Canon Maxify GX4020 Review
- 1 Canon Maxify GX4020 Specs
- 1.1 PROS
- 1.2 CONS
- 1.3 Features
- 1.4 Build
- 1.5 Performance
- 1.6 Speed and Quality
- 1.7 Maxify GX4020 Setup
The Canon Maxify GX4020 all-in-one (AIO) has an ADF, fax capabilities, and an Ethernet connection, although it prints differently from the Canon GX3020. The GX4020 is best for a busy micro office or small office that needs heavy-duty printing, moderate-duty scanning, copying, and faxing. At the same time, the GX3020 is suitable for families, home offices, and small offices with low scan and copy needs. It outperforms paper handling by replacing the Epson ST-C4100 as our Editors’ Choice for a tank-based inkjet AIO for a busy small office.
Canon Maxify GX4020 Specs
| Type | All-in-one |
| Color or Monochrome | Color |
| Connection Type | Ethernet, USB, Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct |
| Maximum Standard Paper Size | Legal |
| Number of Ink Colors | 4 |
| Number of Ink Cartridges/Tanks | 4 |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Color) | 13 ppm |
| Rated Speed at Default Settings (Mono) | 18 ppm |
| Printer Input Capacity | 250 + 100 + 1 |
| Scanner Optical Resolution | 1,200 by 1,200 pixels per inch |
PROS
- Copies, facsimiles, scans, and printers
- Affordable printing costs
- Sufficient paper handling.
- Printing and scanning in duplex, both automatically and manually, using an ADF
CONS
- It is expensive and slower than competing options that use cartridges
Features
This printer comes equipped with a wide variety of valuable functions. There is a print engine inside with a resolution of 600×1200 dpi and support for no fewer than three paper input trays. One of the most important is a cassette holding 250 sheets that may be inserted into the front of the printer under the folding output tray. There is a flat back tray for single sheets of speciality media and a vertical rear tray to hold up to 100 standard sheets of paper.
Custom widths from 89mm to 216mm in width and any length you like up to 1.2m are supported, making them excellent for printing banners. This includes all standard sizes up to A4, letter, and legal. Canon is primarily a document printer, but it also provides some exciting media that may be used. These include magnetic photo paper, iron-on transfers, and sticky-back photo paper.
Build
The printer’s construction is typical of Canon’s output devices. The 9.5-kilogram weight is a little light but has a nice, solid feel. It measures 399 by 417 by 251 millimetres (mm), expanding to 399 by 719 by 304 mm with all the trays out, which is pretty significant for an inkjet printer, but it’s still smaller and lighter than rival multi-function laser printers. A 2.7-inch colour touchscreen makes it easy to copy, scan, and print with no effort.
Canon excels at this, and its user interfaces are usually straightforward. USB, Ethernet, and Wi-Fi are all there, and the printer can connect to the internet and work with Canon’s mobile printing apps for iOS and Android, as well as cloud services. It’s natural to assume that refilling a printer’s ink supply from bottles will create a mess.
Performance
The Canon MAXIFY GX5020/GX5050/GX5060 and GX7020/GX7050/GX5060 printers are lightning fast, with a first page out time of just 7 seconds and print speeds of up to 24ipm for mono and 15.5ipm for full colour. This printer is slower than others, with maximum rates of roughly 18ipm for mono and 13ipm for colour. It takes only 8 seconds to print a monochrome page and 9 seconds to print a colour page.
The cost-per-print performance is comparable to the speedier versions when using the same ink bottles. With them, you may print up to 6,000 black and white pages, 14,000 colour pages, and, in ‘economy’ mode, up to 21,000. The attention to detail in both the mono and colour typography is impressive. All the inks are pigment-based, making them resistant to smudge from wet hands and highlighters. However, unlike dye-based ink, the relatively large molecules of pigment-based ink aren’t fully absorbed behind the protective layer of photo paper, leading to subpar print quality. That’s not much of a complaint, though, because the printer was designed with document printing in mind.
Speed and Quality
Like a tank-based printer, the GX4020 fell below similarly priced cartridge-ink printers like the Epson WF-4830 in our testing. It was competitive with tank-based options, but you pay more upfront for lower operational costs. The GX4020 printed pages 2–12 of our 12-page Microsoft Word text file at 16.9ppm (39 seconds), well below the advertised 18ppm rate. Ethernet connected our standard testbed and the GX4020 to the network. The pace dropped to 14.1ppm (51 seconds) when the first page was added. The WF-4830 was faster at 27.5ppm (24 seconds) for ages 2–12 and 19.5ppm (37 seconds) for the complete file. However, first page out (FPO) time needed to differ when printing text files up to two or three pages.
Maxify GX4020 Setup
- On the initial screen, click Start Setup.
- The installer will retrieve the printer’s most up-to-date specifications.
- Learn the terms of the license. To continue, please click Yes. If you don’t want to continue with the installation, select “No.”
- To respond to the inquiry, please choose either Agree or Disagree.
- A message will appear if you click I’m afraid I have to disagree. Select OK to continue.
- The installer will show the following notice after a short while of processing. Proceed by clicking the Next button.
- The printer has to be found by the installation.
- Select USB Connection (USB Cable) and then Next on the Start Printer Connection screen.
- A USB cable should be connected from the printer’s rear to the PC.
- After downloading the necessary files, the installer will begin processing.
- Select Test Print from the following screen and Next to print a test page.
- Choose to Visit Website. The setup process is about to end.
