Early last year, we’ve reviewed the Pixma G3000 which was the top-of-the-line among the G series of printers from the brand. We liked its wireless offerings and the ink tank system but also had a few concerns regarding its build quality and the loud sound it makes when copying.
Fast forward to 2017 and we have its successor on our hands, the Canon Pixma G4000. This all-in-one printer has everything its predecessor had but adds the capability to fax documents making it a potentially ideal office tool. How much of an improvement is it when compared to the G3000? Read on and find out in this quick review.
Table of Contents
Design and Construction
The G4000 still carries the same boxy design as the G3000, only taller. The material used is pretty much the same polycarbonate body we’ve seen on its predecessor. Its all black matte finish blends well with other hardware on an office setup.
Canon migrated the control buttons to the left side, this time including a number pad to use for faxing documents. Here we have the power button along with the stop button and a Black/Color start button.
The flatbed scanner can be accessed by lifting the top part of the G4000. It reads and takes in papers of up to A4 in size.
To see the printing head along with its other internals, another layer is to be lifted up with an arm that locks it in place. Here, you can refill the ink tanks quickly.
Being a member of the G series, the ink tanks are easily in view so you know exactly when it’s time for a refill.
Features
As we’ve mentioned, the G4000 is an all-in-one printer, hence, it can print, copy, scan, and fax. It prints using a 4-color CMYK combination namely: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. The company promises that like its predecessors (G3000 and G2000), this model is also ink efficient and promises up to 7,000 pages of color documents or 6,000 pages of black documents.
Connectivity-wise, the G4000 prides itself for being wireless. It has a built-in Wi-Fi and connects both to Apple and Android devices through the Canon Print Inkjet and Selphy app. It can also print straight from Facebook, Instagram, Dropbox, and Google Drive using the Canon Pixma Cloud Link service.
Like what we’ve mentioned in our G3000 review, setting up wireless connections could be a bit tedious and this is still the case for the G4000. Although, having this option is always a welcome feature more so for office setup.
Another new offering in addition to its capability to fax is a 20-page ADF or Automatic Document Feeder which eliminates the need to manually replace each page when scanning, copying, printing, or faxing multiple-page documents.
Canon made the ink tanks integrated to the body to save space and achieve a cleaner look. There are three tanks for cyan, magenta, and yellow on the right while on the opposite end is for the black ink with a bigger container.
Performance
We did a few prints to test the G4000’s speed and quality. Through wired connection using a laptop, it took about 34 seconds to print a colored picture in full page. This is about 10 seconds longer when compared to the previous model but the G4000 does scanning quieter which has been our issue with the past G3000. On the other hand, copying a full page takes around the same time at 32 seconds.
It was able to produce images with good details and faithful color reproduction. Upon closer inspection, there were noticeable print lines but it’s easily forgivable since it is not a dedicated photo printer. In addition, printing text remains crisp with good contrast.
Conclusion
The G4000 still does what the G series printers have been offering but it now has the fax feature which is a handy addition since it’s still the preference of sending documents in some offices today. It sports a built-in Wi-Fi for printing images and files straight from a smartphone or tablet.
It still has the same plastic matte body which easily blends into any office setup and is efficient with its Automatic Document Feeder.
At Php12,995, the G4000 has some notable improvements compared to its predecessor which bumped up the price from the previous sub-Php10K tag. Basically, what you’re paying for is the capability to fax but if that’s not too important in your workplace, you can stick with the reliable G3000.
What we liked about it:
- Decent and saturated picture quality
- Sharp text
- Prints quieter than predecessor
- Wireless printing
What we didn’t like:
- Prints slower than predecessor
It can copy and scan legal-sized documents using ADF, right?