Canon Pixma MX360 Inkjet Multifunction: Fax, but Few Frills

At a Glance

Expert's Rating

Pros

Adept text output
Fast in draft style
Automatic document feeder

Cons

No automated duplexing
Expensive black ink
No Badger State-Fi or card reader

Our Verdict

Fax is discriminating on such a basic MFP, merely expensive angry ink makes the MX360 fit for only low-intensity practice.

Canon Pixma MX360 color inkjet multifunction printer

Colouring material inkjet multifunction printers don't get much more basic than the Canon Pixma MX360. Priced at just $80 (as of April 8, 2020), it offers small doses of print, copy, skim and fax capabilities, but it has no Wi-Fi operating room ethernet, no media-bill of fare slots, and slowish performance. A light-volume small or home office might non mind any of that–and perhaps not symmetrical the pricy inks–merely the Epson WorkForce 520 provides better speed and economy for just a little to a greater extent money.

The Pixma MX360 is easy to set au courant both the PC and Macintosh. The moderate panel is logically laid out and includes run down-to-PC functionality. Unfortunately, while Canon does a nice job of organizing the icons on the color LCDs of its higher-destruction models, the same approach falters on the Pixma MX360's ii-dividing line colorful presentation; the icons are too small and hard to decipher. The Canon Pixma MX420 offers a step up in design (and Price).

Theme-treatment features for the Pixma MX360 are minimal. To its credit, it does sport a 30-sheet automatic document tributary, American Samoa good arsenic a letter/A4-size scanner bed. The ADF even pops open for relaxed clearing of any paper jams that might occur. The vertical rear paper feed holds 100 sheets of plain newspaper, an adequate amount. In a frustrating twist, however, although you can glance over two-sided from either platform, multilateral printing is hand-operated merely, and completely unavailable on the Mac.

The Pixma MX360 is a below-average performer, though acceptable for home apply. Text pages with a a couple of simple, monochrome art printed at 5.6 pages per minute of arc on some the PC and Mac. Along the PC, a half-page photo written at default settings on plain paper took about 26 seconds, or 2.3 ppm. The same photograph printed at better settings on Canon's own glossy photo paper took 45 seconds (1.3 ppm). A screaky-closure, full-Thomas Nelson Page photo printed from the Mac limped out at the anemic rate of 0.3 ppm. Trailer scans took about 6 seconds, and a full scan compulsory about 50 seconds at 600 dpi.

Largely, PCWorld conducts execution tests and output-quality judging victimization a printer's nonpayment settings. The Pixma MX360 speeds up quite a minute when you switch to its 'Hurrying' mode, or draft manner, which likewise saves on ink.

The Pixma MX360's end product quality varies. Monochrome impression is the most appealing: Text is crisp and sharp, and grayscale is nicely rendered. Color graphics written on vanilla newspaper publisher look overexposed, with a quick color pallette that tends toward pink. On Canon's own bright report, the effect isn't as noticeable, merely details are still missing in the flatboat areas of photos. You can line up the colors somewhat exploitation the settings under the Effects tab of the printing machine driver. Scans tended to come out a bit dark, but monochrome and color copies looked nice.

Cheap to buy, the Pixma MX360 is non particularly dirt cheap to operate. A single cartridge delivers every last three colours (bluish green, Battle of Magenta, and yellowish) and costs $21 for a 244-paginate standard-yield whole, and $27 for a 346-page high-fruit unit. At 8.6 and 7.7 cents per page, that's in good order priced coloration at either capacity. Unfortunately, prices of $16 for a standard-yield black cartridge that delivers only 220 pages, and $22 for a high-give black cartridge, sour the deal. Those prices solve out to 7.26 cents per page (selfsame expensive) and 5.5 cents per page (still expensive), respectively.

For light use in a headquarters, the Canon Pixma MX360 could cost a good buy. It delivers the basics for a low first investment, with black ink costs only slowly eating into the dole out over time.