Canon’s Pixma TS6420 ($99.99), an entry-level consumer-grade all-in-one (print, copy, scan) photo printer designed for home use, replaces the Pixma TS6320 reviewed here back in January 2020. An incremental replacement like this typically improves on its predecessor, but the TS6420 disappoints with an inferior imaging engine and other downgrades. However, the budget-minded will note that it uses fewer ink cartridges than the TS6320 and has a rock-bottom purchase price. Taken on its own merits, the TS6420 can handily supply a family or small office with up to 100 very nice photo prints a month.
Less Bang, Fewer Bucks
Most of the TS6420’s downgrades are fairly insignificant—it’s a little slower, and there are only two chassis color choices, black and white, omitting the TS6320’s blue option—but the reduction of ink colors and ink cartridges makes a notable difference to its output. Both printers have the standard four process colors, cyan, magenta, yellow, and black (CMYK), but the TS6320 has a photo black ink for deeper blacks and a wider color range, and the TS6420 does not.
Furthermore, instead of a separate cartridge per ink, you get only two tanks, one filled with black ink and one that holds the other three colors. The tanks hold less ink than cartridges do, and if one of the three color reservoirs empties before the other two, you must replace the entire CMY tank, wasting the remaining ink. Not many printers use this configuration anymore, though it’s still found in a few other low-end models such as HP’s ENVY Photo 7855.
The tanks do save a bit of space, so the TS6420 measures 5.9 by 15.9 by 12.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 13.8 pounds. That’s a few inches smaller and lighter than the TS6320 and the ENVY Photo 7855. A little bigger still and about a pound heavier is Epson’s Five-ink Expression Premium XP-6100, and notably bigger and heavier than all these machines is Brother’s MFC-J995DW INKvestment Tank AIO.
The Pixma TS series is Canon’s photo-optimized line. Though the TS6420 includes a scanner, it’s not intended to see a lot of use, so there’s no automatic document feeder (ADF); you lift the lid and place originals directly on the scanning bed. Of the machines named above, only the Brother and HP models have built-in ADFs.
Many of Canon’s higher-end Pixmas come with large color LCD control panels, but the TS6420 only gets a 1.44-inch OLED screen and a few buttons on the right side of the printer’s face plate. An LED status bar helps you navigate and view the printer’s status.
If you’re a smart device fan, you may not need that screen at all. Like many newer consumer-grade printers, the TS6420 supports smart home voice activation through Amazon Alexa and Google Home Assistant.
Paper handling consists of two 100-sheet sources: a drawer in the front and a tray that pulls up from the back. The rear tray can also hold up to 20 sheets of premium photo paper or #10 envelopes, and the printer automatically detects the media type and source as needed. The TS6320’s capacity options are the same. Comparable printers generally hold less. The Epson XP-6100 holds 100 sheets up to legal size and 20 snapshot-size premium photo sheets, the Brother MFC-J995DW holds 101 letter-size sheets, and the HP ENVY Photo 7855 can hold up to 100 letter-size sheets, 40 sheets of premium photo paper, or 10 #10 envelopes.
Canon no longer publishes duty cycles and recommended monthly volumes for its consumer-grade printers. Most of the machines discussed here have relatively low volume ratings, though—no more than 1,000 pages maximum or 300 recommended per month.
Connect Any Way You Want
The TS series Pixmas have a connection type or two for just about every computing device, including Android and iOS smartphones and tablets. You can hook up the TS6420 to a single PC via USB, a wireless network or mobile device with Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, or Canon cameras and other PictBridge devices with PictBridge Wireless. A nice feature is Bluetooth 4.0 LE (Low Energy), a peer-to-peer networking protocol that lets you print from multiple mobile devices simultaneously.
