Canon imageCLASS MF4150 Laser Duplex P/s/c/f 21PPM Adf
by Canon
|
List Price: Category: CE See more product details |
|---|
(Click here)
Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Canon imageCLASS MF4150 Laser Duplex P/s/c/f 21PPM Adf
Customer Review: Scan to PDF by pressing 2 buttons!
Summary: 5 Stars
I spent less than $250 and all I have to do to scan to PDF is:
1. Put originals on Auto Document Feeder
2. Press the SCAN button
3. Press the Start button
My multi-page searchable and selectable PDF opens in Adobe Acrobat Reader. Wow! Amazon sells less capable machines that can only scan to PDF in black and white only and without a flat bed scanner for $450-650 making this the best bargain on the planet. I admit I had to play with the driver settings in the Canon Toolbox to get the settings I want (scan to PDF, not JPG, grayscale, not color...) but I didn't have to read the manual and the thing is incredibly intuitive to use. I can't believe how fast it scans the documents. The ADF just sucks them right in like an industrial machine. I tried a new HP at Staples for $200 and it took forever to micro-feed the page in the ADF inching its way very slowly.
I did notice that even though the PDF looks nearly perfect, when I copy and paste into a text file some of the letters may be missing, especially if the original is italics, a funny font, or right near a graphic. Not a big deal for me but might be if you are a contract lawyer. I did NOT install the freebie third party software and I did not try the OCR setting in the Canon Toolbox so for all I know it's easily resolved using one of those two options. I don't care enough to find out. The scans are also skewed ever so slightly sideways when fed through the ADF. This is not enough of an issue if you're trying to share documents or submit receipts and if you need art and publishing grade scanning you probably want a dedicated scanner anyway.
The Canon driver and Toolbox is all you need. I'm not a fan of freebie teaser software that comes bundled with printers and is a challenge to uninstall. The Canon CD gives you the Custom option to not install programs you don't want. Thank you Canon!
Set up was relatively fast. I slowed myself down by reading the entire quick start guide first since this is my first laser printer and I didn't feel like screwing anything up. The only thing the install program does not do for you is set the "Canon MF4100 Series UFRII LT" as your default printer. I figured that out on my own when I clicked print and the computer wanted to print to the old printer that I had already removed. Right-click on the "Canon MF4100 Series UFRII LT" in "Printers and Faxes" and choose "Set as Default Printer" to resolve that issue. I've also tested 2 sided printing and it works like a charm.
2 sided copying:
One reviewer complained that this machine does not do 2 sided copying. I still have yet to read the manual but all I did was push the "COPY" button, then the "2-Sided" button then "Collate/2 on 1" button, put two papers on the ADF and pressed Start. One double-sided copy of both originals came out just as I expected. For all I know I pushed one button too many but it still did what I expected it to do.
This thing is seriously feature-laden. There are a lot of buttons on the control panel that are clearly labeled and look intuitive and while I probably should check out the manual to get a clue as to what are the many things it can do, the truth is I have no intention of ever reading the manual. For printing documents, scanning and 2-sided copying I didn't have to ready any instructions and those are the features I will use most. I can't believe how many features they packed in at this price point and that the ones I need actually work fast and reliably.
For one person or a small office of up to 4 people I think this canon is all you need. I would not want a group of 100 users slamming on this thing. It does not look designed for that. I suspect that's why it costs $250 and not 3 times more. An industrial machine would have a tougher paper tray that could withstand careless slamming and a rock solid output/paper catch instead of a plastic tabs sticking out. Not that it's a flimsy or weak looking plastic tab. It feels solid. But it's not a large workgroup machine. A large workgroup machine would also be rated for printing tens of thousands more pages per month than this thing probably is. I rarely print more than 100 pages per month and for me this is fine.
While I can tell it's not meant to support a group of 100 users and the printing volume that comes with that, I do NOT feel that the Canon looks fragile or poorly constructed. It looks like it should give me years of trouble free use. I have yet to see anything else in this price range with these features. Good job, Canon.
Customer Review: Glad I went with this one
Summary: 5 Stars
We were originally looking at all-in-one color inkjets. But with the ink so expensive and our use for color so low, we decided on a laser. We just kept our old inkjet and if we need anything nicer than what it can handle, we will just take it to Kinko's or Staples. I'm really glad we made this decision. The laser has been fabulous. Really fast, and the ink lasts forever compared to an inkjet.
