Canon PIXMA TS7550i review: A compact home office inkjet that doesn't quite pass muster

Canon's PIXMA range of inkjets generally has a bias towards home and creative users, but not exclusively so. The new Canon PIXMA TS7550i sits reasonably far up the range, and comes with an automatic document feeder (ADF) that suggests it's up for a bit of office work. At this price, and with Canon's pedigree, that makes it worth a good look.

In truth, this isn't an especially highly specified device. While it supports dual-band Wi-Fi, there's no wired Ethernet port, and no USB host port for walk-up prints or scans. The printer offers the convenience of automatic duplex (double-sided) printing, but the 35-page ADF is single-sided only: no effortless double-sided photocopies here. And while there's a helpful screen on the control panel, it's just 1.4" (3.6cm) across, and monochrome. Meanwhile, if you need fax, you'll be disappointed.

Nevertheless, the TS7550i is quite competitively priced, and it's well specified enough to deal with the bulk of printing, scanning, and copying a typical home worker might need. Being a PIXMA, it's also happy to take on more creative jobs, so it could be a decent all-rounder for families.

There's a problem, however. While many previous PIXMAs have used individual ink cartridges, and had reasonable running costs, the PIXMA TS7550i opts for two black and tricolor cartridges – a bit of a surprise at this price. The standard items last only for around 180 pages each, while at 300 pages, the high-capacity versions are stretching the definition somewhat. At the time of writing, using the best prices we could find online, a single black page would cost around 7.2p ex VAT, and a full-color (black, cyan, magenta, and yellow) print would be 14.8p. Using the standard supplies, this would be 18.6p.

Simply put, that's too much. While we recognize the reasonable spec of this model given its keen pricing, high running costs could soon make it more expensive to own than most competing cartridge-based inkjets – let alone a refillable one. It's perhaps a good thing that it's compatible with the PIXMA Print Plan service, through which you pay for a given allocation of pages per month. The best value tier charges £7.49 ex VAT per month for 200 pages, which works out at 3.7p. While that's quite competitive – especially in color – it's worth noting that, like all ink plans, it relies on you using all of (and not going over) your monthly allowance. In practice, per-page costs are likely to be at least a bit higher.

Canon PIXMA TS7550i review: Setting up

There's not too much to report about setting up this MFP. It doesn't have a lot of design flair, but aesthetically, we quite like its mono OLED screen. It's certainly easy to operate, although you're in for a fiddle if you prefer to manually join printers to a wireless network rather than using WPS or a smartphone. One benefit of not having a touchscreen is that you get dedicated buttons for the most common jobs, such as a mono or color copy – that's actually easier to use.

With just two ink cartridges to install, this is physically an extremely simple device. It's a shame it doesn't have a second paper input, as its standard 100-sheet one is somewhat basic for office work. The output tray is fairly basic, too, but it's fine for shorter print jobs.

Like many other consumer printers, the Canon PIXMA TS7550i directs you to either use a smartphone or the Windows store to download software. However, there's still a full suite of PC software available; we simply searched for the printer in the downloads section of the Canon UK website.

Canon PIXMA TS7550i review: Printing, scanning, and copying

Send a print job to the PIXMA TS7550i, and it's not in any great hurry. While it delivered a first page of black text in 10 seconds, it only reached 12.8 pages per minute (ppm) over a 25-page job. We switched to Economy mode and repeated the test, but the speeds were identical. Although slower on complex color graphics, it was a little more competitive, finishing our 24-page test at a rate of 5.3ppm. Duplex print speeds were about par for this class of inkjet, with a 5-page, 10-side color graphics job arriving at 3.0 images (sides) per minute.

The PIXMA TS7550i managed middling speed on photocopies. It duplicated a black page in 13 seconds, needing 21 seconds for the same job in color. At one and a half minutes for a 10-page copy, it was quite brisk over multi-page mono jobs, but the same task in color took almost two and a half minutes.

At low resolutions, this MFP had quite a fast scanner. Connected via 5GHz Wi-Fi, it sent a preview to a PC in just eight seconds, and needed only 15 seconds to capture an A4 page at 150 dots per inch (dpi). Things slowed down a little more than we expected as we raised the resolution, however. At 300dpi the same page took an uncompetitive 43 seconds. At 600dpi it needed 52 seconds to scan a 6x4" (15x10cm) photo, and at a detailed 1,200dpi this job took more than two and a half minutes.

It's very hard to find fault in the quality of this MFP's results. It's an accomplished printer on plain paper, its pigment black ink delivering darker, crisper text than you might expect to see from an inkjet. Graphics were exceptionally good, with a nice balance of strong, bold colors that dominated the page, and lighter, reasonably saturated shades that gave documents plenty of pep. Typically for an inkjet, duplexed prints had fractionally less intensity, but it was barely noticeable – a good thing, as there's no obvious way to tweak print density in the driver.

Family users needing an MFP for a wider range of projects could have no complaints about photo print quality on coated papers. The PIXMA TS7550i produced sharp and detailed prints with zesty colors. That said, it's a shame it printed our test black and white shot with a mild magenta bias. Scans were also ideal for detailed creative work, demonstrating a wide dynamic range and fairly strong color accuracy. However, exposure on office documents wasn't quite perfect, with a strange, processed effect creeping in on some large color text in one document – seemingly where the driver had tried and failed to apply subtle sharpening.

With a decent scanner and printer, it was no surprise that the TS7550i could deliver strong photocopies. Color pages in particular were accurately copied, with the original hues reproduced quite faithfully. Mono copies were more inclined towards being too dark, with a small loss of detail among deep shades.

Canon PIXMA TS7550i review: Is it worth it?

With no fax modem and just a single-sided ADF, the PIXMA TS7550i certainly isn't the workhorse for a busy home office. Its leisurely print and copy speeds don't particularly help there, either. Still, it has plenty to offer households who need a single device for work documents, everyday plain paper prints, and the occasional foray into glossy photos.

What a shame, then, that its reasonably short-lived and pricey cartridges effectively force users into a PIXMA Print Plan subscription: it's just too expensive to run without one. With one, its running costs are quite palatable, but only if you're on the right tier, and only then if you're using all the pages you're paying for. We'd be more enthusiastic if Canon didn't also make refillable inkjets like the MAXIFY GX7150 – a far better proposition if you're looking for a strong home business MFP, and don't mind paying more up front.

Canon PIXMA TS7550i specifications