PRINTING. The Canon Maxify MB5020 prints using inkjet technology, which sprays liquid ink onto the paper from a moving head. It prints Very Good photos on glossy paper that most people would be happy with. Unlike most color printers, it can't print borderless photos. It prints text very well, nearly as good as a laser printer. Text printing was very quick, 18.8 pages per minute, costing 1.7 cents per page. It prints color graphics with some obvious defects, but OK for casual use, at 6 pages per minute, costing 11.9 cents per page. It has auto-duplex printing to print both on sides of the page, with no loss of quality. The capacity of the main paper tray is 250 sheets, a generous size.
SCANNING and COPYING. Scanning performance was Excellent, suitable for any task including archiving photos. It can scan or copy an area up to 11.7 x 8.5 inches (letter size). Copying performance was Very Good, suitable for most purposes. It has an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) for easily scanning/copying a stack of pages. Includes OCR (optical character recognition) software, useful for making scanned documents editable in a word processor program.
CONTROLS and DISPLAY. The printer has a medium-size 3-inch display screen with a touchscreen that can preview each photo in a 2.9-inch window.
CONNECTIVITY and NETWORKING. You can connect directly to a PC with a USB cable, or to your network router either wirelessly with WiFi or with an Ethernet cable. There's a WiFi Auto-connect feature that makes it easy to link to your wireless router. Apple AirPrint and Google Cloud Print are built-in, to print wirelessly from smartphones, tablets and PCs. You can also install Canon's app on your smart phone or tablet, as another option for printing over your WiFi network. You can also print an email remotely by forwarding it directly to this printer. This model has built-in faxing, can store incoming faxes if the paper runs out, and can send faxes from an attached PC.
COST OF OWNERSHIP AND INK. When this section was last updated, the printer's purchase price was about $300, expensive for an all-in-one inkjet printer. Printing uses up ink. Over time, as you print, the costs add up. This printer uses 4 cartridges. The Canon ink cartridges used in testing were the PGI-2200XL BK, PGI-2200XL C, PGI-2200XL M, and PGI-2200XL Y. At the time, their prices were $37, $28, $28, and $28 respectively. We estimate the cartridges to last a very long time: around 11 months. After 2 years of typical use, we estimate the total cost to be $457, typical for an inkjet. The estimated yearly cost is $79, also typical for this printer type. So the 3-, 4- and 5-year estimates are $536, $615 and $694 respectively.
NOTE. The printer takes up a lot of space and might be more suitable for an office than a small desktop.
PRINTER FIRMWARE. Firmware is software that exists inside the printer. All models are evaluated using the latest firmware version available at the time of testing. The firmware version of the Canon Maxify MB5020 was not tested.
SOFTWARE. The collection of software accompanying the printer may include: the printer driver, printer applications, electronic user manual, (and for all-in-ones:) scanning, faxing, and OCR apps. These get installed on your personal computer. All models are evaluated with a Windows 10 PC using the latest version of printer driver and printer support apps available at the time of testing. The software version was not tested.