The Canon was easy to set up. No terrible bloatware with it. Looks nice. I didn't initially like that the paper tray had to be open when there was paper in it (took up more room and didn't look as clean), but we have found that if we don't keep the tray too full, we can still close it. The paper has a slight bend to it, but not really noticeable.
I didn't think the duplexing would be a big deal, but I have found that I really do like it. The text quality is soooo much better than an inkjet. Whenever the Canon has been sitting unused for more than a minute or so, it goes into energy saver mode. In this mode, it is basically off. No sound. No motion. No power to any of the buttons. Until the computer tells it to print something, or until you push the energy saver button. Very nice feature. I don't have to worry about turning it on or off. When the computer tells it to print, it starts within a couple of seconds . And I really like that the buttons don't work unless you push the energy saver button since my son just can't help but touch every button he can find right now and the energy saver button looks enough like a light, that he has pushed every button but that one.
Scanning works great. My husband has made lots of PDFs from his scans. I did have a slight problem with the scanner being so powerful that it has a tendency to pick up anything on the other side the page, but I'm sure that with a little practice I'll find the right setting to prevent it from happening. The fax machine prints out a report if the fax didn't go through, but it doesn't give any hard copy notification when the fax does go through. It caused me a little anxiety the first time since I didn't know if I had everything hooked up okay, but now that I know it worked, I found that there is a system monitor which allows you to check the status manually. We use VOIP and had no trouble faxing. In fact, it was hooked up into the second line on our VOIP adapter. Only problem was, it picked up before our phone. So we'll have to hook it up in tandem after the phone/answering machine. My husband sent me a fax to let me know it was picking up before the phone so I could unplug it. Now we know we can receive faxes just fine. '
We were originally debating between a Brother Laser and the Canon. I'm glad we went with the Canon. We did want the network ability for our home network, which doesn't work as well with the USB, but all we needed was a USB/Ethernet connector for a few bucks and then it was just fine with our router. We can even print wirelessly with our laptop.
Overall, the Canon looks and feels solid, is quiet, fast, and efficient.
Customer Review: Everything I was looking for
Summary: 5 Stars
I have had this printer for a week so I can't attest to the long term use. But so far it does everything I expected and does it simply and well. It comes with an 8 1/2 x 11 35 page guide that makes the setup easy as pie-has pictures with the instructions so you can't miss. I got this to replace an old print only laser that finally bit the dust.
My outgoing fax worked the first try. I haven't tried PC faxing yet (sending a fax from your computer). There are 5 incoming fax modes. FAXONLY (Answers all calls as faxes), ANSMODE (for setting up with an answer machine), MANUAL (have to manually hit start), FAX/TEL (switches between fax and voice calls) and DRPD (uses distintive ring pattern from your telephone company). I set mine up as MANUAL since I rarely get incoming faxes. Receiving an incoming fax took me 5 tries because I didn't have a telephone connected to the printer phone jack (which is documented). Once I hooked the handset up it worked fine. A handset is also needed for FAX/TEL and an answering machine for ANSMODE.
I too love the duplex mode. I was impressed with the fast printing speed-even on the first copy. I haven't tried the bundled software yet, but the printer comes with ScanSoft's OmniPage which converts scanned documents and images into editable text and Presto!'s PageManager for organizing photos and documents.
Here is a summary list of the features from the guide:
FAX
Specify a recipient with a single key
Specify a recipient with a two-digit code
Specify multiple recipients with a single key
Look up a particular recipient
Redial when the line is busy
Send a fax to multiple recipients
Receive faxes in memory without printing out
Reject faxes without their numbers
Send a fax from a PC
COPY
Select a scan mode depending on the type of image
Adjust the density level of scanned images
Enlarge or reduce images
Sorts copies by page order
Make two-sided copies
Copy two documents on one sheet
PRINTER
Print a document from a PC
SCANNER
Specify detailed scanning options to suit various images
I spent some time looking for a multi function printer with the options I wanted, at the price I wanted, and with good ratings. While I was looking, this printer went on sale at OfficeMax so got it for $200. Don't forget that you need a USB cord too.
Added 8-24-2008 - six months later. I liked this machine so well I bought one for our office. At the office, we use the fax and copy options. Office personnel are very happy with the performance. They especially love the document feed where we can input 20 or more documents unattended. This machine does get less milleage on the toner that our older machine.
