The Canon Pixma TR7020 ($129.99) is an entry-level multifunction printer designed primarily for low-volume home-office use. Positioned about halfway up the Pixma TR series line, just beneath the TR8620 we reviewed recently, the TR7020 comes with a decent set of convenience and productivity features, such as an automatic document feeder (ADF) for sending multipage documents to the scanner. It holds a fair amount of paper in two input sources, and mobile device support is robust. Like most Pixmas, this one prints very well, especially photos, but it is a little slow. Its running costs are somewhat high, but if you’re not printing more than a few hundred pages each month, the TR7020 should serve your family or home business well.
Lean and Light
Measuring 8.2 by 14.4 by 15.9 inches (HWD) and weighing 18.1 pounds, the Pixma TR7020 is similar in size and girth to several competing entry-level all-in-one (AIO) printers. The flagship Pixma TR8620, for example, is only about 3 inches longer and weighs slightly less. HP’s similarly priced and configured ENVY Pro 6452, an Editors’ Choice recipient, is about 1.5 inches shorter and weighs around 4.5 pounds less than the TR7020. Bulk-ink machines such as Brother’s MFC-J805DW and Canon’s Pixma G7020 MegaTank AIO are just a bit larger.
Good news for those who want office equipment that coordinates with interior design: You can get the TR7020 in your choice of black or white.
All these devices scan, copy, and fax in addition to printing, and they all have ADFs of similar capacities. The TR8620 and MFC-J805DW’s ADFs hold 20 sheets each; the TR7020 and ENVY Pro 6452’s hold 35. All of these are manual-duplexing, so if you want to scan both sides of a two-sided document, you’ll need to flip it over yourself. The Canon G7020’s 35-sheet ADF is auto-duplexing.
The TR7020’s control panel, which is anchored by a 1.44-inch OLED screen, helps with simple tasks, such as keeping track of page counts and setting up copy jobs. For anything more complicated, you’ll have to use the printer’s web-based software or smartphone app.
As for paper handling, the TR7020 holds up to 100 sheets in a cassette up front, and another 100 in a tray that pulls up from the rear of the chassis. You can also configure the rear tray to hold up to 20 sheets of 4-by-6-inch or 10 sheets of 5-by-7-inch premium photo paper. As for duty cycle and recommended monthly volume ratings, Canon stopped publishing those specs on its consumer-grade machines a while back.
The Pixma TR8620’s paper capacity is the same as the TR7020’s. The MFC-J805DW comes with a 150-sheet cassette and a one-sheet override tray, and its recommended monthly print volume is 1,500 pages. HP’s ENVY Pro 6452 holds only 80 sheets and has a low suggested print volume of 100 pages. The Pixma G7020, on the other hand, holds up to 350 sheets split between a 250-sheet drawer up front and a 100-sheet tray in the back.
Connecting to and Controlling the TR7020
The TR7020’s standard interfaces include Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth for connecting a single mobile device, USB for connecting a single computer, and Wireless PictBridge for printing from PictBridge-compliant digital cameras. Mobile connectivity options include Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Mopria, the Canon Print app (Android, iOS), Canon Print Service (Android only), and Canon Cloud Link.
Canon typically includes the same apps with every TR series machine. You can get an in-depth description of the apps and their functions from our TR8620 review here.
Unfortunately, the TR7020 is one of a handful of recent Pixmas that do not support voice commands via Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant.
Entry-Level Print Speeds
Canon rates the TR7020 at a somewhat sluggish 13 monochrome pages per minute (ppm) or 6.8 color pages per minute. I tested the TR7020 over USB from our standard Intel Core i5-equipped PC running Windows 10 Professional. It printed our 12-page, simply formatted Microsoft Word document at 13.2ppm. That’s pretty good for this group of printers; only the TR8620 was faster, and only by 0.6ppm.
When I combined the results from the previous simple 12-page Word document with those from printing our color PDF, Excel and PowerPoint graphics- and photo-laden documents, the TR7020’s speed dropped to 4.7ppm, which is about average for printers in this class.
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Finally, the TR7020 printed our two sample photos at an average of 42 seconds, which is a little slow in comparison with some of the others, but still well under a minute. In any case, as with most Pixmas, the TR7020’s output is worth the wait.
Canon Knows Imaging
Most inkjets these days print good photos, and Pixmas are among the best. Canon’s five- and six-ink, photo-enhanced AIOs, like the the TR8620, consistently produce some of the most impressive photographs I’ve seen; the TR7020, a four-ink model, doesn’t get quite as vibrant and detailed, but it still produces some very fine output. It’s just really a matter of how picky you are. As long as you start with good clear digital images, any Pixma will turn out bright, clear, and accurately colored prints.
The TR7020’s text in our test documents came out well-shaped and highly legible down to the smallest font we test, 6 points. Our test PowerPoint handouts and Excel charts also looked good, with solid fills and evenly flowing gradients. Only one chart, with a black-to-green gradient background, showed some significant banding (and many printers, even higher-end models, have trouble reproducing that chart correctly). All the other color documents, even those with features designed to put the printers we test through their paces, came out looking better than acceptable.
Somewhat Steep Running Costs
At 3.2 cents for monochrome pages and 12.2 cents for color, the TR7020’s running costs are not outrageous, but they are enough to relegate this AIO to low-volume use—say, 100 to 300 pages a month. If you’re looking to churn out more than that, those per-page rates will add up quickly.
Many of the other printers mentioned here have some sort of discount ink option. The HP ENVY Pro 6452 is compatible with the Instant Ink program. If you subscribe to the 300-pages-per-month option, you’ll pay about 4 cents per page—monochrome or color, one line of text or a borderless photo. The MFC-J805DW, one of Brother’s INKvestment Tank models, prints black pages for just under 1 cent each and color pages for slightly under 5 cents each.
Canon’s G7020, a MegaTank model, prints monochrome pages for 0.3 cent each and color pages for 0.9 cent. The caveat is that it lists for $200 more than the TR7020. But if you print 1,000 pages per month, a 3-cent increase in the cost per page will cost you an additional $30, or $360 per year. If you keep the printer for five years, that comes out to $1,800—well worth the upfront investment in a slightly more expensive printer that has much lower running costs.
A Fine, Feature-Filled Family Printer
The entry-level printer market is awash in inexpensive low-volume inkjets, and they all print at relatively slow speeds with great-looking output. The Pixma TR7020 doesn’t stand out, but it doesn’t fall behind either. With a low price and Canon’s excellent Pixma technology, the TR7020 provides just about everything you and your family or home business should need, including an ADF for multipage scanning and copying, and easy configuration and operation via your smartphone and Canon’s mobile app. If you’re looking to print at a higher volume that requires lower running costs, Canon’s Pixma G7020 is a sensible choice; otherwise, the TR7020 is a good value.
