Canon Pixma MX330

As you'd expect of a printer this inexpensive, speed isn't a selling point. At least Canon is honest about it, claiming a top text speed of 7.5 pages per minute, and a top graphics speed of 4.5 ppm. In our tests, the Pixma MX330's text speed actually exceeded expectations slightly, reaching 7.7 ppm, while our graphics samples topped out at 2.2 ppm. Plain text pages looked pretty crisp. Graphics and photos varied more. On plain paper, images appeared grainy and a bit off-color, with orangey flesh tones or purplish monochrome images, for example. On Canon's own paper, photos looked pale and sometimes streaky, even after repeated maintenance routines.

The ink costs for this model can build up in a hurry. The machine ships with a 220-page black cartridge and a 244-page tricolor cartridge consisting of cyan, magenta, and yellow compartments. The black cartridge costs $16 to replace--which works out to a whopping 7.3 cents per page, while the tricolor cartridge costs $21, or 8.6 cents per page. A four-color page would thus cost almost 16 cents--higher than average, but not the worst we've seen.

The Canon Pixma MX330 gives entry-level users a decent multifunction device to work with, but high-volume users would do well to choose a model with less-expensive consumables. Still shopping around? Here are a couple of competing models to check out: The HP OfficeJet J4680 has about the same sticker price and slightly better prices on its ink refills, along with different priorities--adding Wi-Fi, but skimping on paper handling.The HP Photosmart C5280 is a bit better than the Pixma MX330 at producing graphics and a bit worse at producing text, again at a similar sticker price.