Canon Pixma TS6420a
MSRP $130.00
“The Canon Pixma TS6420a is a great personal printer with scan and copy capabilities, but ink costs will add up quickly if you print often.”
Pros
- The best photo prints
- Budget printers can be fast
- Lightweight and compact
- Low upfront costs
- Easy Setup
The Cons of Using
- The cost of black ink
- Tricolor cartridge wastes
Canon Pixma TS6420a printer is a cheap all-in-one that may be just right for you. Beyond the friendly price, it’s small and lightweight, making it easy to set up and move around if you decide to reorganize your workspace.
You should always consider your own needs when purchasing a new printer. Canon Pixma TS6420a appears to be a better choice for a personal printer. A busy office may want a high-volume, rugged printer. The bottom line is quality and value, so let’s see how well Canon’s budget printer performs and how quickly ink costs accumulate.
Design
The Canon Pixma TS6420a might be the shortest printer I’ve ever tested, standing just 6-inches tall. The output bin and main paper tray are located at the front. With a 14-inch depth the printer can be placed on a shelf. Weight is only 13.8 pounds.
The printer can reach a height of 11.25 inches with the rear tray that raises up for heavier paper and envelopes. If you plan to put it on a shelf or under a cabinet, you’ll need at least 16.25 inches of vertical space to open the top lid of this all-in-one printer’s flatbed scanner. This printer is small, with a width of 16 inches.
Canon gave the Pixma TS6420a an attractive two-tone shading, and it’s available in two color options. I tested the printer with gray on black. Canon also offers a white on light-gray version, so you can select the color that matches your décor.
The display is very small, measuring only 1.4 inches. However, it’s easy to view because the control panel can be tilted up. The menu is easy to navigate and understand, with large buttons that are clearly labeled.
The main tray, located at the bottom of the machine, can hold 100 pages. The rear tray also has a 100-sheet capacity, so you won’t need to reload frequently unless you switch to another type of paper.
The tray is completely removable, which I find very nice. In order to add paper, I removed a small cover. That’s not a problem, but replacing the cover requires aligning the edges, which is a slight annoyance. It would be easier to add the paper if the design had a hinge.
Printing performance
Canon Pixma TS6420a offers great print quality at a low price for an all-in-one. Photos come out bright, sharp and with accurate colors. Text is also crisp and easy-to-read.
Budget inkjets can produce images with a slight color cast. The Pixma is good at reproducing colors on glossy and matte photo papers. Photo prints have nice detail and vibrant color in the right places, making this one of the best four-color printers I’ve tried.
Borderless printing is as advertised and works with a variety media. However, the Pixma TS6420a doesn’t handle photos well on plain paper, so choose matte or glossy photo paper.
For better pictures, you’d need to get a printer designed for photographic prints. For more midrange detail, the best photo printers will use at least five ink colors.
Print speed is acceptable for an entry level printer. Monochrome printing produces 13 pages per minute. This allows you to quickly print out long documents or make copies. Depending on how sparse or dense the page is, you’ll be able to print about seven color documents each minute. And 4×6 photo prints are speedy as well, finishing in about 43 seconds.
Envelopes, 4×6 photo paper, and heavier paper load in the rear tray and print well. The Canon Pixma TS6420a made it easy to print envelopes using a mobile phone. The Canon Pixma TS6420a also performed well with double-sided printing (duplex).
Special Features
Canon Pixma TS6420a can scan, print and copy. Copying can be done quickly and easily from the device by using the buttons on the control panel. A page of photos is displayed in 17 seconds. They look almost as good and professional as the original.
The mobile app only allows me to scan at 300 dots per inch. It was still quick and had good scan quality.
The Pixma TS6420a doesn’t include an automatic document feeder to scan or copy multiple pages at once. If that’s important to you, check our list of the best all-in-one printers to find a model with one.
Trade-offs in budget price
Canon Pixma TS6420a costs $130 at retail, but you can find it for under $100. The real cost is the ink over time. It’s a well-known trade-off when you buy an inexpensive printer.
Canon sells value packs with black and color cartridges at $40. When ordering this bundle, the average cost of ink per page is around 10 cents. The high capacity value pack is more expensive ($55), but it contains significantly more ink. You can save some more cents by purchasing this. At best, you’ll average about 7.5 cents per page.
Value packs will only save you money if your black and colour cartridges run out at the same time. Inevitably, you’ll need to order a black or a tri-color cartridge separately.
High-capacity black and color cartridges (PG260 XL, and CL261 XL), respectively, last 400 and 300 pages. Canon doesn’t list the yield of standard cartridges, but I used the ink volume versus the XL cartridges to estimate 210 black pages and 204 color pages.
Each color page costs between 10 and 12 cents. That’s expensive, particularly for the black ink. The tri-color cartridge is a wasteful design since it’s unlikely you’ll run out of cyan, magenta, and yellow at the same time.
This printer is for you.
Canon Pixma TS6420a is easy to operate, has excellent print quality and a relatively fast performance. The color and clarity of the photos is excellent for a four colour printer. Scanning, copying and paper trays work well.
This is a great option for home or school use, as it’s easy to transport.
My only complaint is the ink. The black ink is more expensive than most, and the color cartridge is a three-in-one that’s almost guaranteed to waste some ink.
If you aren’t sure about the Canon Pixma TS6420a, you might want to check out our list of other top printers.
This printer is good for personal low-volume use. Ink costs can quickly add up if you print in black and white often as well as a lot of photos.
If you only print a few photos a month, plus some letters, documents, and labels, Canon’s budget printer could be perfect. The Pixma Ts6420a is both a reliable and good photo printer.
Editors’ Recommendations