Canon’s small office Maxify MB5360 inkjet printer provides good quality text and passable colour output, and is most notable for its relatively economical inks.
Want a cheap inkjet for your office? Knock yourself out with any of a number of sub-$100 MFCs that’ll provide simple print, scan and copy processes, albeit with the obvious catches that you’ll suffer in terms of features, print speeds and especially the price you pay for replacement inks when the inkwells run dry. It’s no exaggeration to say that many of these units will sting you for more money in replacement inks than they will for the printer bodies.
That’s not so much of an issue if you have relatively moderate print needs, but if you’re regularly printing in colour, it can be an expensive and annoying proposition to have to change cartridges all the time. Canon’s not alone in pitching to the small office (3-5 users) space with an MFC. They sent me a Maxify MB5360 to review, which is the “hero” product of the Maxify range.
Setup of the Maxify MB5360 follows every printer norm you can think of, from unpacking tape that has to be wound off each part, installation of the three colour and single black ink cartridges and connection to wired, wireless or USB connections. The Maxify MB5360’s 3 inch display screen isn’t massive, but it’s responsive enough to cover its basic print, copy, scan and fax functionality, all of which can also be run through Canon’s print apps as well as the need suits. As a printer focused on the small office space, it also includes duplexing functionality and multiple paper trays (250 sheets each) and the ability to load paper from the top of the printer as well, which can be handy if you’re doing smaller print jobs such as photo printing.
Print quality for basic black documents was very good through the Maxify MB5360. Canon rates the Maxify MB5360 as capable of printing at up to 23 pages per minute with regular black coverage. My own tests with a sample text document fell just a little short of that at an average of around 18 pages per minute, but that’s still nicely within striking range of Canon’s claims, which are, as with every printer manufacturer, covered by that “up to” rating.
For colour documents the Maxify MB5360 is reasonably capable, although it’s not a true photo printer if you need more heavy duty photo work. It will print photos, but they’re nothing special to look at, and rather obviously lacking in brightness compared to a dedicated photo model. Again, that’s a matter of matching the right printer to your needs, rather than an absolute failing of the MB5360 itself.
The Maxify MB5360 connects over Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n) and wired ethernet as well as via USB, although a USB cable is not included in the packaging. Given the asking price, that does feel rather cheap, but then the Maxify MB5360 really sells itself on its cloud based printing chops, so perhaps USB is a bit passe in this sense. It’ll print over direct Wi-Fi from PC or Mac, as well as via Apple’s AirPrint and Google’s Cloud Print. Finally, Canon’s own Maxify Cloud Link allows you to upload scans to the cloud and print documents directly from a variety of online sources sans PC input.
Where the Maxify MB5360 is meant to stand out is in its economical running costs. It’s designed for moderate small office usage, with a suggested yield of up to 2,500 mono and 1,500 colour pages from Canon’s XL ink tanks. Naturally, those XL tanks cost a little more than the regular tanks.
Canon’s stated policy for some time is that it doesn’t list RRPs on its products in Australia, leaving pricing matters “up to dealers”. Searching around online suggests that you’ll pay around $58 for the XL black cartridge, and around $45 each for the cyan, magenta and yellow cartridges. That would suggest an average cost per mono print page of 2.3c, and up to 12.8c per page for colour printing, depending on exact colour saturation.
There were a few small niggles that emerged during my tests. The Maxify MB5360 is very enthusiastic when it comes to sending pages out, and this often meant that they overshot the holding tray straight to the floor. That’s going to be problematic especially if you have an office where printed pages accumulate on the paper tray before collection.
Like its ink tanks, there’s no “stated” price for the Maxify MB5360 itself; at the time of writing the highest local price I could find it for was $349, but other vendors do offer it a little cheaper than that. If you’ve got the need for solid quantities of printing in a small office, it’s a worthy buy.
Great printer when it doesn’t jam up printing envelopes. Once cleared the printer goes through a cleaning process that takes about 5 minutes each time after a jam – BLOODY ANNOYING. Then again, the printer is like a mongrel cat. It spends more time cleaning itself than printing. I can only wonder where all the excess ink is going through these continuous and regular cleanings.
Maybe it’s planned that way so Canon can sell you more of the ridiculously OVERPRICED cartridges!!
Great machine until you put a faulty cartridge in and there is no way you can change it until it tells the printer it is empty to allow it to park the cartridge in the removal location. Then you ring Canon for assistance and are on hold forever! So now I have a printer that only prints in colour!!
I have found a way to get them out – after much much frustration with a faulty cartridge
Start the printer printing something – as soon as you hear the printer head unlock from the RH position – PUll the power cord out immediately – this unlocks the printer head/ink cartridge holder and you can then slide it across to the ink changing station – align the one you want to remove – then feel up and behind the blue eject thingy that doesnt work unless the cartridge is empty and there is a lever that when pressed ejects the cartridge – it is NOT the black flexible bit dangling behind the blue thingy (yeah I know very technical language) but a greyish coloured one (you dont see it until the printer head is across there) Hope this helps for you too.
I have had the same problem as Pauline after changing over cartridges. I have always used replacement compatible cartridges from ‘Ink Jet’ not necessarily Canon originals.
I changed the Black and Yellow about a week ago without problem however after replacing the Cyan tank today I find I’m getting the 5501 Error. Using Pauline’s method I am able to move the carriage to the ink changing station but because the tank is full it wont release. Although the printer is only about 6 months old and I have the extended Warranty from Harvey Norman I’m worried that I may have voided the warranty by not using the Canon brand ink tanks.
Not sure what to do from here. Any comments welcome