Review: Canon Pixma MG7150

Overview

For those looking for a photo printer which also has a scanner, the Canon Pixma series has often been a go-to choice for many.

The MG7150 has lots of appealing factors for those who want to print images which are up to A4 in size.

It uses a system of six single inks, which although makes for a larger initial outlay than an all-in-one colour ink system, means that you only replace the ink cartridges that are necessary, rather than throwing out an entire cartridge which may still have quite a lot of one colour left. You also have the option to purchase 'XL' ink cartridges, which Canon promises delivers savings of up to 30% per page.

As this is a dedicated photo printer, the six ink system may also be appealing as it has grey for richer colour shots and monochrome prints. Unlike many printers, the inks which come delivered with the printer are at 110% capacity, as Canon says that some ink will be wasted in the setup and calibration of the printer. This should allow you to get a decent set of prints before you need to purchase your first replacement inks.

On the front of the printer is a full-colour touch panel, which allows you to navigate through different menus and printer options. The 'buttons' on the printer – such as the on/off button – are also touch sensitive, and not raised, physical buttons.

Canon claims some pretty swift speeds for the MG7150. It says that a borderless print of 10x15cm (7x5 inches) can be made in approximately 21 seconds. Prints of up to 9600 x 2400 dpi print resolution can be made.

The MG7150 is a wireless printer, and is also equipped with AirPrint for Apple devices. This means you can print directly from your iPhone or iPad without needing to go through a specialist app. While you can print from Android phones and tablets, you will need to download an app from the Google Play store. You can also print wirelessly from your computer.

Photographers will also likely appreciate the dedicated memory card slots - there's SD, Memory Stick Duo and Compact Flash format slots available. This means that you can remove the card from your camera and print directly from the device, bypassing the need for a computer altogether.

There are two trays for the MG7150 which allows you to insert different paper sizes. Unlike some other photographic printers there is only one A4 tray, which means that you will need to swap between photo paper and ordinary paper depending on the job you wish to do. The second tray is for photographic print sizes 6x4 and 7x5 inches. This is useful if you want to make quick prints ready for small frames.

A scanner is included within the printer too. This has a resolution of 2400 x 4800 dpi and can scan an A4 document in approximately 14 seconds. You can also use the scanner to make copies, again bypassing the need for a computer attachment altogether if you prefer. You can save scanned documents / images to an inserted memory card or have the printer email it to you.

While this printer is more expensive than a lot of budget two-in-one devices, in terms of dedicated photographic printers, it's very reasonably priced, so it's likely that lots of serious amateurs and enthusiasts will be tempted by the MG7150. Hopefully the print quality will match that which we expect from Canon's range.

Build quality and handling

Setting up the printer for the first time is relatively simple, and an instruction sheet provided with the device guides you through the process of installing the six different ink cartridges. The print head is already installed so all you need to do is click the cartridges into place. A light on each of the cartridges will come on to let you know that it has been installed correctly and is ready to go.

To access the print head, the front of the printer, including the touchscreen display panel, lifts up, causing the print head to move to the centre for easy access.

There is no USB cable provided in the box, so if you don't have a wireless router in your house, then you'll need to purchase one separately. However, this device has been very much designed with wireless connectivity in mind. Again, setting up the wireless connection is very easy, and the on-screen commands will walk you through the process to get you setup in no time.

After this, you should find that the printer is listed as a device from your computer. Alternatively, if you have an iPhone or iPad, you will be able to print directly using AirPrint. This is a very satisfyingly easy process that requires nothing more than a couple of taps of the screen to get your print. For Android users, the process is a little more complicated, requiring you to download a specialist app, but we are told that development into making quick printing as similarly easy as with iOS devices is on the way.

When you want to scan something, again, this is a very easy process thanks to the touchscreen panel on the front of the printer. After placing a document on the scanner tray, tap Scan on the touchscreen panel and the printer will ask you what resolution you'd like to scan it to, and what format (i.e. PDF or JPEG). You can choose to save the scanned document to a memory card which you have placed inside the printer's reader. One thing to watch out for here is when scanning multiple pages - you must tap the "Done" icon before starting a new page, or each scan will be saved with the same file name.

Loading paper in the tray underneath the printer is convenient, and as it's not sticking out of the top of the back of the printer, you'll be able to place the printer on a shelf or somewhere with limited space, which is handy.

It's a shame not to be able to load two different kinds of A4 paper in the bottom tray, so that you could print documents and photographs seamlessly. At least there is a separate tray for standard photo print sizes of 6x4 and 7x5, which can left permanently loaded with the paper size of your choice ready for quick prints - I found this particularly useful when printing from a smartphone.

The tray for the printed paper will automatically spring open if you send a document to be printed, which is useful if you're in a different room from the printer, or sit quite a distance from it.

When it comes to checking ink levels, you can either do this through your computer or on the printer itself. Tap the setup menu and tap the check ink levels and it will display all the levels of the inks in the printer, with an exclamation mark over any cartridges which are running low. You can also view the numbers of printer cartridges ready for when you need to buy a new one.

Performance

The first prints that I made with the Canon MG7150 were of our printer test chart. This chart has a series of solid colour and gradation blocks as well as resolution lines and bars, this allows us to test a printer's ability to reproduce colour and detail in a more neutral way than normal prints would allow.

Generally you will find that there is a little difference between the transmissive on-screen image and the reflective print. Here with the MG7150, colours appear a little darker in the final print than on screen.

