A step up from the humblest all-in-one inkjets

I focus on printer and scanner technology and reviews. I have been writing about computer technology since well before the advent of the internet. I have authored or co-authored 20 books—including titles in the popular Bible, Secrets, and For Dummies series—on digital design and desktop publishing software applications. My published expertise in those areas includes Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Photoshop, and QuarkXPress, as well as prepress imaging technology. (Over my long career, though, I have covered many aspects of IT.)

It's not cheap to operate, but the entry-level Canon Pixma TR4720 prints exceptionally well, making it a good choice for family rooms and home offices.

Canon has upgraded its Pixma TR4000 series of all-in-one printers, with the TR4520 reviewed here in January 2019 replaced by the new Pixma TR4720 Wireless All-in-One Printer ($119.99). Like its predecessor and most Pixmas in its price range, this inkjet printer/copier/scanner/fax prints well, with especially attractive photos, and its standard automatic document feeder (ADF) makes it a better value than several other entry-level family and home office machines. The competition at this price point is tremendous, and given the TR4720's skimpy paper tray and steep per-page running costs, it's clearly designed for relatively low-volume printing and copying environments. But if you don't push it much beyond, say, 100 or so prints per month, this Pixma should serve you and your family well.

Meet the new Pixma; it's a lot like the old Pixma. Both the new TR4720 and old TR4520, for instance, measure 7.5 by 17.7 by 11.7 inches (HWD) and weigh 12.7 pounds. This is relatively compact and light compared to several rivals including the HP Envy 6455e, the Brother MFC-J805DW, and the Editors' Choice-award-winning Epson Expression Premium XP-7100, though you can find even smaller and lighter inkjets like HP's Tango X.

As mentioned, many AIOs in this price range lack an automatic document feeder for copying or scanning multipage documents without having to place sheets on the scanning glass one at a time. The Pixma TR4720, like the printers mentioned above except for the Tango X, comes with a 20-sheet ADF. (The Tango supports scanning via your smartphone or tablet.)

Like several entry-level inkjets, the Pixma doesn't divide the four standard process colors—cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, commonly known as CMYK—into four ink cartridges. Instead, it has just two, one large black ink tank and a tricolor cartridge that holds the cyan, magenta, and yellow hues.

Compared to printers with four or more ink cartridges, the two-tank method is potentially wasteful: As soon as one of its colors runs dry, you'll have to replace the tricolor cartridge, even if the other two colors have plenty of ink left. Of the AIOs mentioned here so far, only the Brother MFC-J805DW (four cartridges) and Epson XP-7100 (five) avoid this shortcoming.

Another flaw of the Pixma TR4720 is its 20th-century control panel, which consists of several buttons for navigation, configuration, and starting copy and scan jobs; a number pad for entering fax numbers; and a two-line monochrome LCD instead of a color touch screen.

Any photo printer, of course, will benefit from a handy touch screen with the ability to display graphical representations of photos and documents, as well as easy-to-navigate menus with color icons and configurable presets. The TR4720's control panel is not pretty, or cool, or pretty cool, but with a little practice it'll serve well enough for walk-up tasks, though you may find it more convenient to use Canon's Print Inkjet/Selphy App on your Android or iOS smartphone or tablet. (More on the bundled software and connectivity options in a moment.)

Paper handling consists of one 100-sheet input drawer; you can remove the letter- or legal-size paper to load up to 20 sheets of premium 4-by-6- or 5-by-7-inch photo paper. I can't quote a recommended monthly duty cycle or print volume, as Canon (like Epson) hasn't published those specs in some time.

Of the rivals mentioned above, the Brother holds up to 150 sheets and has a recommended monthly volume of 1,500 pages (5,000 maximum). The Envy 6455e holds 100 sheets with a suggested monthly volume of 400 prints (max 1,000). The Epson XP-7100 and HP Tango X hold 120 and 50 pages respectively.

Standard connectivity options consist of hooking up a single computer via a USB 2.0 cable; 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi; and Wireless Direct (Wi-Fi Direct compatible). In addition to Wi-Fi Direct, other mobile options include the Canon Print Inkjet/Selphy app. You also get Canon's Easy-PhotoPrint Editor for tweaking and enhancing photos and Creative Park for making calendars, collages, photo albums, and more.

You won't find support for USB flash drives or SD card flash memory, though you can get the latter (as well as five ink tanks and Ethernet) by stepping up to the Pixma TR8520. But you do get voice-activated operation via Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant, letting you print, copy, and perform several other tasks ("Google, print today's calendar and to-do list") without getting out of the bathtub.

Canon rates the TR4720 at 8.8 monochrome pages per minute (ppm), with color pages at an even more tepid 4.4ppm. This isn't the slowest in its class, but it's close. The 2019 Pixma TR4520's rated speeds were the same, while HP's Envy 6455e is rated at up to 7ppm and Epson's XP-7100 at a more impressive 15.8ppm black and 11ppm color.

