Canon Pixma MG6450 review

Canon’s all-in-one inkjet printers are no stranger to PC Pro’s A List – the Pixma MG5450 currently resides in the consumer all-in-one top spot – and now the Pixma MG6450 is looking to add another gong to the range’s trophy cupboard.

The rounded black plastic chassis will be familiar to anyone who has owned a Pixma model manufactured in the past two years. And the MG6450 provides a familiar line-up of connections: it has both USB 2 and 802.11bgn Wi-Fi, and there’s an SD and Memory Stick Pro Duo card reader on the printer’s front edge. It’s also capable of printing directly from Android and iOS devices thanks to the free, Pixma Printing Solutions app.

Oddly, however, the MG6450 appears to be something of a downgrade on the MG6350. That’s because Canon has been fiddling with its naming system. In fact the successor to the MG6350 is the new MG7150; this printer (the MG6450) sits further down the range.

That means it doesn’t have the MG6350’s grey ink tank, leaving the MG6450 with a five-ink print engine; there’s no 10/100 Ethernet; the card reader doesn’t support CompactFlash cards; and although the 7.5cm colour display hasn’t shrunk in size, there’s no touchscreen capability.

Despite this , the Pixma MG6450 is still a highly competent machine. As ever, the Canon excels across the board; mono A4 prints whipped by at 14ppm, and text was laid down cleanly and with near-laser levels of crispness. A4 colour printing saw the MG6450 put in an even more impressive performance, jetting out vivid colour sheets at a rapid 9.6ppm. Scanning and copying speed suffers a little, though. Our 6 x 4in photo took 58 seconds to scan at 600dpi, although the results were still very good, with faithful colours and plenty of detail.

In photo printing, the MG6450 puts in a fine performance. Our test prints revealed a tendency to crush the darkest greys into black; we did note a slight improvement in shadow detail once we swapped paper stocks to Canon’s Pro Platinum photo paper, however. Despite the black crush, the Canon still churned out lovely photo prints, and while there was a tendency towards oversaturation, the overall colour balance was noticeably more warm and natural than Canon’s A-Listed Pixma MG5450.

Going by Canon’s claimed ink yields, running costs are quite reasonable, too. Opt for the largest XL-size ink tanks, and a mono A4 print costs 2.9p, while a colour A4 print costs 9.3p. Colour A4 photos will set you back 16.5p each. We wouldn’t recommend opting for the smaller capacity cartridges, though, since you’ll end up paying out in the long run – the smaller tanks work out at 4p per mono A4 print; 13.8p per colour A4 print; and a whopping 25.9p per A4 photo.

We’re sad to see that the Pixma MG6450 has lost its predecessor’s generous array of features and six-ink engine, but it’s still a great printer; it serves up fast, classy-looking prints and doesn’t cost the earth. We’d recommend snapping up our current A-List choice, the Pixma MG5450, while you still can – units are currently selling for as little as £90 inc VAT – but once they’re gone, the Pixma MG6450 will prove a more than worthy alternative.