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A reading of my reviews of Canon’s “MX” office-centric AIOs over the years should confirm that I never have really considered them viable business-optimized multifunction printers (MFPs). Historically, compared to some other business-oriented all-in-ones, the Pixma MX AIOs have been slow, low-volume, and expensive to use, in terms of per-page operational cost, or cost per page (CPP).

In fact, a common complaint from not only me but several other reviewers about all Pixmas is that they cost too much too use.


So much so that no matter how well they print business documents (and most Pixmas print document pages very well), they just don’t make very efficient document printers. The good news is that rather than try to fix that hopelessly flawed MX model, Canon has recently released a new Maxify line of business printers.

Here, we’re looking at a mid-range model, the $199.99 (MSRP) MAXIFY MB2320. Price and features place it smack in the center of a five-product offering of four mid- to high-volume MFPs and one single-function (print) machine.

Design and Features

While these new MAXIFY AIOs are all gloss-black and somewhat cube-shaped, aside from that, they don’t really look a lot like Pixmas. Most Pixmas, for instance, are short and squat, and therefore incapable of a lot of capacity. This Maxify, on the other hand, comes with two 250-sheet paper drawers, for a total capacity of 500 sheets. In addition, a 50-sheet auto-duplexing automatic document feeder (ADF) makes scanning, faxing, and making copies of two-sided originals, child’s play.

At 18.3 inches across, 18.1 inches from front to back, 12.6 inches tall, and weighing in at 26.9 pounds, unlike its Pixma predecessors, the MG2320 is a little too big for most desktops. (Plus, if it’s busy at all, you don’t want it on your desk.) In addition to making copies and scanning from the printer’s control panel to the PCs on your network, the 4.3-inch touch screen allows you to scan to and print from USB thumb drives, as well as several mobile printing options and support for various cloud sites, such as Google Cloud Print, Maxify Printing Solutions, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft Drive, and Dropbox, as well as scanning to and printing from email.

This MAXIFY supports a number of additional mobile device options; in case you’re unfamiliar with today’s most common mobile printing features, check out this About.com “Mobile Printing Features – 2014” article.

Performance and Print Quality

I can’t think of a single consumer-grade Pixma known for its print speed; although the majority of them print both high-quality business documents and photos. When it comes to print quality, this MAXIFY is no exception. It churns out business documents much faster than not only Pixmas (which isn’t hard to do), but several other office-oriented models from other manufacturers.

The MB2320 features a new print head and mechanical system, as well as a new Dual Resistant High Density (DRHD) individual ink cartridge system designed for producing output with sharp, optical density, vivid colors, and reformulated inks that are supposed to be marker- and friction-resistant.

What that means to you is that you’ll get great-looking prints—photos and documents—relatively quickly, with excellent text, image, and graphics quality.

Cost Per Page

I’ve been squawking about the CPPs of Pixmas for years. Granted, this is not a Pixma, and you know what, as such it does fairly well on cost per page—for an under-$200 printer that is. When you use the highest-yield tanks with this Maxify, black-and-white pages run about 2.7 cent each and color pages are about 8.1 cents.

Are these great CPPs? The monochrome number is a bit too high, but not unexpected given the purchase price. The Color CPP is not bad at all for a $200 MFP. But these CPPs are OK only if you don’t plan on printing more than a few hundred pages each month. If you do plan to print more, though, you should go with one of the MB5000 series models; their black-and-white CPP, when you use the highest-yield tanks, runs about 1.5 cents.

Believe me, if you print a lot, that 1.2 cents per page can get expensive—about $120 for every 10,000 pages, or put another way, two or three months before you make up the difference between the cost and begin making money. Check out this About.com “When a $150 Printer Can Cost You Thousands” article.

Bottom Line

What’s not to like about this MAXIFY? The CPPs? Well, yes, if you print a lot. If so, check out the MB5320. It costs a little more up front, but it’ll pay for itself fast enough. Otherwise, if you don’t print much, the MB2320 should serve you well.