Customer Review: WOW! What a grear printer
Summary: 5 Stars
I just threw out an HP multifunction ink jet printer that kept giving me problems. Before that HP printer, I had an Multifunction Laser Color printer. Both of those printers took a long time to print, the ink jet was just S-L-O-W and the laser took forever to warm up.
The MF4150 has a large paper tray (well alot larger than the 40 sheet tray that I had with my last ink jet printer, the printer holds 250 sheets. And you will need that large capacity because this printer can print very fast. So, if you are looking for a laser printer that has a fast sleep to print time, than this is the printer you are looking for. I mean a few seconds from pressing print or copy till the time a paper prints out.
I purchased this printer on sale at Circuit for one hundred and fifty dollars. Not a bad price for this speed demon. Duplex printing (printing on both sides) is a little slower than one sided printing, but the printer is quick to respond to the request to print.
One part that I was very impressed about is the cost per page. The ink jet printer that I was using was running $0.04 oer page in black, with the option of only using the black cartridge at 750 pages at 5% coverage, this printer does 2000 pages with 5% coverage for $0.0175 per page. Doesn't take too long to do the math to see how much money you will save if you need to print a lot, and my family knows how to find a print button very fast.
The Fax portion of the MF4150 works just like you would like a fax machine to work, and the print quality is pretty good, I mean the ink is black and no noticeable imperfections in the letters that are printed. The max duty cycle for this printer is 7500 pages per month, and that's not too bad either.
For its scanner, it makes use of a Color Contact Image Sensor to produce a maximum optical resolution of 600 by 1200 dpi. Scan formats include .tiff, .bmp, .pdf, and .jpeg, and the machine scans in color.
The printer was very easy to set-up. I have Vista home running on my computer and the driver for Vista are locate on the CANON's web site.
I guess one improvement that I would like to see are networking built in to the product, but for less than $200.00 what can I complain about?
Update 4/11/09
Still happy and having no problems.
Update 9/9/09
Have been using the printer to make church bulletins too and still no problems. On fourth toner now.
update 5/20/10
Printer is still going strong. Able to print for 1 cent per page with amazon toner refills
Customer Review: I got it to print from a Mac on a Windows network!
Summary: 5 Stars
UPDATE: The printer is still printing wonderfully, but one problem has cropped up: since I upgraded to Windows 7 64-bit, I can no longer print from my networked Mac to the printer. Unfortunately there is no redmon utility available for W764, which is a crucial piece of software for the workaround I describe below. Supposedly there is a Windows 7 redmon "coming soon," but who knows when that will be. I've also tried to share the printer over my USB-enabled D-Link router with their Shareport utility, but that doesn't work either. The original review follows:
I couldn't be happier with this printer. I got it for $150 on sale here at Amazon, but even at $225 it's still a steal. It is everything my HP Photosmart C3180 wasn't, and here is why I like it:
1) Excellent print quality for my needs. Even with "toner save" turned on, text and images are printed evenly, without any lines or other blemishes.
2) Automatic duplex. This was a big selling point for me, and now that I have it I don't know how I got along without it!
3) The toner is CHEAP! You can find cartridges that last for 2000 pages on ebay for significantly less than $30. Keep a spare so you never run out.
4) It prints quietly and fast, even in duplex mode. I'm a teacher and always printing handouts for 25+ students and it can handle this in no time.
5) Almost no paper jams. Even envelopes can be fed through without incident.
Many have bemoaned this printer's inability to operate on a Windows network from a Mac machine. However, I have the printer hooked up via USB to my Windows XP desktop and can print to it from my Vista laptop (over wireless network) and now from a Mac Mini connected to the network via ethernet. There are a lot of steps to set it up, but if I can do it I'm sure you can do it.
UPDATE: Well, Amazon won't let me post the link, but just google "How to Use a Printer Attached to a Windows XP Computer in Mac OS X" and it should be the first link.
UPDATE 2: I upgraded to Windows 7 64-bit and unfortunately lost the ability to print from my Mac, since one of the utilities required for the workaround doesn't work in Windows 7. I finally got my ability to print back by installing Windows XP mode and setting up the workaround again within the virtual machine. Obviously this is not an ideal solution, especially considering that I don't need XP mode for anything else. Next time I will do more research about the Mac networking capabilities of a printer before I buy.