Other mobile protocols include Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, and Mopria, as well as several Canon mobile utilities, such as Pixma Cloud Print and Canon Print App. Canon’s Message in Print feature embeds messages and links in printed photos that friends and family can reveal by scanning the images with their smartphone or tablet cameras. You can download Easy-PhotoPrint Editor, an entry-level photo enhancement app, to your phone, tablet, or computer. Canon also throws in Scan Utility (Windows and Mac) and Scan Utility Lite (Mac).
Unimpressive Speed, But Fine Print Quality
Canon rates this Pixma at 13 monochrome pages per minute (ppm) and 7.8ppm for color pages. Six seconds per page (or just under 10 seconds for a color print) may not sound slow, but trust me, when you’re waiting for a dozen-page print job to finish, it feels like forever.
I tested the TS6420 over USB from our standard Intel Core i5 testbed running Windows 10 Pro. It printed our 12-page Microsoft Word text document at an average speed of 13.2ppm, a hair faster than its rating. Among the other AIOs discussed here, that score was about average.
Next, I printed several full-color Adobe Acrobat and Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint business documents containing charts, graphs, and other business graphics and embedded photos. Then, to calculate a comprehensive score for printing our full suite of test documents, I combined these results with those from printing the 12-page Word document. Here, the TS6420 managed a lugubrious 4.5ppm, though that was again about average among these other entry-level AIOs.
The TS6420 printed our colorful and highly detailed 4-by-6-inch snapshots at an average of 39 seconds apiece. That’s nearly twice as slow as the TS6320, which took just 20 seconds per snapshot.
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Like every Pixma I’ve tested over the past several years, the Pixma TS6420 prints quite well. The output is well worth waiting for. Text came out crisp and well-shaped at most point sizes, down to about 8 points or so. This AIO’s text output should be acceptable for most types of business, family, and student output.
Excel charts and graphs, PowerPoint handouts, and Acrobat documents also looked good. The flaws I did spot—some light banding and nearly imperceptible streaks—were noticeable only after I searched carefully for them, which the viewers of your documents aren’t likely to do.
On the photo printing front, this Pixma, like most others, prints borderless photos up to letter-size, or 8.5 by 11 inches. This gives photos and documents a professionally finished look.
Canon certainly knows imaging, but the four-ink system will never stand up to one with more colors. Other photo-optimized printers such as Epson’s XP-6100 and Canon’s TS6320 deploy five (some use six) inks. These additional colors provide a wider color gamut and greater detail, generating more brilliant and correctly colored photos.
Don’t get me wrong—the Pixma TS6420’s photos are good. But they’re not the best available from a photo-oriented Pixma or other similarly priced photo printers.
Steep Printing Costs
At 6 cents for monochrome pages and 15.8 cents for color prints, the TS6420 is quite expensive to use. I suggest that you choose it only if you don’t print more than a couple hundred pages each month, especially if you mostly want to do color printing. It does have slightly lower running costs than the TS6320 due to fewer ink colors—one of the few ways it improves on the earlier model—but it’s outclassed by bulk-ink models such as the Brother MFC-J995DW, an INKvestment Tank model that delivers black pages for 0.9 cents each and color pages for about 4.9 cents each. Those pennies add up fast; that 10-cent difference means you pay an extra $100 per 1000 color pages.
The HP ENVY Photo 7855 is eligible for Instant Ink, which offers several subscriptions, the most cost-efficient of which gives you a per-page cost of 4 cents. The advantage here is that that is 4 cents for any page, even a letter-size borderless photo with 100 percent coverage. If you print a lot of photos or content-heavy document pages, Instant Ink is worth considering.
A Basic Printer to Meet Basic Needs
Low-end Pixmas are excellent solutions for families with moderate print and copy needs. The TS6420 takes up very little space, and it reliably churns out good-looking photos and documents. Multiple family members or colleagues can print from their desktops, laptops, and handheld portables with little or no fuss. Five- and six-ink printers produce somewhat better-quality photographs, but they cost more up front and per page; bulk-ink and ink incentive printers have higher price tags. As long as you’re not printing more than about 100 pages a month, the TS6420 is a good budget-friendly choice for household color printing.
