Printing has taken a little bit of a backseat in recent years as we move to a more digitalised norm. However, that doesn’t mean that we don’t need good printers especially when it comes to preserving memories in pictures or even printing that larger-than-life dungeon map for your D&D session. Even in home offices, printers still play a relatively crucial role in operations.
Canon’s PIXMA TS7770 is an all-in-one printer designed for home users and small offices. For this model, Canon was focusing on delivering high-quality prints with versatile functionality; the perfect combination for home offices and even crafters. Canon is looking to strike the perfect balance of affordability, ease of use, and performance
So, the big question is, does the Canon PIXMA TS7770 hit all the marks Canon sets for it and is it worth looking at if you’re looking for a printer? In this review, we’ll dive into its features, build quality, print quality, speed, and compatibility across platforms, while paying special attention to its print quality, speed, and multi-platform integration to answer this.
Design & Build Quality
The unit of the Canon PIXMA TS7770 that we got in for review was a white version of the printer. It looks sleek and chic, perfect for a minimalist setup. The printer itself isn’t too big measuring in at 35cm in length, 37cm in width and 17cm in height. It should be able to seamlessly blend into any workspace setup. The minimal design also hides its many physical features including a paper tray and a scanner bed.
The Canon PIXMA TS7770 boasts a sturdy build that feels durable despite its compact size. The printer’s build materials are a tad bit plasticy. However, Canon has made some choices that make it feel slightly more premium. With an overall design that emphasizes practicality, the PIXMA TS7770 has a finish that would need some maintenance in the long run. It has a textured mattified finish which will undoubtedly catch dust. It’s the unit we had that came with a white finish. We hope that the finish doesn’t hasten the yellowing of the printer itself.
Accessing the ink cartridges and clearing paper jams is straightforward. This is thanks to the design of the compact printer. Aside from the paper trays, the internals are relatively easy to access by opening a single panel. We have to give it to them, this is a pretty well-thought-out layout.
The control interface is also very well thought out. The interface can be raised away from the printer. This makes the items being displayed easy to read and interact with. While the control panel is not fully touchscreen, it features a clear and responsive LCD display. The display comes alongside tactile buttons that also allow you to interact with the printer. This hybrid approach makes the learning curve to use the printer shorter and strikes a balance between usability with durability.
Features
A printer is not just a printer anymore. We’ve become accustomed to printers coming with scanners and even software features that make them compelling additions to our setup. The Canon PIXMA TS7770 isn’t shying away from packing it in with the features. It comes equipped with a host of features that make it a solid contender in the all-in-one printer market.
Of course, being a printer designed for home offices and even small and medium enterprises, the TS7770 is an all-in-one. It prints, scans and can even act as a photocopier if needed. If you really need it, it can even do faxing with the proper software setup. With how minimalist we’ve become over the years, running cables can be quite the hassle, this printer addresses that issue with wireless connectivity. It supports both WiFi and Bluetooth.
You don’t even have to be on your laptop to print – which is a big plus. Canon’s PRINT app allows you to print and even customise your print from your smartphone or tablet. This has become an expectation at this point when it comes to printers. However, Canon’s PRINT app has one of the easiest and most intuitive interfaces available now. Printing is as simple as sharing the document or picture with the app or navigating to the document with the file manager through the app. Even printing photos is pretty easy. You can even change the size and orientation of the print in the app. This also includes borderless printing options for more creative printing including borders and the like. You can even print directly from cloud storage services like Google Drive and Dropbox.
The printer also comes with multiple paper trays. This is both a boon and a curse when it comes to printing. We had a few issues with printing cause of this. The printer should prioritize its main feeder on most prints. However, we had times when it would pull from the secondary paper tray – which wasn’t loaded. There isn’t a simple way to adjust priorities when it comes to paper sources. That aside, the multiple trays are what allows the printer to be able to do duplex printing which is important for small businesses looking to keep up with their ESG pledges.
Print Quality & Speed
The print quality of the Canon PIXMA TS7770 is pretty sharp for an inkjet printer. Canon touts it as a high-performance printer, and we can comfortably say that it does live up to that moniker. The printer was able to handle a high load of print tasks and also print in an acceptable amount of time.
Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of it. The PIXMA TS7770 is an Inkjet printer, so compared to other printers in its price point, it’s neither the fastest nor is it the slowest. That said, if you’re looking to do monochrome printing, you may be better off looking at laser printers that print at much faster speeds. Be that as it may, the PIXMA TS7770 was able to print about 15 pages a minute in black and white and about 10 pages in colour during our time with it. That comes up to about 4 seconds a page for monochrome prints and about 6 seconds for colour – which isn’t too bad. However, when it came to photo printing, it was a whole different ballgame. A standard 4R size of 4×6 inches took only about 20 seconds to print. Of course, this doesn’t include the time needed for the ink to dry after which added about a minute or two depending on the colours and details of the print.
Speaking of, the prints that came out of the TS7770 were pretty spot on. When it came to text, the edges of the characters printed were crisp, even at smaller font sizes. The quality of text printing didn’t visibly deteriorate even on economy or draft mode.
When it came to colour printing, the printer was able to pull off some pretty detailed prints. During our time with the printer, we printed out some maps for D&D sessions. With the varied colours and illustrations, we could see that print quality was generally very good. It was able to handle high-resolution prints fairly easily and was able to reproduce illustrated colours with high accuracy. Lower-resolution prints were acceptable. Of course, the amount of detail depended heavily on the resolution of the source. There was also little to no visual banding; that is – until you ran low on ink. Overall, with illustrations, it did pretty well. This rang true even when it came to photo prints. The resulting photos were sharp and had high colour accuracy. However, if there was one issue I had with the printer it would be that photos or glossy prints tended to smear very readily and you needed to be careful handling it. This was also the same with glossy sticker paper.
Total Cost of Ownership and Other Features
The Canon PIXMA TS7770 isn’t just a printer. It comes with a scanner as well. This scanner is capable of 8- and 16-bit scans. This means that you’ll be able to scan documents and photos with a lot of detail and colour depth. This is true for both colour and monochrome scans. The scanner also allows it to act as a photocopy machine.
The printer’s built-in LED screen comes with a simple interface for its key features. You can copy, scan and print with a touch of the screen. Of course, if you’re connected wirelessly, prints can be sent without needing to interact physically with the printer. It’s also relatively silent when printing, scanning or copying.
Let’s talk about the cost of ownership – the Canon PIXMA TS7770 has a recommended retail price (RRP) of RM1,200 at the time of writing. However, we’ve seen some outlets selling the printer at RM1,580. The printer needs a colour ink cartridge and a black ink cartridge to print. The colour cartridge has an RRP of RM137, while the black has an RRP of RM95. Each of the cartridges lasts for about 180 pages only. So assuming you print 300 pages a month for both colour and black, you’ll be spending RM232 on ink alone every month excluding the cost of the printer itself. This is a tad high in our opinion given the options with ink tanks available in the market. That said, if you want detailed photo prints and even something that can be used for crafts, you may still want to consider the PIXMA TS7770 simply because of the added benefits of the high resolution.
A Complete Offering for Casual Users or Small and Medium Businesses Looking for A High-Performance Printer that Does It All
The Canon PIXMA TS7770 is a jack of all trades when it comes to printers. That said, users who require high-quality graphical or photo prints should be looking at this printer as a solid option. However, if budget is a big consideration, you may be better off looking at some of Canon’s other offerings as the cost of ownership can add up.
All in all, it’s a solid option for those looking for a printer that delivers convenience, features, compatibility and print quality.