Generally speaking, the gradations on the single colour bars are very smooth, with little evidence of banding with two exceptions - the green and the cyan bars. Here we can see a line around half way across the bar.

For the multicoloured bars at the bottom of the chart, the gradation is a little smoother, with only the area between purple and blue on the bottom bar being a little more noticeable in its transition.

Looking at the resolution lines with the naked eye, the vertical and horizontal lines look close to perfect, while the diagonal ones appear a little more jagged. The concentric circles also look pretty close to perfect with the naked eye, although you can see a little stepping on the two innermost circles. The spaces between the lines appear to be pretty clean, too.

Putting the printer through real world testing reveals that prints of photographic images are a very good match for the on-screen picture. It's advisable to do a couple of test prints before printing a big batch to make sure that you're seeing what you want to see - and it's also worth running a screen calibration if you intend to get serious about your printing.

Colours are vibrant and details are generally well recorded. Prints made on glossy media look superb - we would always recommend using branded paper which matches the brand of the printer. In this case, we used Canon Photo Pus Glossy II for the majority of our prints. Skin tones are also rendered very accurately.

As the MG7150 has separate black inks, it doesn't need to mix colours to create monochrome prints. This results in neutral prints, with deep rich blacks. I wasn't able to find much evidence of detail being lost when blacks are too deep, but that may vary depending on the print you're making, and it's something that could be corrected for by calibrating the printer if you're intending to make a lot of black and white prints.

Printing times are swift. For small prints (6x4 and 7x5 inches), then times roughly match the quoted 14 seconds, or a little longer if you've switched to "Best" printing quality. For A4, borderless prints, on the automatic setting, a black and white image is printed in around 1 minute 10 seconds, while a black and white high quality print takes around 2 minutes 18 seconds. In terms of colour, a high quality A4 borderless prints, takes around 2 minutes 24 seconds. For standard, non-photo documents, printing takes a matter of seconds.

After installing a complete set of fresh cartridges (new from the box), we have been able to create in excess of 50 full-colour A4 prints before one cartridge (Magenta) is displaying a warning light that it is close to running out. The remaining cartridges have ink left in them, and if you like, when one cartridge runs out, you can override the warning that stops the printer making colour prints - this is handy if you're printing something which doesn't have one particular tone and want to take the risk.

While a complete set of six ink cartridges isn't exactly cheap at around £60-£70, we think this represents pretty good value. You can pick up third party inks for a fraction of the price, but we would always recommend using the matching brand inks for best image quality.

You can pick up a pack of 20 A4 photo sheets for around £10, while a pack of 7x5 or 7x4 paper can be picked up for around £5. We can therefore estimate that each A4 print costs somewhere between £1.20 and £1.40, depending on paper type. This isn't intended to be a wholly accurate price guide, since whatever you're printing can alter the paper and ink consumption, but it should give a rough idea. This compares pretty favourably with online printing services, while giving you the convenience of being able to print at home, with control over calibration settings.

Verdict

If you're looking for a great all-round printer which doesn't skimp on print quality for your photographs, then I don't think you will be disappointed by what the MG7150 has to offer.

While it's certainly more expensive than some of the cheap two in one printers you can pick up, it's not a bad price for something which produces high quality prints, especially if you only need to print at A4 or below.

It's very easy to set up and use, with the instructions provided in the box making it ready to go in just a few minutes. The wireless connectivity also makes it extremely easy to connect to your computer, or even smartphone or tablet, without the need for messy wires. This also means of course that you don't have to have the printer next to your computer - something which isn't always convenient.

If you have an iPhone or an iPad, this is an excellent printer to pair with it since it's just so easy to use AirPrint for both documents and photos. I used it to print photos from a party while the party was still happening, which proved to be great fun for the guests who were able to take prints away with them straight away - they could also print directly from their own photos too if so required.

Although Android is a little more complicated, if you have the right app installed it's not too difficult - and hopefully it won't be long before something as simple as AirPrint comes to Android devices too.

What you have here is great value - and although those people who are used to picking up cheap printers for document printing may be put off by the slightly more expensive price, and the fact that you need to purchase six separate inks, I believe it represents good value as the yield per complete set of inks is high - plus only having to replace one colour at time is more cost effective in the long run.

Using the printer is a doddle, with the touchscreen display on the front making it easy to navigate through the various options. It's also nice to not have to use a computer if you don't want to - with the option to print directly from a memory card, or scan to it bypassing that need. The touch sensitive 'buttons' are also very responsive and nice to use.

Moving on to print quality - effectively the most important aspect of the printer - it's very impressive and you shouldn't be disappointed with its output. Both our test chart and real world sample images looked great, with rich vibrant tones and plenty of detail. Skin tones are reproduced accurately, which is great news for family photographers.

We liked

There's lots to like about the MG7150, but perhaps it is the wireless connectivity which makes it so easy to use and print directly from the camera without the fuss of complicated set-up procedures or cables. It's a bonus if you're an iOS user working with AirPrint too.

We disliked

It's not cheap to purchase a whole set of new inks, so if you're looking for an ultra-cheap printing solution, this isn't really the machine for you. Then again, there are some dedicated photo printers with even more ink cartridges and an even higher cost base, so this by comparison represents good value.

Verdict

The Canon Pixma MG7150 is a great all-round printer that will be appreciated by most home-users, especially those who are keen to print lots of photographs. It has a great design and easy-to-use interface that makes it a pleasure to use, while prints are beautifully rendered. If you're printing from more than one device, perhaps your computer and your phone, then even better, as this handles all with ease.

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