Canon Pixma MP140

...Printer==

The Canon Pixma MP140 is quite a good looking printer, not too big. It is grey in colour with the paper support, pullout paper tray and operation panel all being dark grey. The printer came well packaged with a set-up sheet, a quick start manual and a CD-Rom with the complete user guide, which you can install onto your computer. Also included with the printer is the power cable and a black and a colour ink cartridge. Unfortunately ...
...which you will need if you want to connect your printer to your computer. We were able to pick up a value USB cable in Tesco for less than £2.

The set up sheet is just a glossy A3 sheet, which explains through the use of pictures in a very simple and easy to follow manner, the initial set up of your printer; from removing the protective strips from inside the machine, setting up the paper trays, installing the ink cartridges and attaching ... more

Whilst buying a £55 digital camera recently from Tesco Direct my daughter was lucky enough to receive a free printer worth £89.97. She was obviously over the moon and so was I because she loves to use all my ink printing her photos!

A Bit About The Printer

The Canon Pixma MP140 is quite a good looking printer, not too big. It is grey in colour with the paper support, pullout paper tray and operation panel all being dark grey. The printer came well packaged with a set-up sheet, a quick start manual and a CD-Rom with the complete user guide, which you can install onto your computer. Also included with the printer is the power cable and a black and a colour ink cartridge. Unfortunately you do not get a USB cable with the printer, which you will need if you want to connect your printer to your computer. We were able to pick up a value USB cable in Tesco for less than £2.

The set up sheet is just a glossy A3 sheet, which explains through the use of pictures in a very simple and easy to follow manner, the initial set up of your printer; from removing the protective strips from inside the machine, setting up the paper trays, installing the ink cartridges and attaching the power cable to installing the CD-Rom onto your computer. It is explained for both Windows and Macintosh computers.

Once you have done all the basic start up procedures you can then turn to your Quick Start Guide Booklet, which again is very easy to follow and self explanatory. If you do however have any problems following this booklet then the CD-Rom explains in great detail all the workings of your printer and gives help with any problems you may have.

Using The Printer

When we first set up the printer, as I said earlier, we did not have a USB cable to attach it to Erin's laptop, but being a typical 11 year old she wanted to use it immediately! It is very simple to use without your computer. We were able to scan and copy photographs or documents we already had. Once we had done this we could then choose whether we wanted the copy to be in black and white or colour, we could also shrink or enlarge the item to fit the paper we had. You are also able to choose the number of copies you would like, with the numbers being displayed on a little LCD screen on the operation panel. The operation panel was very simple and easy to use with good sized buttons that were easy to press, with each button having its use written along side it so it doesn't matter if you forget what they all do.

Once we had the USB cable attached to the computer, again it couldn't be more self explanatory and easy to use. Printing photos is done through Easy Photo Print, a very apt name. You are taken through 3 different stages:

**Image Selection**

This, as the name would suggest, is where you can scroll through all your photographs and pick the ones you want to print. I like this function because all photographs in each of your folders are displayed and you just tick all the photos you want to print and how many copies of each you require. It was great being able to choose all your photos for printing at once, with my software you have to pick one picture at a time, which can take a while.

**Paper Selection**

Again as the name would suggest this is where you can enter all your paper choices from size of paper to quality and type. You can also choose whether you would like to print single sided or double sided.

**Layout**

Erin's favourite selection! You choose how you would like the photograph to appear on the page. Landscape, portrait, 2 on one page, 4 on one page, with a border, without a border, you can even choose to have up to 80 prints of the same photograph on one A4 sheet, great for handing out all those daft photos to all your friends!
So as you can probably guess the photo printing side is very easy to do and great fun. We then went on to try printing out a word document and again this was very simple.

Yet another function this printer has is that it supports Exif Print. This is where, using the correct USB cable, you can attach compatible cameras directly to the printer without having to upload the photos onto your computer first. Again this was very easily done and did save a lot of time, although I personally prefer to see the photos on the computer first, before printing, I think it's easier to see the quality of the picture and indeed whether I want to print it or not. Having said this it was still a great function and very useful.

Print Performance

Yes you've guessed it, I can't fault this either! As far as ink jet printers go the quality of the photos is great. The ink cartridges give a great performance and seem to last quite a while. We have had the printer since the start of September and Erin has printed MANY photos over the months. The black ink cartridge is still almost full but the colour one is only now beginning to run low.

Some Technical Information

Compatible Cartridges PG-37, CL-38 (optional - PG-40, CL-41)
Features of Product 4800 x 1200 dpi print resolution. ChromaLife100 for long lasting photos. Borderless printing & copying 10x15cm+A4
Copy Speed Mono = 19, colour = 15ppm
Maximum Print Size A4
Maximum Resolution Horizontal 1200
Maximum Resolution Vertical 4800
Pages Per Minute - Black 20
Pages Per Minute - Colour 15
Paper Tray Capacity 100
Product Depth 38.1 cm
Product Height 18.1 cm
Product Weight 6.3kg
Product Width 44.3 cm
Scanning Resolution in DPI 600 x 1200

Te replace the ink cartridges the black one costs around about £10.49 and the coloured one is about £18.49, although I have seen them cheaper online.

I have thought long and hard about how I could fault this printer and what problems we had, if any, but I genuinely cannot find any fault and we certainly have not had any problems. If I had to fault something the only fault I can find is I feel you should have been given a USB cable with the printer but then that's not really a fault that's just me being picky!

I hope I covered everything. Thanks for reading.

Also posted elsewhere under the same name.

© lel1969 

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