Canon i-SENSYS MF667Cdw review: an MFP that's ideal for small offices, provided they don't mind significant print costs

The i-SENSYS MF667Cdw is one of a couple of new color laser multifunctions just released by Canon. It's the more fully specified of the two, with fax capabilities and significantly better automatic document feeder (ADF) than the slightly cheaper i-SENSYS MF664Cdw, but neither is bad for the money. For less than £300 both give you a 250-sheet paper input tray, Wi-Fi, and gigabit Ethernet connectivity, together with a big color touchscreen that helps you configure and use all the features.

The Canon i-SENSYS MF667Cdw we're reviewing here really does do everything you're likely to need. It's a four-in-one, supporting prints, scans, copies, and faxes. Its printer supports duplex (double-sided) printing and – unlike its MF664Cdw stablemate – so does its 50-sheet ADF. That means you can put your feet up while making, capturing, or faxing duplex documents, or even while making a double-sided copy of a double-sided original.

On its front panel, there's a USB host port supporting direct scans and prints – useful for office visitors, although there is also Wi-Fi direct if you prefer. It's at the front that you'll find the only significant disappointment; just a single-sheet bypass feed, rather than a second multipurpose paper input. Still, the i-SENSYS MF667Cdw offers a lot for the money – its duplex ADF alone is probably worth the £30 or so premium over the MF664Cdw.

Typically for a Canon laser printer, the MF667Cdw has four simple consumables combining toner and a drum. They're fairly compact, and the ones that come in the box are rated only for 700 black or 500 color pages. Replacements are rated at 1,400 black and 1,300 color pages, or you can splash out on high capacity alternatives good for 3,500 black pages, and 2,500 in color. That's likely to prove a headache if you're supporting this multifunction peripheral (MFP) in a remote office; consumables would need changing monthly or more with any significant volume of printing.

Unfortunately, it also makes for disappointing running costs. Calculated using Canon's yield figures and the best prices we could find for high-capacity supplies, you'll pay 2.6p (ex VAT) for every black page, or 13.2p for full color. With anything but very light printing, costs will rack up fast.

Canon i-SENSYS MF667Cdw review: Setting up

The Canon i-SENSYS MF667Cdw isn't big by the standards of color laser MFPs, but it's still a bulky, heavy device. At 21kg, it's within many people's safe lifting range, but in some cases it might be a two-person job. This is no compact desktop printer – it takes up significantly more space than an equivalent office inkjet. As such, it's perhaps not ideal for a home office, except where laser technology is a must.

As with all printers, there's a bit of setup to complete before it's ready. Once you've removed packing tape and loaded paper, you'll need to complete a few simple setup steps on its touchscreen. One of these is a color calibration, where you scan a printed color chart. As we'll see later, this turns out to be handy. This isn't the best screen we've used, tending to be a little oversensitive. We also couldn't work out how to disable the insistent input, error, and job completion beeps – eventually we did this via the Remote UI web interface. Otherwise, it's generally easy to use, and commendably quick to boot, finishing in seconds as opposed to the minute or so some printers make you wait.

The MF667Cdw seemed bamboozled by our dual-band test network, detecting the SSID twice. It wasn't clear which to join, and, shortly into our testing, we experienced some instability. Disconnecting and reconnecting to the other entry in the list resulted in stable performance. Of course, we could have used the wired port. It's good to have this option, although we're still not sure a small office printer needs gigabit connectivity.

Almost nobody bothers with setup discs anymore, but you get one with the Canon i-SENSYS MF667Cdw. Regardless, without an optical drive, we visited Canon's website and downloaded the comprehensive software suite. By default, this installs Canon's UFR driver, but you can specify PCL6 or PostScript 3 if preferred. This full installation also adds a TWAIN scan interface.

Canon i-SENSYS MF667Cdw review: Printing, scanning and copying

Canon says the i-SENSYS MF667Cdw can reach a modest print speed of 25 pages per minute (ppm) in black or color, and it didn't fall too far short in our tests. From standby, it could produce a first page of black text or lightweight color graphics in 11 seconds. The MF667Cdw needed no significant warm-up time when unused for an hour before printing.

This MFP managed to hit 21.7ppm over our 25-page text test, which includes the time taken for the host PC to prepare and transfer the job. Printers tend to get closer to their rated speed on longer print runs, which reduces the impact of this spooling time. Sure enough, the Canon i-SENSYS MF667Cdw reached 23.1ppm on a 50-page job.

It was fairly rapid in color, too, delivering our challenging 24-page mixed graphics document at 20.3ppm. We also duplexed the first 10 sides of this document onto five sheets of paper. It took 53 seconds, a rate of 11.3 images (sides) per minute.

This MFP's scanner has a maximum optical resolution of 600 dots per inch (dpi) – a little low for creative use, but plenty for archival and other office jobs. It could complete a preview in 13 seconds, and scan an A4 page at 150dpi in 14 seconds. Upping the detail to 300dpi required 20 seconds, which is still quite competitive. The scanner also took 20 seconds to capture a 6x4" (15x10cm) photo at 600dpi.

Swift scanner and printer pairings usually make for quick copiers, and the Canon i-SENSYS MF667Cdw didn't disappoint. It completed a single black or color copy in around 11 seconds, while using the ADF to make a 10-page mono copy needed 32 seconds. In color, the same job took 39 seconds.

We were able to compare this MFP's performance to the MF664Cdw, which is based on fundamentally the same print engine. Other than a slower warm-up time, the two MFPs' speeds were almost identical across our tests. The exception came with our duplex color copy task, which the MF667Cdw completed in a minute and a half: the MF664Cdw doesn't support duplex copying.

The Canon i-SENSYS MF667Cdw produced exceptionally good prints and photocopies. Black text was essentially perfect, while color graphics were punchy and entirely free of any banding, grain, or other weaknesses. Color prints had a slightly warmer bias than rivals, which some – but not all – users might prefer.

Here, this MFP's color calibration step also paid off. While photos printed from the MF664Cdw were far too warm, with a strong magenta bias, those from the i-SENSYS MF667Cdw were just slightly warm, working well across a range of subjects. Our black and white test photo was also excellent, showing neutral shade reproduction and far better shade control than we'd expect from a laser device. Mono photocopies were excellent, if just half a shade too dark, but this MFP's color copies were the best we've ever seen – we struggled to tell their reproduced colors from the original shades.

This isn't the sharpest scanner we've seen from Canon, delivering subtly softer high-res scans than the company's best. That said, it's more than up to the demands of office work, capturing a mix of text and graphics with strong detail and accurate exposure. We use a Kodak Q60 input target to assess scanners' ability to reproduce color and shade detail: this MFP is one of just a handful we've tested that could distinguish every shade on the chart.

Canon i-SENSYS MF667Cdw review: Is it worth it?

If you want a color laser multifunction and you're not concerned by print costs, the Canon i-SENSYS MF667Cdw is excellent. It does everything you could need for a busy small or branch office, and delivers uniformly brilliant results. It's also quite impressive for the money – we wouldn't necessarily expect full duplex operation at this price, and you wouldn't always get direct printing and a big color screen, either.

All of which makes it a shame about the running costs. They're certainly not outrageous, but it's hard to unequivocally recommend this MFP when even its high-yield consumables need changing every couple of thousand pages, and each full-color page could set you back around 13p. If you're likely to print in reasonable volumes, and running costs are a concern, we'd recommend opting for a refillable inkjet like Epson's excellent EcoTank ET-4956. If you want greater speed and quality, though, the i-SENSYS MF667Cdw might prove worth the premium.

Canon i-SENSYS MF667Cdw specifications