Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon imageCLASS MF4690 Monochrome Laser All-in-One Printer (1827B001)

I shopped around for about 2 weeks and looked all the makes and models. I ended up purchasing the Canon 4690. The Canon 4690 is very easy to install, configure, and network. All settings can be configured via a handy web interface. The unit is very fast, quiet, and ergonomic. Warm up time is better than expected. With a small footprint, this Canon fits nicely in any home/office setting. From a hardware perspective, this unit meets and exceeds all comparable units out there on the market. Where most multifunction units have only 32 to 64 MB of RAM, it appears that this unit has 128 MB - although for some reason, you won't see this documented. I learned this from printing out my 4690's configuration page. In any event, more memory is very nice for those large print jobs. Networking and printer installation is a snap. The paper handling is convenient. Printing, copying, faxing, and scanning are ridiculously easy with the Canon 4690. Believe me; I looked at Dell, Epson, HP, Lexmark, and even other Canon models. Bottom line: The Canon 4690 offers the most technology for this price level.

First of all let me say that if you're a PC user, read all the other reviews of this unit. It really is a nice unit with all the features described. The reason I'm giving it two stars is because of what I feel is Canon's intentional misleading of the public when they claim that this is Mac compatible. From the box to the manual to the website, Canon uses the Mac logo to communicate that this unit is Mac compatible. This is only PARTIALLY true. This unit works ONLY as a printer and fax with the Macs - NOT A SCANNER. No where is this ever communicated. Even the printed manual and the Advanced Manual that is provided as a PDF on an included CD make any mention of the fact that you can not use this as a scanner on a Mac. Furthermore, Canon has no plans on ever making a driver so that you can do scans on a Mac. It's not bad that the unit can't do Mac scanning but I'd rather know about that BEFORE I purchase it and set it up at home.

I shopped for a week and looked at Brother, HP, and Samsung B/W laser multifunctional printers before picking this Canon multifunctional unit. Set up was very easy, until I got to connecting it to the network via a Cat5e cable. Canon says the unit will automatically pick up the IP address, subnet mask, and gateway address using DHCP, but a call to Canon Tech Services recommended manual entry of these values. The tech walked me through the procedure, so now all my PC's connected to my router can use the printer. I highly recommend Canon Tech Services. They have a 12-hour toll-free number and offer lifetime free telephone support.

Pluses:
1. Speedy printing
2. Backlit LCD screen
3. The MF4690 has a neat remote Web page User Interface for reviewing and changing printer/fax/copier/scanner settings.
4. Text prints are very sharp (compared with those from my HP LaserJet 1200)

Negatives:
1. Comes with "starter" toner cartridge
2. Another negative (not prominently mentioned) is that the unit will NOT support network scanning. You must be connected via USB to do scanning to e-mail and scanning to a file server. However, you CAN perform scanning to a USB thumb drive and it outputs as PDF, JPG, or BMP files.

Update: I was told by Canon Tech Services that you can connect with both USB and Network connections at the same time, thus you have the full-range of scanning options with this printer (via USB) and still get the benefits of network connections.

Update #2: After reading some of the HP printer reviews, I am glad that Canon support is USA-based, so there is no language barrier.

I've been using this in my small home office for about a month now. Performance and quality is even better than I expected from this all-in-one under $400. Prints much faster and quieter than my Pixma Inkjet. Two-sided printing feature is dynamite! Couple of mouse clicks and ZAP: a two-sided copy. So far it's been more reliable and faster than even Kinko's machines. Using USB to my laptop and CAT V to my desktop. Install took a weekend to figure out between the Canon protocol and MS networking software. Canon email Tech sppt was helpful and quick to respond on Monday, but by then I had figured most of it out by trial & error. Scanning to file on my laptop is effortless with the Toolbox software, but unfortunately won't scan from or to a networked computer (my desktop). Nothing's perfect, and I found the scanner to be two to three times slower than my stand alone Canon scanner. But it's still fast enough and the scanner is already in storage with the fax and copier. From what I can gather, all multifunctions are slower to scan than stand-alone's. If I lay a sheet of labels or other paper stock in the alternate feeder, it's automatically detected and prints on it, vs the paper tray. The Fax function has worked perfectly from day one on my dedicated line. Was worried about warm-up time, but found this not to be an issue whatsoever. With the exception of the scanner, this machine is fast in everything it does! This frees up valuable desk space (and time) although I'm still keeping the PIXMA inkjet for pictures and color jobs. Very, very happy I did my homework and chose this machine.

This device is excellent value. It is compact and full-featured. Networking and duplex printing are standard and it's easy to set up using a web interface. I've been using it with a household full of Macs and it works just fine, although the printer driver seems rather slow to start up and it has some strange UI issues (e.g. the standard Mac print dialogue offers duplex options on its 'layout' page but Canon ignore these and provide their own duplex options hidden under 'finishing' instead.) The print throughput is high once it is rolling and the quality is good, though not stellar.

While Canon don't provide any desktop scanning software for the Mac the device can send scanned images to an email address or a networked file system, both of which work well. Having entered my email address into a speed-dial I can put a stack of papers in the sheet-feed and have it arrive as a scanned multi-page PDF in my inbox in three button presses! Note that while the printer works double-sided the scanner does not.

While it's missing some features that I would like, and the Mac print drivers are somewhat sluggish and idiosyncratic, it's hard to argue when the street price is under $350.