Which brand would you recommend for a general-use printer for home-office use?

This is just a PSA which unfortunately I did not have the benefit of prior to my purchase of a Canon Maxify GX 7021. I purchased this printer to replace an Epson WF-3640 model which was a replacement for a prior Epson WF model. I tried to vet this Canon online as best I could before purchase and no one warned me about what a piece of junk these things were. I'm hoping that someone else in the market for a purchase benefits from my review here and doesn't make the same mistake.

My first Epson WF lasted me over 10 years, and the 3640 about 6 years The reason for their demise was the print head clogging that plagues all vendor inkjet models. I paid about $150 for the WF-3640 and with the exception of the ink issues, which were primarily due to me not using the printer for weeks at a time, it was a fantastic device. I had to pay almost 3x as much to get the same features today in a printer and, for as much as I liked the Epson, I could no longer stay with them due to their policies on ink. In retrospect, I made a big mistake because once I decided I wanted to go with a "Tank" printer, I never went back to consider Epson as I had already been steered towards Canon.

The short of it is for anyone considering these Maxify printers (and I can only any MFD device) is that you are wanting it for features beyond just printing. I needed my device to do duplex scanning with an ADF. The Epson printers worked admirably on that front for years. I personally use the scanning feature more than the printing.

The Canon Maxify printer is HORRENDOUS at scanning. I did some basic initial testing when I set the device up a week or two ago, but unfortunately didn't have the time to put it through its paces until my return period was up (I don't know why I continue to purchase from Best Buy, one would think I have learned my lesson there enough).

The ADF constantly chokes on paper, it doesn't seem to have a very deep tray to feed, the output constantly curls up paper despite only a few sheets having gone through. It deforms printed text (stretching it out or compacting up) presumably from not feeding it through properly. It skews every page by an amount easily perceptible to the human eye. In short it is junk - to the point it is almost unusable for anything other than a quick one-off scan.

My usage is to scan everything I can to have a paperless household. Anything I get in the mail - statements, bills, insurance documents, medical papers, etc. I scan instruction manuals (if I can't find them digitally), my kids doodles, etc. Usually I let a stack of papers pile up on my desk for a couple of weeks and then I go and scan them all in.

Often I have things that won't fit through the ADF, so maybe 25% of my stuff goes on the flatbed. But I often have dozens of documents I need to put through the ADF. These are usually things that came in the mail so often they were tri-folded. Sometimes they are documents that had staples removed or had a small bend in the corner before I straightened it. Occasionally they will be a document that got a bit rumpled and sat for a week or two flattening out before I scanned it.

The point is I am not scanning 100% pristine pages that just came off a press in all circumstances. Whether or not you think that should be a requirement for an ADF to work may be subjective but the Epson was objectively better at handling this then this new Canon. The Epson wasn't perfect, but it took most of these papers in varying conditions in stride. If it jammed, it was normally due to my own negligence and with my normal load it probably jammed once every few hundred pages. Sometimes it would take more than one page at a time, but this happened more once the printer was years old and often when I tried to send through a bunch of papers that were never separated first by hand (i.e. printed and then delivered to me, so they "stuck" together through static, etc.). Sometimes I pushed my luck and tried a paper that was a bit more cumpled then I thought and if it jammed I couldn't very well blame the device.

If I would rate the Epson an 8 on it's ability to handle scanning these normal documents, I rate the Canon a 3. It is taking everything I have not to rip it apart and throw it in the trash. I'm so disappointed and now need to live with this piece of garbage for the next 5+ years.

The skew...man the skew is the worst. I'm not saying the skew is off by inches, but every page is skewed to the point I don't need to pull out a ruler to see. No options in the Canon software seem to deal with it. I was a NAPS2 user with my Epson for years and it had some options to use. Unfortunately, NAPS2 won't work with the Canon either unless you chose to use the Native UI. Using the built-in NAPS2 interface creates horrible looking scans (i.e. it looks like you scanned a photo of a document instead of got a scan of a document), and there are no settings to resolve it. I can't directly blame Canon for that, as it is 3rd party software but clearly they haven't created their devices with compatibility outside their software in mind.

This is for sure a rant against Canon. I haven't decided if I want to contact them yet to determine if I just got a bad printer because I am not about to walk through what is bound to be idiots troubleshooting irrelevant things, telling me the issue is with my usage, or requiring me to send my device off at my own cost and be without it for who knows how long. But I shouldn't have to do any of that because they should just make and ship devices that work.

I guarantee that no one else out there is reviewing this printer with any eye towards its actual scanning functions. If scanning is important to you, don't buy a Canon.

UPDATE: Not long after writing the above I decided to contact Canon support. They were pleasant and helpful enough, though they couldn't fix my issues they sent out a warranty replacement. It does seem that *some* of the issues I was having are either resolved or at least a bit better. Specifically the ADF didn't seem to choke as much. There are however still deficiencies in their actual hardware and software (from a scanning perspective) that are funky. This replaced a 5+ year old Epson that cost less than half and the quality of the scans and the workflow (in terms of the workarounds needed) is substantially worse.

Today I just had to call them to replace the printer a second time within the 3-4 months I've had it because I tried to print from the rear tray (first time ever) and the rollers are apparently broken. Lots of clicking, no feeding of the paper. On top of that, I find out that you can only feed photo or other specialty paper through that rear tray, you cannot load the main trays with anything other than standard paper. This gives another strike against this machine as just a printer as many people who find the ink tanks attractive are likely those who want to print on specialty papers as well. Having to keep paper in the rear tray (or even ensure access to it) it unwieldly and inefficient for multiple prints.

UPDATE 8/5/2024: Just another update to express my warnings and extreme dissatisfaction with this device. Pages scanned via the ADF just have major skew problems! I have tried everything I can with the default "IJ Scan Utility". This software, which is the recommended way to use the device scan features is just trash. It is unwieldly for all but the occasional scanning job. Yet, I was committed to using it since I needed to ensure my issues were not due to third party software. Despite having the equivalent of "deskew" enabled in the software, the pages still come out with major skew. These are brand new printed pages that have never been folded, torn, etc and they still won't scan straight - even when ensuring they are in the feeder straight and even when feeding one at a time.

Only by using 3rd party software with a "deskew" option can I get something close (but not perfect) to the original paper image. This is clearly a problem with the roller mechanisms on the device feeding the paper un evenly. Another indicator of the poor quality of Canon devices.

Hello everyone,

I wanted to ask about the best printer to buy.

Yesterday, one of my hard drivers stopped working suddenly for no reason, and all the data on it got erased. Thankfully, I have a backup for all the data, and I didn't end up losing anything, but this is what got me thinking. Digital media can be lost much more easily than traditional media. This is the reason why I came here today to ask for your help to recommend a high-quality printer.

My usage will be only for preserving photos that I took with my Canon camera. (Canon EOS 2000D, 800D, R)

The size of the prints is no larger than A4 paper. Also, I will be printing 2000+ photos so, I will be buying a lot of ink cartridges and don't want to be searching everywhere for an ink cartridge for a printer model that gets discontinued after 1 year or so.

(No limit to budget)