I ran my tests over USB from our standard Intel Core i5 testbed running Windows 10 Pro. The Pixma printed our standard 12-page Microsoft Word test document at a rate of 9ppm, fractionally above its rating. Over several runs, the HP Envy averaged 6.9ppm to the Brother MFC-J805DW's 10.1ppm, with the Epson XP-7100 quickest at 13.3ppm.

Next, I clocked the TR4720 as it printed our collection of colorful and complex business documents, consisting of full-page Adobe Acrobat PDFs mixing graphics and text in various typefaces and colors; Microsoft Excel spreadsheets and accompanying full-page charts and graphs; and PowerPoint handouts with colorful fonts and graphics. I combined these scores with the results from our text document to get an average score of 4.9ppm.

That beat the 2019 Pixma by 0.4ppm and was on the high side among the machines discussed here. HP's Tango X, for instance, managed an uninspiring 1.8ppm, while the Envy 6455e did only slightly better at 2.8ppm. The Brother roughly tied the Canon at 4.8ppm while the Epson XP-7100 churned out 6.3ppm.

Finally, I clocked the AIO as it printed some highly detailed and colorful 4-by-6-inch snapshots. On the highest-quality setting, it took an average of 59 seconds to print each borderless snapshot. That's a second slower than its predecessor but six seconds quicker than Canon's rating.

It may take a while to get it, but if you start with good-looking, quality content, the Pixma TR4720's output won't disappoint you. Text was just a bit too dark but well-shaped and attractive, with nicely spaced lines and characters—not exactly laser quality, but clean and highly legible.

The Canon also did a good job with our full-page charts and graphs. Dark and gradient fills came out with little to no blotching or uneven ink distribution, and colors were both brilliant and accurate. So were the Pixma's photos; Canon and HP both do a good job of producing good-looking photos with two-cartridge inkjet technology, though their results aren't quite as colorful and detailed as images from five- and six-ink machines. Unless you're exceptionally picky, however, they're more than attractive enough for most scenarios.

I did notice while printing a bunch of full-page, color-rich documents that the TR4720 tore through ink tanks at an alarming rate, clearly indicating that this is not your best choice for producing stacks of colorful handouts.

The primary drawback to low-cost inkjets like these is that they use small, relatively expensive cartridges. Monochrome pages from the TR4720 will cost you about 8.5 cents each, with color pages roughly 18.3 cents. (Keep in mind that we're talking about pages with 5% to 25% ink coverage, not letter-size photos or PowerPoints with 90% to 100% coverage.)

You can get your photos and other print jobs for much less money depending on how much you're willing to pay for the printer. Among the models here, the two Canons and the Epson are cartridge-based machines with no cost-per-page-cutting features, unlike bulk-ink Canon MegaTank and Epson EcoTank printers refilled from bottles. The XP-7100, at 5 cents for black and 13.7 cents for color pages, is a little cheaper to use than the TR4720, but still strictly a low-volume consumer AIO.

Brother's MFC-J805DW is, however, one of the company's INKvestment Tank models, meaning it has lower operating costs—slightly less than a penny for monochrome pages and just under a nickel per color page, which is great for an entry-level printer. The HP Envy is eligible for that company's Instant Ink subscription program, in which you pay a flat rate (anything from 10 to 3.6 cents per page) whether printing a page of double-spaced text or a letter-size borderless photo. Note that the cheapest plans are for 300 and 700 pages per month, which is probably overkill for this level of machine. One thing's for sure: The more you print, the more the Pixma TR4720 and other traditional cartridge inkjets cost to use, versus AIOs with ink reservoirs or discount incentives.

You'll find a stack of compact, entry-level inkjet AIOs to choose from, all of which print nicely and offer varying features. The TR4720, for instance, boasts the automatic document feeder that many rock-bottom AIOs lack. Their operating costs relegate these printers to light duty, but if you only need to print or copy 100-odd pages per month and want good-looking photos, this Pixma is a reliable pick.

It's not cheap to operate, but the entry-level Canon Pixma TR4720 prints exceptionally well, making it a good choice for family rooms and home offices.

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I focus on printer and scanner technology and reviews. I have been writing about computer technology since well before the advent of the internet. I have authored or co-authored 20 books—including titles in the popular Bible, Secrets, and For Dummies series—on digital design and desktop publishing software applications. My published expertise in those areas includes Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Photoshop, and QuarkXPress, as well as prepress imaging technology. (Over my long career, though, I have covered many aspects of IT.)

In addition to writing hundreds of articles for PCMag, over the years I have also written for many other computer and business publications, among them Computer Shopper, Digital Trends, MacUser, PC World, The Wirecutter, and Windows Magazine. I also served as the Printers and Scanners Expert at About.com (now Lifewire).

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