[Review] Canon Pixima MP210


Recommended Posts

Intro.

I was in the market for a printer to replace my old HP Deskjet 3845, its ink was empty so I thought it's wise to add a few $$ and get a newer/better one specially as I needed a new scanner too. My main concern in a printer is the output quality and price. Features like built in memory reader or large LCD etc.. don't matter to me because I wont use it, so reading reviews and asking friends and here on Neowin I felt like the Canon MP210 is the one to get at the $65 mark for an All-in-one device.

Product specs and features

Canon PIXMA MP210 @ Canon website

Package contents and photos

- Pixima MP210 All-in-one inkjet printer.

- Cartridges: PG-30 Black, CL-31 Color

- Power Cord

- Document/warranty/installation kit and 2 CDs.

As usual, no USB cable is included, so you will need to buy one too (standard printer USB2 cable).

(click on the image to see the full size)

contents.jpg front.jpg scanner.jpg

buttons-led.jpg paper.jpg printer.jpg

Hardware Installation

It was easy, you take it out of the box (duh!), install the cartridges using the very simple instructions printed on the device body, install the drivers then connect the cables and you're ready to go.

Driver and Software

My PC runs Windows Vista SP1 RC 64-bit which may be a challenge to some printers but it's not the case for relatively new ones and the MP210 was no exception, though I didn't check the installation CD and grabbed the drivers off Canon website. The installation process was straightforward and trouble free.

Operation Notes

- The printers comes with small capacity cartridges, but it can take the larger ones (PG-40 for black and CL-41 for color).

- It has a feature called "Quiet Mode" which allows to reduce operating noise for night or silent operation.

- Printing noise is in the normal range but the scanner is noisy while previewing (though it's fast).

- Device takes some time to startup, around 20-30 seconds.

Output quality

For the printer: I'm very impressed, the print/color quality is much better than my old one (HP Deskjet 3845). I tried also to print a photo on a Canon glossy paper and I must say that I didn't expect a $65 printer to provide such a great output quality! I'd say it's a lab quality photo print if I like to stretch things up, but to be exact, very near to it!

This is a glossy print from the MP210 at the highest quality settings, and rescanned at 1200dpi using the MP210 too:

Print-quality.jpg

For the scanner: Nothing fancy, the scanning quality is great and I have nothing to complain about.

Scanning software interface (ran from inside Photoshop "File > Import > Canon MP210", output directly to a new document):

ScanGear.jpg

Download a PC Magazine cover scanned at 600dpi un-resized and un-edited (4796x6441 - 14.6 MB):

Scanned-600dpi.jpg

Verdict

I like the MP210, I'd recommend it to anyone looking for an all-in-one device in the $65 price tag, and can sacrifice the LCD/memory reader and other advanced features in order to get decent quality and speed for a bargain.

Thanks :)

Edited by Tantawi
Link to comment
https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/616726-review-canon-pixima-mp210/
Share on other sites

Nice review. I just got the MP160 model for under $50 and I'm very happy with it. I think this one has a usb port too. Not like I'd ever use it. :D

A friend of mine has the MP160 too and it's how I know the world of cheap AND quality Canon all-in ones :D It's very similar to the MP210, the later only has improvement on the noise and speed side (tiny improvement), though they don't share the same design. But the MP160 comes with the larger ink cartridge already ;) Good choice (Y).

Great review. How is the Mac compatibility?

Thanks. Canon site states: OS Compatibility: Windows Vista™, Windows XP/2000 and Mac OS? X v.10.2.8 to 10.4.x. I don't have a Mac around so I can't really test compatibility with Leopard, sorry.

nice. i've been looking for an all-in-one. do you have any examples of the scans? also, does it have special scanning software or can you scan into a program like photoshop?

I just updated the "Output quality" section of the review with both samples from print and scan, including the software:))

What a coincidence, I just received a Canon MP210 by amazon this morning.

Congratulations :D

Good quality and cheap! (Y) Although in your photo example the print has color level changes.

Congratulations.

Yes, there's a small color difference but totally expectable in this price (or may be it's the paper quality?), it's not a big deal for me since I don't print professionally, just for casual use :) Thanks Ayman.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Microsoft's fast coding model MAI-Code-1-Flash comes to Copilot Business and Enterprise by Karthik Mudaliar Microsoft’s recently announced MAI-Code-1-Flash model is now generally available to GitHub Copilot Business and Copilot Enterprise customers. With this support, organizations can have more centralized policy controls and billing while finally being able to use Microsoft’s lightweight, first-party coding model. According to GitHub’s announcement, Business and Enterprise plan administrators must enable the MAI-Code-1-Flash policy in Copilot settings before developers can access the model. Microsoft says that MAI-Code-1-Flash is for fast, iterative coding work rather than the most demanding architectural or debugging tasks. GitHub’s official model comparison page says that the model is great for "general-purpose coding and writing," while it excels at fast, accurate code completions and explanations Microsoft introduced MAI-Code-1-Flash on June 2 as part of a broader collection of internally developed MAI models. GitHub subsequently expanded support to Copilot CLI, the Copilot cloud agent, GitHub.com chat, GitHub Mobile, Visual Studio, JetBrains IDEs, Eclipse, and Xcode, but said support for managed Business and Enterprise customers was still on the way. In Microsoft’s own benchmark testing, MAI-Code-1-Flash scored 51.2% on SWE-Bench Pro, compared with 35.2% for Anthropic’s Claude Haiku 4.5. Microsoft also claimed that the model used up to 60% fewer tokens on SWE-Bench Verified. Do note that these are vendor-run results rather than independent measurements. The model is billed at provider list pricing under GitHub’s usage-based system. GitHub currently lists MAI-Code-1-Flash at $0.75 per million input tokens, $0.075 per million cached input tokens, and $4.50 per million output tokens. For organizations, the main incentive to use MAI-Code-1-Flash is likely to be efficiency rather than maximum capability. A smaller model that responds quickly and limits unnecessary output is quite useful for repetitive agent tasks at scale, especially after GitHub Copilot’s move toward usage-based billing. The "Flash" model is recommended for fast work and not necessarily for huge repositories with loads of context. It's better if teams compare their output with other larger models, especially if they're working on security-sensitive changes and complex, multi-file work.
    • yes AND no the "original" or plain/normal Optiplex 7010 won't be getting any more new firmware updates BUT the Optiplex SFF/SFF Plus {small form factor}, Micro/Micro Plus & Tower/Tower Plus 7010 editions DO get new updates such as this new one   and here are similar guides from the Dell web site for Dell systems: https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000390990/secure-boot-transition-faq https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000347876/microsoft-2011-secure-boot-certificate-expiration
    • AT&T has been spying on US citizens with the NSA for decades.. they just know how to keep it more under wraps.. the evil level is still there.
  • Recent Achievements

    • One Year In
      bernmeister earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Week One Done
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Week One Done
      tuben earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • First Post
      OffsetAbs earned a badge
      First Post
    • Reacting Well
      OffsetAbs earned a badge
      Reacting Well
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      462
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      213
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      158
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      72
    5. 5
      FloatingFatMan
      71
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!