Canon PIXMA G4570 Review: Low-Cost MegaTank All-in-One

The Canon PIXMA G4570 is a refillable ink-tank all-in-one aimed squarely at the home. Its case rests almost entirely on one argument — what it costs to run — and on that measure it is genuinely excellent, taking the best grade in its category for running costs. Where it is more ordinary is speed, and where it is weak is the scanner. It placed ninth out of twenty multifunction printers tested.

The G4570 uses a refillable ink-tank system rather than cartridges, with four individual ink bottles covering black, cyan, magenta and yellow. Measured to the ISO standard, a black-and-white A4 text page costs 0.2 cents to produce and a colour A4 page 0.3 cents. Those are continental test measurements rather than UK retail figures, and British consumable prices will differ — but the economics behind them travel: refilling tanks from bottles is dramatically cheaper per page than replacing cartridges, and this machine took the top grade in its test group for exactly that reason.

If you print in any volume at home, this is where the money is saved, and it is the strongest reason to consider the printer over a cheaper cartridge-based rival.

Print quality is strong where it matters most for home use. Text printing was rated high and photo printing excellent — the latter unusual at this price. Text copies came out the best category of all, sharp and clean. Photo copies were rated high.

Graphics are the relative weak point, producing only satisfactory results where text and photos are notably better.

The scanner is the genuine problem. Photo scanning was rated only solid, and both photo scans and photo copies show pronounced horizontal banding. For family snapshots that may be tolerable; for anything that needs to look professional it is not, and it makes the machine unsuitable for scanning business documents to a presentable standard.

Speed is adequate rather than good. The printer takes 12 seconds to produce its first page, then manages 10.3 pages per minute in black and white. A graphic takes 2 minutes 13 seconds to print. A black-and-white text copy takes 14 seconds, a photo copy 1 minute 5 seconds, and scanning a photo 23 seconds.

That profile is fine for household use — the occasional letter, form, homework sheet or photo. In an office, where people queue at a printer and throughput matters, it would quickly become a bottleneck.

At 7.2 kg and 42 x 56 x 26 cm this is a compact multifunction unit. Operation is handled by a display, a directional control pad and a numeric keypad, the last of which makes entering fax numbers and copy counts much less tedious than it is on machines without one. The display is not a touchscreen.

Connectivity is comprehensive for the money: wired LAN, built-in Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, USB and AirPrint support for iOS devices, plus a built-in fax. An automatic document feeder takes 35 sheets, which makes multi-page scanning and copying far less tedious than a flatbed alone. The single paper tray holds 100 sheets, with the same capacity on output.

There are three notable omissions. There is no duplex printing, so double-sided documents must be turned by hand. There is no CD printing. And the paper tray is not enclosed, which means paper left in it for long periods will gather dust — worth avoiding, since dust is what eventually clogs print heads.

Two small efficiencies are worth noting: the printer can switch itself on and off automatically, and it has a quiet mode. Standby power draw is just 1 watt.

In the UK the Canon PIXMA G4570 is listed on Amazon UK, sold as part of the PIXMA MegaTank range. Note that the running-cost advantage described above depends on buying genuine refill bottles, so it is worth factoring their UK price into any comparison against a cartridge printer.

The PIXMA G4570 is a sensible buy for a specific person: someone printing regularly at home who wants the lowest possible cost per page, good text output and genuinely good photo prints, and who does not need speed or a reliable document scanner.

It is not an office machine. The print speeds are borderline for shared use, there is no duplex, and the horizontal banding on photo scans and copies rules it out for anything that has to look professional. Graphics output is merely satisfactory.

Within those limits it offers good value, and its ninth-place finish out of twenty reflects a machine that is very good at one thing and unremarkable at several others. If low running costs are your priority and you can live with a modest scanner, it earns its place.