Canon Pixma MX490 All in One Printer

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 Last week I went to print out some advertisements, and my tried and true Epson that I've had for ten years had finally bit the dust, midway through printing 300 papers out! So I went on the hunt for an affordable printer, I didn't need any bells and whistles with it, just something to print both texts and pictures, and a scanner, just needed one to get me through until I could save up for a different one, if the one I decided on didn't work out as well as I'd hoped.

  Honestly though so far from what I have used of it, I'm liking this All in One. I may not need to purchase a more expensive one, I've not printed out any pictures yet, which will be the final test to see if this is the only printer I will need. Because I do print a lot of pictures out, I have hundreds of pictures in frames on my walls, and at least 98% of them I have taken and printed out on my own. About the only purchased photos I have is a few from through out the years of my kids school pictures, and some of my boyfriends grandsons school pictures, and a couple other family members have purchased and given us.

Canon Pixma MX490
Pic from Walmart.com 

  First thing I love about The Canon Pixma MX490 vs. my Epson Artisan 810 is it only requires two ink cartridges, instead of a total of six that my Epson took. So that alone is a money saver! Another awesome thing with the Canon is say you're printing out some text (not sure yet how it will work with pictures as I've not gotten that far) and you have it chosen to use both inks, and your printing out in color - any color - and your color cartridge runs low and won't print any more, You'll get a pop up on the computer screen, that will alert you of this, and then you can go into the printers settings and change from using both cartridges, to just black, or if the black is the one that is empty change to just color so you can finish out what you are printing, without having to stop or cancel the print job, and change out the ink. This comes in very handy when you're printing out something and it's not a big deal if it's not all done the exact same way. As an example the advertisements I printed out I had started printing them in purple, when the color ran out, I switched to black, because it was not a huge problem to finish up my print load in black instead of purple, they were just advertisements for my boyfriend, to hand out around neighborhoods to do with his and my sons' handyman services. With my Epson and most other printers you're not able to do this. Now I do not know if you can print with just 1 cartridge in the chamber or not, as I have not tried to do this, but when I was reading reviews on the website before I made my purchase, I did see some people were asking if this was possible, but the answers they were getting I don't think those who answered were understanding the question, because they kept stating you can switch to either just print in color, or just print in black when one cartridge is empty.

This did end up being a full all in one, meaning it is a Printer, Scanner, Fax. I didn't need a fax machine, I don't even have a landline phone! However, It was $10 cheaper than another one I was looking at that didn't have a fax machine, so I just went ahead and got it anyway even though I have no use for a fax. My Epson has a fax and even when I had a house phone I never used it.

 It prints text out very well, in both color and black. It is affordable and easy on the budget and wallet. Some other things I like about it is it does print double sided, that is one of the major aspects I was looking for while I was looking for a new printer, I like to be able to print double sided.  Not only because it does save paper, but when I am printing something out that is more than one sheet - for instance a recipe I don't want to have to staple sheets together especially when the 2nd sheet would only have a few lines on it.   It has a fully integrated automatic feeder on top for when you need to scan a lot of pages at once. I've not used this feature yet (Never used it on my Epson either) , it is wireless and can print from several types of devices, including your phone or tablet.

  Really the only downfall I have had with this printer is the LCD screen it is not only much smaller than that of my Epson, it is on top of the machine where on my Epson it was on the front, it has no back light so if you place it in an area that doesn't have a bright light (like I did) you'll need to use a flashlight or put a lamp with it so you can see the LCD Screen.

This printer appears big and bulky which I really wasn't wanting another like that, so I was surprised when I got it and it really wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, it's no where near as heavy as my Epson even though it's about the same size, my Epson was a little bit wider, height they're about the same there. but the Canon is not very heavy at all and it was very simple to hook up for the wi-fi, I don't have the greatest internet in the world, I actually have one not many people have ever heard of I only get 5MB uploading! the 1st attempt it didn't connect 2nd attempt connected without skipping a beat, so I'm confident to say anyone with better internet than I have should be connected on the first try.

   I'm not able to say how well it will connect to a phone or tablet, or how fast it'll print on those as I've not used it in that manner. I have only used it from my desktop printer. Speed of printing - before I forget is also very fast, no matter if I printed out in color or black, it is also Energy Star qualified. It does come with starter ink, which I was able to print roughly 320 pages total in both color and black, before they were empty.

I purchased mine from

The very small LCD Screen - that doesn't light up, and isn't a touch screen

-Update 2/28/18 - I did print out a picture the other night, it does an okay job, I printed a college of flowers on an 8x10 - used Polaroid glossy picture paper, The colors came out fine, it printed rather quickly, I just wasn't all that impressed, I did like how my Epson printed pictures out much better. BUT if you don't print a lot of pictures at home, then it will do a decent job.

Then last night I needed to print out more advertisements/flyers  I was using the normal ink cartridges I bought separately when I bought the printer, since I'd already used up the starter pack. I suggest if you plan on printing a lot try the XL ink cartridges , I bought just the regular ones, and I only printed 150 colored(purple) before my color was almost fully empty and roughly 80 printed out in black before it started running down. So I stopped and looked up how to save ink. one thing said use grey scale and draft , so I did that , it helped some, printed out in a black minus the 'bold' look but I was only able to get about 30 more printed before the black was almost gone,

I also read last night that there are a couple fonts to print in, that are supposed to save ink. so you may want to look that up before printing and have your typed documents that you type yourself set in one of those.

I will be looking around for a better printer, that doesn't use the ink so quickly, As so far this one even though only uses 2 inks, has cost me in ink alone just about as much as my Epson did with 6 cartridges! But those cartridges lasted me months, printing ton of pictures and text documents in all sorts of fonts,I also don't think the Canon has any non OEM cartridges for a good deal, I found some on amazon, but they still seemed expensive, for the ''bundle'' pack. I'm sure I am just used to being able to buy great non OEM cartridges for my Epson on there and am now a bit spoiled, but when I last bought ink (2 years ago) for my Epson I bought two 18 packs (36 total cartridges) for $13!

I am also thinking the print quality for the pictures has a lot to do with how the color cartridge for this canon only uses three (3) colors , where as my Epson had 5 colors and 1 black. But I still stand by the original review on this printer, it is still a great overall printer, great for those on a budget, I just would suggest if you need to print a lot either look around some more for a different one, or use the XL cartridges which do cost more than the regular ones but they are supposed to have a lot more ink, and are called High Yield, so you are supposed to get more pages printed out per cartridge on the XL.