Canon Pixma MP510
Quick presentation and ergonomics
The transition from the MP160 to the 510 is quite radical. Higher quality (slightly), speed, more economical as well with the change to separate cartridges and finally there is also a color screen. In short, everything is improved, but the printer is twice the price.
For those who know the previous MP500, the change is even more impressive. Canon has succeeded in making its printer much more compact than in the past. The quality of prints has not evolved, but there is a lot less bulkiness. Closed, this AIO is no bigger than a mono function.
Quality of printing and scanning
Honestly, we have not seen the quality of Canon’s prints change for years, and we are waiting for the next jump in technology. However, we aren’t that impatient, because prints are already of excellent quality. Text is precise without spilling over into other colors, colors are quite good and ink drops are invisible.
Speed
Compared to the MP160, the office print speed of the MP510 is almost equal, but in photo mode it is much faster. Photos really do come out in 50 seconds (as Canon announces) versus about 2 minutes for the MP160. And this is for the same quality. It’s not necessarily a luxury and if you wish to print a dozen photos at a time, this difference is appreciable.
Ink costs
Here, it’s more simple than with the MP160 as there is only one cartridge. Where is gets complicated is in the different categories of printing. The MP510 is more economical than the MP160 in office printing (as low as 9 cents a page, or the price for the MP160 with high capacity cartridges) but significantly more expensive with photos at 17 cents in ink alone for a 10x15 cm, versus the MP160’s 13 cents. One possible reason for this difference in office printing is the particularly long lasting black cartridge for the price, which isn‘t used for photos. This just goes to show that separate cartridges don‘t automatically mean gains in autonomy-or at least if we print photos with various colors. According to our results, which uses a different set of photos than the ISO, we get a net advantage for the MP510 in photo costs compared to the MP160.
If we base our conclusions on the ISO numbers, the MP510’s cartridges hold 500 (black) to 900 pages (cyan) for office prints, and about 300 photos with a complete cartridge set.
A serious defect?
No. If you want to reduce its noise it has a silent mode. After the first few days when you might push it to its maximum, in normal functioning it’s almost unnoticeable.
One last point that could be in favor of HP…Canon’s separate cartridges are economical, however replacing them one by one could be bothersome. While we just need one extra cartridge handy for HP products, with Canon we have to keep an eye on the four colors. Sometimes we get the impression – most often false, except if we print a lot– of spending all our time just changing cartridges.
