Canon PIXMA MX922 Inkjet All-in-One Printer

Best for the $$

As a retired IT manager, I have seen hundreds of printers come and go, good and bad. In the 1990s, a prominent competitor reigned, and Canon products had problems. Around the turn...Read complete review

As a retired IT manager, I have seen hundreds of printers come and go, good and bad. In the 1990s, a prominent competitor reigned, and Canon products had problems. Around the turn of the century, this completely reversed.

Now, Canon printers provide high reliability and overall quality, and Canon's technical support (by Americans in the USA) is extremely helpful, courteous, and simply a pleasure to deal with. Even out of warranty, support sessions are quite inexpensive and productive. I rank Canon at the very top of technical support operations.

In addition to my own MX922, I support four other Canons in this product line, all owned by family, one of which is also an MX922. I have found this printer to be reasonably fast, reasonably color-accurate for a multifunction printer, and quite reliable. Printouts of text and images are very good. This unit is feature-rich, and its support of the Airprint standard is a strong plus.

Regarding negative experiences by other users: Sometimes printer drivers must be re-installed due to file corruption; this is not difficult with the MX922, once one understands that it always should be done from Canon's web site, where one obtains the latest drivers. In addition, there may be any of several problems that may have occurred with a particular network, regardless of the brand and model, and/or due to operator error.

The software has been changed from previous models, and I am still getting used to it--it seems to be less intuitive.

The MX922 works well both wirelessly and wired. And here is a caution: when installing the printer, you must choose to set it up as a wired OR a wireless printer--not both. If you wish to change this setting, you must go to the web site and download the printer driver again, choosing the mode to which you wish to change it. Since I already have a wireless router, I chose wired, which offers the best of both worlds (the router handles connectivity to the wireless devices). Wireless is always going to be a bit less reliable than wired, due to its inherent limitations.

Paper handling is excellent. Yet, an annoying "feature" is that although there is a second paper tray, it does not handle envelopes. One must empty the main cassette, insert the envelopes, print, and then return the cassette to the paper you usually use.

One thing to check: at least one of these units had print quality set at "high" initially. This caused very slow operation. If you are experiencing very slow printouts, even after the head-cleaning process (which takes time), check to see that "Print Quality" is set at "Standard" and that "Quiet Settings" are set at "Do not use quiet mode."

Curiously, the driver is set to NOT print the backgrounds on web pages. Shading and background colors simply disappear! I would think the default would be to print exactly what you see. This probably was a marketing solution for complaints about frequent ink cartridge replacement. On most screens, one can not change this setting. Even once it is changed, it frequently does not work correctly. Somehow I changed it for good, but considering how many times I tried, I can't be certain which change accomplished it. Canon support stated that the driver was designed with this setting.

Considering all of this printer's features, its size is not out of bounds by any means.

I have read complaints about Faxing. Bear in mind that faxing over phone lines is always going to be a frustration due to the limitations of the phone service. Most users have shifted to scanning images and sending them as email attachments. The advantages are much improved resolution and fewer mess-ups. With most ISPs offering adequate bandwidth and with typically a 20 MB limitation on messages, why would one choose fax except for documents that would exceed the 20 MB limit (for which there are other solutions anyway)?

The very small ink cartridges do indeed require frequent replacement to support average use. This, unfortunately, comes under the moniker of "the razor blade marketing model": sell the basic product at cost or a slight loss, and make the profits on supplies. This is the factor resulting in a rating of four stars rather than five. Yet, in fairness, the entire printer industry works this way. The frequent print head cleaning on this model drains all the inks rather rapidly. Since ink cartridges do not last long, you may wish to purchase the XL-style cartridges, which contain more ink.

I have installed one of these on a MacBook. The greatly reduced set of printing options was disappointing in that environment, but good results were still forthcoming.

Still, despite its blemishes, I recommend this printer highly. Overall, it offers a lot for the investment.