Many of us are returning to the office. Some of us are returning by choice, others not so much. Thanks Elon Musk. I happen to be one of those lucky (or unlucky – depending on your view) souls who get to remain at home. Naturally, this calls for some office upgrades. One item I have been putting off picking up is a decent laser printer.
It seems like there are 6 billion different printer models out there, making this a challenging decision. Canon’s ImageClass MF455dw makes a great case for home office dwellers and small business owners alike. It is a printer that won’t break the bank, prints efficiently, and offers perfect features for my needs.
Set Up
It needs to be stated that this is a LARGE printer. Keep this in mind for home offices. It may be a better fit for small businesses as opposed to home offices. Measuring in at 17.9″ x 18.3″ x 15.5″ and a hefty 35.8 lbs, this heavyweight printer is ready for any quick job I have. Thankfully, I have the space for it, and it satisfies my needs. After about five minutes of ensuring all the random tape and packaging is off the device, I immediately notice the 5-inch color display and hope this will be an easy setup.
Connecting to Wi-fi is a breeze, and it definitely is due to the display. The printer instantly finds my network and a quick password entry gets things rolling. I head to my computer, select find printer and it pops up as well. The printer does come with a CD-Rom with drivers. This kinda stinks because I don’t have an internal drive for installing software and drivers. I have an external, but no chance I’m hooking that up for this. Not to worry. Canon has the drivers and software on its website as well.
I can now print from my PC, phone, USB thumb drive, or even the cloud. The setup is refreshing and the aforementioned screen is the champ here.
Quality and Speed
Speed of printing for this machine is a non-issue. It can print up to 40 pages per minute. Honestly by the time I walk over to the printer my pages are there. It isn’t cheap laser printing either. My previous laser printer (Brother HL-L2350DW) was a decent printer with terrible resolution. The text on the Brother had a subtle blur due to low dpi. The Canon ImageClass dominates here with 600×600 dpi ensuring crisp text and quality prints and copies. My wife printed several copies of her resume and they look absolutely gorgeous on a thicker paper (she was hired in her most recent interview and compliments were given on the resume)
I also do not have to load paper very often. The tray holds 250 sheets and an additional 100 sheets fit into the multipurpose tray. If you have a really big job or need at your company, the printer is also expandable. That’s right, you can add an additional 550 sheets of paper with an additional tray (sold separately).
One important note – this is a black and white printer only. I don’t have a need to print in color so I’m really not impacted here, but some businesses may need a color option. For color needs, see the ImageClass models with “Cdw” in the model number such as this one.
Ease of Use
Like any printer, additional jobs require a bit of setup. General printer set-up is straightforward and frankly simple. Scanning to PC is straightforward, but scanning to an email address took some work to figure out. Canon could improve here by offering additional help on setup for these types of jobs. The onscreen help is full of tech jargon the average user will not comprehend. PC load letter – what does that mean (if you know you know)? Okay, I didn’t see that error, but that’s how I felt trying to figure out how to scan docs to my email.
Whether printing, scanning, copying, or yes, even faxing (apparently people still do this), this printer is straightforward and par for the course in set up and use. I am still waiting on companies to take on a more user friendly approach to set up, but with tech this can be challenging. Take note from Amazon and Apple – they tend to have the most user friendly experiences.
Toner replacement is quite possibly the coolest feature this printer offers. I’ll never run out of toner again with Canon’s self-detect option. The printer literally detects when toner is running low and automatically orders more for me. How easy is that? A standard replacement cartridge yields ~3100 pages while the High Capacity option yields ~10k pages. Toner may seem pricey but what most people don’t realize is standard inkjet output is anywhere between 200-600 pages depending on print jobs. Toner should do more than 3x the work and is ultimately more cost effective. This is optional for those that may want to hunt for other ink purchasing options. The feature will only work for Canon specific toner.
Summary
The Canon ImageClass MF455dw is a beast both in size and in work ethic. This laser printer prints, copies, and scans with ferocious speed and ease. A few setup options such as scan to email take some research and time to get going. The printer comes with a 3-year limited warranty, and the toner replacement option is a game changer as I’ll never run out again. It is more than enough for a home office and quite capable for small business needs.
Note: Our reviews are always 100% independent but Gearadical receives a small affiliate amount if you purchase the product on Amazon.
