PROS
- especially for photographs, excellent print quality.
- For the price, a good software package and feature set.
- Auto-duplexing.
- ADF 20 sheets.
CONS
- No WiFi Direct.
- slow printing of documents.
- high operating expenses
Specs
- Pixma TR4520 is the product name.
- Manufacturer: Canon
- Barcode: 2984C002AA
- 13 pounds in weight.
- Dimensions of the product: 17.2 x 11.7 x 7.5 in.
- Guarantee: One year
- Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android are all supported.
- Printer model: Inkjest AIO
- Two cartridges (black and color)
- No duplex printing
- Supported paper dimensions include 4 x 6, 5 x 7, 8 x 10, Letter, Legal, and U.S. #10 envelopes.
- Ethernet, Wi-Fi, AirPrint, Cloud Print, and the Canon PRINT app are available for connectivity.
Both the Canon PIXMA TR4520 and the HP OfficeJet Pro 8025 are all-in-one color inkjets intended for home offices, but the HP offers noticeably superior overall performance. The HP prints substantially faster, delivers significantly more pages at a significantly lower cost each print, and feels much more durable. Additionally, the HP supports Wi-Fi Direct, and it utilizes ink more effectively thanks to its three color cartridges rather than the Canon’s one tri-color cartridge. The Canon, on the other hand, produces noticeably better-looking, more-detailed photographs.
Contents
Design:
Overall, the Pixma TR4500 doesn’t appear antiquated, but the controls and interface do. The Pixma TR4500 has a small LCD display and a wide range of physical buttons in an era where many entry- and mid-level inkjets have switched to large, vibrant screens. Although the display is quite basic and a little challenging to read if you aren’t looking at it at just the correct angle, the printer is fairly simple to use thanks to the sizeable buttons.
Because the printer’s display and control panel are on the top, using it while standing up and looking down is simpler. You won’t be able to read the display if you try to use it while seated in front of the printer because of the aforementioned viewing angle problems.
The automatic document feeder is hidden behind a flip-up panel that is located to the right of the display and control panel (ADF). A pocket that has been cut out below that is intended to hold documents after they have gone through the ADF.
Clearing paper jams is a cinch because the control panel and ADF both fold up. If you need to scan a single document, something that is too thick or oddly shaped to fit through the ADF, or if you need to scan a single document, you can also access a basic flatbed scanner by flipping the ADF up.
The paper cartridge and the platform that extends to catch printed documents are visible when the front of the printer is opened. Conveniently linked to the front cover is the paper cartridge.
Flipping down a panel positioned behind the main cover provides additional access to the internals. This enables you to access paper in case of a jam and slot in the two ink cartridges.
In case you want to use the printer’s fax capabilities, the back of the device has a phone jack that is plugged in, an Ethernet port, a USB port, and a power cord connector. Additionally, a panel may be removed quickly for increased access to paper jams.
Setup Method:
The Pixma TR4500 should be simple to set up. To begin, insert one color and one black ink cartridge securely before shutting the front of the device. The Canon PRINT app can then be used to configure the printer.
The setup process should be quick and simple, but I had a problem where paper of different widths got stuck and generated error codes. I always use the same set of test papers for my printers, and never have I seen a printer go through so many sheets.
The process was relatively painless once the printer calmed down and stopped devouring my paper. Using the Canon app on my phone, I was able to set everything up and connect to Wi-Fi so that I could begin printing.
Print Quality:
The print quality of the PIXMA TR4520 is excellent, and it would be entirely fine to use it in a more formal business setting if certain restrictions weren’t in place. Even when printing in relatively small font sizes for black and white text documents, the text was clear and readable.
Given that this is an entry-level all-in-one, mixed text and graphics, including color graphics, also turned out rather nicely. On standard paper, color reproduction was rather faded out, but it performed admirably with gradients and extremely fine lines.
The PIXMA TR4520 prints some unexpectedly high-quality photos despite its modest cost and dependency on a single color ink cartridge. I printed several different images in 4×6-inch and 8×10-inch sizes, and each one was consistently vivid and brilliant with gorgeously saturated colors and fine details that were handled with skill. Not up to par with a quality photo printer, but decent for an all-in-one at this price point.
Although the price of ink is high enough that you probably won’t want to use this device as your primary photo printer, the TR4520 is unquestionably a step up from what I’ve come to expect from a photo printer in this price bracket.
Printing Speed:
The PIXMA TR4520 produces surprisingly high-quality prints, but they are painfully sluggish to finish. It prints black and white text at a rate that I timed at fewer than 9 pages per minute (ppm), which is much slower than other printers I’ve tested in this range, the majority of which print at a rate of up to 11ppm.
Even more slowly, the PIXMA TR4520 prints color pages at a rate of less than five pages per minute.
Printing color photos goes a little bit better with the PIXMA TR4520. My 4×6-inch test images took an average of little under a minute to print. It isn’t exactly a speed demon, but it isn’t that far off from other printers in this price range that I’ve tested either.
Scan and Copy Quality:
The PIXMA TR4520 produces acceptable black-and-white copies of documents with legible text and acceptable graphic reproduction. Although a little less stunning and slowly, color copying is still more than acceptable for such a cheap printer.
Operating expenses:
Although the PIXMA TR4520 is reasonably priced and produces output of a higher caliber than I had anticipated, the continuing expenditures of running this printer make it unsuitable for anything other than occasional home usage.
The MSRP of the tri-color cartridge is $23, while the MSRP of the normal black cartridge is $18. Both cartridges have a page yield of 180. The XL cartridges cost $26 and $30 each and have a capacity of 300 pages.
These Canon cartridges, in my experience, don’t last as long as the page rating. However, even if they did, color pages would cost extra, at least $0.08 each page. That’s good for printing the occasional paper or picture, but in a setting with medium to high print volumes, the cost will pile up quickly.
Connectivity:
Other than operating expenses, connectivity choices is the only area where the PIXMA TR4520 truly lives up to its affordable pricing. There isn’t Wi-Fi Direct or NFC connectivity here, but it does offer basic Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity and allows you to print from your computer wired or wirelessly or via the Canon PRINT app.
In addition, this printer has an antiquated USB 2.0 Type B connector rather than the swift USB 3.0 Type-A ports found on many competitors. And you only get that. The limited connectivity options are understandable given the overall low cost of this unit, but they are still a drawback.
Paper Management:
A single 100-sheet tray, which you may set up to hold a number of different sizes of paper, including photo paper, is a feature of the Pixma TR4500. Although the capacity should be sufficient for occasional home printing, the printer’s size makes it difficult for me to use in my home office for extended periods of time.
The Epson WF2760, one of the printers I’ve tried in this price bracket, normally holds 150 sheets, and printers made for heavier use frequently have two trays or at least a secondary paper feed.
