Canon i-Sensys LBP7200Cdn review

Canon's i-Sensys LBP7200Cdn is bigger and heavier than many other entry-level printers, so it may be harder to find room for it in a home office. It's not unattractive, but there's a big gap where the paper tray meets the front panel, making it look slightly ajar. It's quite well specified, with an Ethernet port and automatic duplexing as standard.

We found this printer a little hard to configure, with Canon's install program initially detecting only an unknown device on the network with no IP address. Selecting this and clicking 'Set IP address' fixed the problem and allowed the install to complete successfully, but it's a confusing extra step for a novice. Once set up, the driver's status monitor reported that it was 'performing internal adjustment' while the printer clicked and whirred for several seconds, something that it would continue to do occasionally, even in the middle of print jobs.

This pause aside, the LBP7200Cdn proved quite rapid when printing colour, delivering our 24-page mixed-colour test at 15.2ppm and completing both of our colour photo tests in less than 30 seconds – quicker than most laser printers at this price. Using the duplexer, it printed the first 10 pages of our mixed colour test onto five sheets of paper in 79 seconds. At just under 16ppm, its speed to print black text was less impressive, though. The printer also seemed particularly noisy in our tests, clunking each time it picked up paper and developing a scraping noise like an un-oiled escalator.

The Canon's photos were a little light, with some loss of detail in the brightest regions, but otherwise its print quality was fair. Graphics and illustrations were impressive at first glance, although closer examination revealed some jagged lines at colour boundaries.

As with the mono i-Sensys LBP6300dn, Canon supplies the LBP7200Cdn with reasonably generous starter consumables: the black cartridge is should print 1,200 pages and the colour toners are rated at 1,400-pages. The replacements have higher capacities than many competing printers, and help give the LBP7200Cdn low running costs, particularly for medium or heavy users. Mono pages work out at 2.6p, with colour at 9.1p.

However, if your budget can stretch another £40 or so, the Konica Minolta Magicolor 3730DN is even cheaper to run, especially for those who print a lot. It's faster and has slightly better print quality too.

Basic Specifications

Rating***
Maximum native print resolution600x600dpi
Maximum enhanced print resolution9,600x600dpi

Quoted Speeds

Quoted speed, mono A420ppm
Quoted speed, colour A420ppm

Tested Speeds

Mono page from sleep time 1.018s
Time for two 10x8in photos 1.026s
Time for six 6x4in photos 1.030s

Physical and Environmental

Standard printer interfacesUSB, 10/100 Ethernet
Optional printer interfacesnone
Size331x409x490mm
Weight24.8kg
Noise (in normal use)56dB(A)
Duty cycle40,000 pages

Paper Handling

Maximum paper sizeA4/legal
Maximum paper weight220gsm
Standard paper inputs2
Standard paper input capacity300
Maximum paper inputs3
Maximum paper input capacity550
Duplex (code, cost if option)Yes

General

Printer technologysingle-pass colour laser
Language(s)host-based
Supported operating systemsWindows 2000/XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X 10.4.1 or later
Standard printer memory16MB
Maximum printer memory16MB
Other laser features and optionsnone

Buying Information

Price£240
Price of 2nd paper cassette£173
Capacity of supplied black toner1,200 pages
Capacity of supplied colour toners1,400 pages
Capacity of supplied drum(s)N/A
Estimated colour TCO - three years medium£1473.10
Estimated colour TCO - three years heavy£5260.32
Warrantyone year RTB
Supplierhttp://www.printerland.co.uk
Detailswww.canon.co.uk
Consumable parts and prices£88 each

Tested Print Speeds

Time for two 10x8in photos 1.026s
Time for six 6x4in photos 1.030s

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