Canon’s i-Sensys LBP7680Cx is a
heavyweight colour laser printer with some advanced features.
The LBP7680Cx has a huge range of options,
and almost every aspect of the printer can be tweaked to the nth degree.
Technical users will appreciate the flexibility, but the less experienced may
find it somewhat bewildering.
Canon
i-Sensys LBP7680Cx
The text interface isn’t the most intuitive
we’ve seen, accessible via a control pad and arrow buttons. It’s easy to lose
track of where you are.
The Canon supports MEAP, a platform that
makes available in the printer itself the Java capabilities used by developers
to code apps that perform specific functions. This allows you to adapt the
LBP7680Cx to perform customised duties, perhaps doing away with the need for
external hardware, for instance, but it requires that your business either has
somebody who knows how to tap into its capabilities, or sufficient funds to pay
a third party to create a suitable application.
The Canon is also kitted out with uniFlow,
which is useful for monitoring printer usage, keeping down costs and
maintaining security controls, and it adds mobile printing facilities. Those
wishing to keep their documents private have a number of options, and it’s easy
to print from USB storage.
Up to 250 sheets can be loaded into the
main compartment, with another 50 sheets available from the multipurpose tray.
You can also bolt on an optional 250-sheet drawer for a potential maximum of
550 sheets. This is a reasonable input capacity but, given the large-business
market at which the Canon is targeted, it may be insufficient for some
customers.
Speeds of up to 20 pages per minute (ppm)
are promised, although the real-world figure was much lower in our tests, at
13.8ppm. This dropped to 9.4ppm with A4 colour graphics. This is partly due to
a long warm-up time, and the Canon tends to churn out a new sheet every three
seconds thereafter.
If you’ll mainly be running large print
jobs, you’ll find the Canon quickly builds up speed.
If
you’ll mainly be running large print jobs, you’ll find the Canon quickly builds
up speed.
There’s an automatic duplexing feature, and
double-sided text saw a drop in speed from 13.8ppm to 8.2ppm – a fall of almost
41 percent.
The text quality is good, with clean and
sharply defined characters that remain legible even at small font sizes. The
printer works extremely well with glossy paper and, even on plain paper, colour
graphics look very pleasant. The Canon doesn’t have the most exciting and
sparkling of colour palettes, but the overall effect is balanced and easy on
the eye.
Text running costs are very fair, at around
2p per page. Colour, though, isn’t anywhere near as cheap, costing around 7.8p
per page.
The
i-SENSYS LBP7680Cx is Canon’s first laser printer to offer direct print from
any USB storage media. It supports Tiff, JPEG, PDF and XPS files and with the
clear display screen users will find it easy to choose the file they want and
then print it fast.
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Infomation
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Price: $437
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Contact: www.canon.com
Specification
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Colour laser printer
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9600x600dpi max print resolution
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Quoted print speed: B=20ppm, C=20ppm
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Actual print speed: B=13.8ppm, C=9.4ppm
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USB 2.0
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Gigabit Ethernet
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250 + 50-sheet input tray
·
768MB memory
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UFRII/ PCL5c/PCL6/Adobe PS
·
Toner cost: B=£65, C=£75 x 3
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print yield (pages): B=3,400, C=2,900 x 3
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414x499x346mm
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25.2kg
Verdict
·
The Canon has some advanced features that may
make it a good choice for larger companies; small-to medium businesses may
have less use for add-ons such as MEAP. The Canon is a solid and versatile –
if slightly slow – printer that’s trumped in several areas by cheaper
competition.
·
Build: 3.5/5
·
Features: 4/5
·
Performance: 3.5/5
·
Value: 3.5/5
·
Overall: 3.5/5
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