Canon MF6530 Duplex Copier Laser Printer Review

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(More customer reviews)I have had four previous copiers in my home office over the years. Back in the stone ages (aka the late 70s and early 80s) I had one of those horrible 'pink paper' copiers, which was the only kind small and affordable enough for personal use. Next came a used Savin office copier in the mid 80s, then a Ricoh 'small office' copier in the late 80s and early 90s, and finally a Mita Copystar 'small office' copier until the present day.
Why am I telling you this? It is because I am not inexperienced with various copiers in home use, and it is because each machine has been a significant improvement over the previous. Each was less expensive to use (amortized purchase price per copy and supplies), faster, less hassle (fewer paper jams or general labor to use the machine), and each had better copy quality than the previous. I recall the prices were $800 (new), $600 (used), $1400 (new), $2000 (new), respectively. I mention this to set you up for the copier that is the subject of this review.
The Mita Copystar was a good machine, but took a couple of minutes after turning it on before it would make copies, I had to manually place each original on the platen (image table), it was slow, and it needed periodic service due to infrequent use and toner/drum issues, in order to maintain copy quality. The biggest problem was that it could not do double sides copies (it would misfeed if I tried), and there was no automatic document feeder, a real bummer as I stood there manually feeding each original as it took its time copying.
SO!
The Canon MF6530 has now replaced the Mita Copystar, and it is clear that copier technology and performance has obviously improved by orders of magnitude in the last ten years since the previous machine was made.
For $600, I get a smaller and lighter machine, with better copy quality and much faster speed. It uses a 'single cartridge' system, which means it is like a laser printer that needs an occasional toner cartridge replacement. And that is where this machine differs fundamentally from the earlier ones I had. It is basically a laser printer with an integrated scanner on top. How is this better than having a regular scanner and laser printer connected to your computer? Well, it has its own computer so it is faster, it is not limited by USB speed or how busy the computer is, and it does not have to boot a huge operating system before allowing you to use it, after being turned off to save power.
Using the MF6530 is like this:
It is always 'on', such as so many modern devices like DVD players, etc; but it sits there in low power mode with the internal computer aware but all the power hungry innards turned off. When I decide to use it, I press its Power button, and it clicks a couple of times and says 'Ready' in about 2 seconds. At this point I can place an original on the scanner platen or drop a stack of pages into the Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) on top, and press the START button. The first copy comes out in about 5 seconds, and after that it runs at 23 pages per minute (about 1 copy every 3 seconds). When I am done, I can press the Power button again to put it to sleep, or it will go to sleep automatically if I don't use it for a couple of minutes.
The copier can do single-sided to single-sided, single-sided to double-sided, double-sided to double-sided, or it can also reduce two originals to fit them both side by side on a single copy. This works whether I use the scanner platen or the ADF. I just press a button to select which way I want it to go.
The copier has the usual buttons for selecting pre-defined zoom ratios (reduce & enlarge) and basic lightness/darkness. I can also press a few more buttons and have greater control of these settings, including a wide range of zoom with very fine increments, and fine image contrast adjustments.
The copier has a numeric keypad for entering values, including number of copies. There is a small LCD screen the shows the currently selected paper tray (internal bin or external tray), zoom ratio, number of copies selected, darkness setting (or automatic). My only beef is that there is no backlighting for the display; but it is easy to read in normal room lighting.
Double sided scanning from the ADF, and double sided copying or printing is slower than the 23 pages per minute. This is because both the ADF and printer engines use the same inexpensive method to manage the duplex paper handling. First the paper is pulled through the engine to scan/print the first side, then the paper is ejected almost all the way into the receiving tray before being pulled back in through a mechanism that routes it through the engine with the opposite side up for another scan/print, then eject, pull back again through the same flipping mechanism, but this time without the scan/print, just to get the paper back in its original orientation. Obviously this takes more time than regular single-pass paper handling. Still, this method allows an inexpensive machine to do full duplex work, and it is still reasonably fast on duplex mode.
The printer has a USB 2 port on the back, and the copier comes bundled with a CD-ROM with an application suite. It installs a copier toolbox, which when opened gives you basic control of functions like: copy, scan text, scan image, create PDF, print. Each button opens a sort of remote control panel for the copier, geared to the function being performed. This works well. Keep in mind that there is no need to connect the copier to your computer if all you want to do is make copies. You only need to connect it to the computer if you want to scan or use the copier as a printer.
The software suite also includes a page manager that lets you view your scans, or send documents to the printer. You don't need to use this program, as it just duplicates other programs you already have. The other major thing that gets installed is an OCR (optical character recognition) program that reads text in the scanned image. I scanned a 50 sheet, double sided book of loose-leaf pages, using the ADF, The OCR seems to take about 2 seconds per page to convert all text to computer readable format. The resulting PDF file (it can be told to make one PDF per page or group the whole set into a single PDF) was very clear and the search function in Adobe Acrobat was able to find any words in the document...a testimony to the accuracy of the OCR.
The paper tray holds a full ream of paper, very nice. The tray opens by sliding forward from the base of the copier, so there is no need to have open space to either side, as many other copiers require. The only thing on the copier that opens to the side is the hatch on the left side. This is in two parts: the upper part gives access to the toner cartridge when it runs out of toner and needs replacement. The lower part unfolds into the 50 sheet secondary paper tray. You would use this when you want to print onto paper that is too thick to feed from the normal paper tray, or when printing onto transparencies or other special paper.
The paper that exits the ADF ends up in a tray that is immediately under the ADF input tray, much like all those big industrial copiers at Kinkos. The copies themselves (and paper coming out when you use the copier as a printer) exits into another try that is right below the ADF exit tray. This took me a bit of getting used to, since out of habit I kept looking around to the sides, expecting the copies to come out into a tray there.
This copier can replace your existing laser printer and/or flat-bed scanner. However, if you already have that equipment and are not out of available space, you should keep those and NOT replace them with the copier. I say this because my HP flat bed scanner, while slower, has better quality (better color accuracy and higher resolution) than the scanner part of this copier, and this is probably true for most separate scanners. It is also not too easy to scan a bound book on the Canon, due to its design...a separate flat-bed scanner will be better for this. You should also use a separate dedicated scanner for scanning photographic prints when you want the best quality results. However, the printer part of the Canon is as good as my HP Laserjet, in terms of resolution, speed and duplex printing capability. However, the separate printer in my case has the advantage of being right next to my computer (more convenient); how many people really want their office copier next to their work area (remember that USB cables are maximum of 16 feet between computer and device). A dedicated laser printer is much smaller, and fits on a desk nicely whereas the Canon copier is not going to sit comfortably on your desk top in the corner, out of the way.
The Canon series of home/small office/personal copiers has an excellent reliability record, so I expect this machine to be trouble free for years to come. All critical print engine components are replaced when you change the toner cartridge, to there is nothing left that would normally require adjustment or service.

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