and supports AirPrint for printing directly from your iOS devices. Further direct printing and scanning options take advantage of the built-in memory card slot and 7.5 cm color screen. It’s a sleek-looking machine, but this comes at the expense of practicality. Access to the print heads and ink cartridges is via a narrow slot accessed by lifting up the entire control panel section; it’s neat, but it can be hard to get cartridges lined up properly at the rear.
Meanwhile, the MG6450’s screen and directional button controls are a little less elegant and intuitive than the previous model’s touchscreen. We were disappointed with paper handing. The single paper tray appears to be captive in the base of the printer. The front panel has to be kept open when it’s loaded with A4 paper, which could allow dust on to the stack. It’s not all bad, fortunately.
Text printing was quite quick, reaching 13.3 pages per minute, while it managed 3.7ppm in our challenging color business document test. Photo printing was also swift, delivering a photo every two minutes at the highest possible quality. Scans became quite slow over wifi at higher quality settings –it performed better when we switched to USB. Scans and prints were excellent, with accurate colors, sharp detailing and convincingly reproduced contrast and shading even in the lightest and darkest regions. Mono text was pin sharp across the range of font sizes we test. The Canon Pixma MG6450 accepts high-capacity versions of all five ink tanks, which include both dye-based black for photo printing and pigmented black for sharp mono text on standard paper. The support for high-capacity cartridges means that mono running costs area reasonable 2.3p per page, and color costs are low at 5.1p.
It’s a great all-in-one, but if its comparatively high price and basic paper handling put you off, consider the slightly cheaper Canon PIXMA MG5550, which only comes in black.
