Why My $99 Canon Printer Beats Your $399 Printer Anyday

I recently bought a new printer from Staples and I frickin love it. It’s amazing and it only cost $99. I use it for my small business and personal use, mostly for documents. I have not printed any photos with it. If you’re in the market for a new printer, you don’t need to splurge. Trust me.

Here’s why I love my $99 Canon printer.

1. As good for less

My Cannon Pixma MX922 is as good as the far more expensive laser printers I was considering. I literally told the Staples salesman that I was willing to spend $400, and, after showing me some of the more expensive printers, he walked over to this sleek black cat-like machine.

“Are you interested in an inkjet printer?” he said.

“Maybe. What’s the different with a laser printer?” I said. (Laser and inkjets are the two main types of printers. I had walked in intending to buy a laser printer, even though they are more expensive.)

“Well, basically laser printers are really good quality, but they are also relatively expensive. They couldn’t really get the cost down, so they went back and made inkjet’s better. They’re a whole lot cheaper, and just about as good.”

I was nearly sold. Almost as good as a printer four times the price? Wow! He wasn’t able to print out a test page but told me it had a two-week return policy.

2. All in one

It prints! It scans! It faxes! it copies! I love that one machine can do so many things. Not that I ever fax these days. If faxing is important to you, the Cannon Pixma MX922 has a 33.6 Kbps modem that faxes one page every three seconds.

3. Two-sided printing

It automatically prints longer documents on both sides of the paper. The environmentalist in me sings! And the Bargain Babe in me is happy to buy less paper. I was slightly disappointed to discover it does not do two-sided scanning. Only ding in it’s reputation so far. On the plus side, you can feed up to 35 pages in to the machine at once, which is great for when you are scanning long one-sided documents.

My Cannon Pixma prints at rates up to 15 pages per minute m in black-and-white and up to 10 pages per minute in color. It can hold 250 pieces of paper and 20 sheets of photo paper. As long as you don’t need to print huge documents all day long, it is fast enough. 

4. Bluetooth + USB

I can print from my laptop in another room, no cables or cords required! Once I got it set up, it works flawlessly on my laptop and my husband’s laptop. It has a 2.0 Bluetooth for wireless connection and a USB cable for thumb drives and old fashioned connections. It also works with Evernote, a productivity app.

5. Sleek look

It looks fancy, what can I say. And it has a tray that pops down when I print something. Then when I’m done it latches back up. Tidy!

6. Snooze mode

After a few minutes of no use, the printer goes to sleep, using a lot less energy than a machine left on full power. Take that, electricity bill!

7. Color!

The Cannon Pixma MX922 prints in amazing colors. The resolutions are up to 9,600 by 2,400 dpi in color and 600 x 600 dpi in black and white. I’ve printed documents with multiple colors, no problem. I’ve printed cartoon icons I’ve found in Google Images, looks great! I have not tried printing photos, however. I also shelled out $62 bucks for a starter kit of Cannon ink. Gulp! The printer comes with starter cartridges, but the salesman said they make them intentionally small so they run out soon. Cannon, like many other printer manufacturers, makes money on selling ink/toner cartridges, not on the printers themselves.

8. Screen guide + Easy set up

The interface on the printer is really easy to follow. The buttons are clearly marked, and the interface tells me what to do next by showing which icon to press next. I like that I was able to figure out how to use it WITHOUT reading the manual! I did, however, ask my husband to set it up for me. Turns out, I figured it out myself!

9. Others like it, too

Don’t take my advice (although really, you should). Check out the 4,522 people who have reviewed this printer on Amazon and given it 4-stars on average. That’s a lot of positive reviews. See all those happy reviews here (and the bad ones, too).

10. Low price

Did I mention I only spent $99? Best home office printer ever!

Do you like your printer? What kind is it?

This post contains affiliate links. All opinions are my own.