The MAXIFY family of printing devices from the companyCanopy consists of compact, economical and high-performance devices. All are built on a similar base and have a similar construction, but they differ in the set of functions and delivery set. The Canon Maxify iB4040 is the only printer in the family besides the four MFPs that offers extensive color printing capabilities in both home and office environments.
Author: Ivan Lozovsky
Canon Maxify iB4040
Probably only in large organizations and companies you see huge floor printing devices standing in corridors or aisles and serving several dozens of people at a time. In a small company or work group it is much more convenient to have a small device, which is located in the same room as its users and is placed on a small nightstand or directly on the desktop. An inkjet printer or MFP is best suited for this role.
Usually models, aimed at individual use, lose to laser devices on cartridge life, paper capacity and set of interfaces. But members of the family Canon Maxify can compete on an equal footing with the “laser” on all these features. In addition, if you look at the claimed speeds of the Canon Maxify iB4040 printer 23 ppm./min on black and white and 15 ppm on black and white./ppm for color printing , it becomes clear that the speed of the printer is not inferior to many laser models.
Design and operation
The Canon Maxify iB4040 is a color inkjet printer that uses four separate ink cartridges C/M/Y/K . It is a device in a monolithic, almost cube-shaped housing made of black plastic. The front panel is decorated with a metallic texture. The side panels of the housing are absolutely smooth, with only special indentations in the middle below for a comfortable grip when carrying the device.
It is not difficult to move the printer from place to place – it weighs only 9.8 kg. The dimensions are small, which speaks for a desktop use case. The top panel is flat and can serve as a convenient shelf for documents and prints just made. The Canon Maxify iB4040 looks smart and sleek, so it blends easily into any modern décor.
Despite its small size, the printer has two 250-sheet capacity trays, so it can hold a respectable amount of paper. Keeps you busy for long periods of time looking after it. By the way, let us note that the monthly service life of the printer is up to 30 thousand. pages, t.e. It can handle fairly heavy workloads for several users.
The top feed tray has several limiting strips inside, allowing you to align and secure a variety of non-standard media, such as envelopes, letterhead, or photo paper. The bottom tray is equipped with simpler features and is clearly only designed for office paper. The design of both feed trays is such that they are completely hidden in the case when in the transport position. But if you want to put A4, Letter or Legal paper in them, they extend a few centimeters and then protrude a few centimeters forward from the body. For the last mentioned format a separate tray locking position is provided.
A niche on the receiving tray is located directly above the upper infeed tray. In the horizontal partition which separates them, there is a little drawer. When the printer is not in use, it is used as a top feed tray cover, but it can be pushed into the enclosure, allowing you to quickly refill the tray with paper or other media. If you extend the shelf as far forward as possible and make it longer with the sections built into it, it becomes a lectern to support your prints.
On the top of the front panel there is a cover that provides access to the print path. Note that unlike Canon personal printers and MFPs, this machine has a printhead that moves to the cartridge replacement position only when needed. t.e. device has received a signal that it is out of ink.
A small control panel is built into the upper lid of the device for direct control of the device. It includes a large power button, a device activity indicator, a job cancel button, a small two-line text display, and five buttons below it in a ruler for operating the built-in menu. On the opposite edge of the top panel is a bright sticker that tells about all the main advantages of the printer.
On the rear panel in a recess is an automatic two-sided printing module duplex . On the right side are the USB ports for direct connection to a computer and the RJ-45 jack for Ethernet connection. Bottom – connector for power cord.
Features
The focus of Canon Maxify iB4040 for office use is evidenced by such a fact as the possibility of using high-capacity cartridges marked XL. They provide up to 2,500 black and white and about 1,500 color prints. These indicators are typical for laser printers of the same purpose, and in some cases even better than them.
With approximate price in big internet-shops for black cartridge 1920 Dollars. the cost per B/W print is 77 kopecks. Assuming that a full set of cartridges is enough for 1500 full-color prints, for the approximate price of color cartridges 1480 Dollars. The cost per color print will be 4.2 Dollars. Extra savings on consumables will help multi-pack with a full set of four cartridges CMYK .
Another sign of Maxify iB4040 suitability for office use is the use of pigmented DRHD inks in its cartridges both black and color , which are resistant to moisture and light fade. It’s very important for the preservation of documents, which are supposed to be kept for a long time.
The automatic duplex unit built into the printer saves on office paper, and can also print duplex documents when this is a strict requirement such as forms, applications, etc. .p. . Canon’s Maxify iB4040 is very advantageous over laser printers in terms of power consumption, t.k. Its average printing power consumption is only 24 watts. This allows you to use the device even when it is offline.
Printer can be used as a personal device and is equipped with Hi-Speed USB 2 interface.0. For wired LAN connections, it has a 10/100 Mbps Ethernet LAN adapter. Canon’s Quick Toolbox and Easy-WebPrint EX software are available to pair with a Windows PC.
Connection to wireless LAN networks is provided by Wi-Fi module IEEE802.11 b/g/n , which is also capable of working as an access point distribute Internet connection . This module also provides the ability to print documents directly from mobile devices. Maxify iB4040 supports the following mobile OS: iOS, Android, Windows RT.
For wireless printing, you can use popular applications such as Google Cloud Print and Apple AirPrint. Also available with proprietary software: the Maxify Cloud Link app from a tablet or smartphone screen and Maxify Printing Solutions, as well as the Canon Print Service plug-in for Android devices . In addition, printing of e-mails is supported, and Easy-PhotoPrint is available for selective printing of information from web pages+.
We checked if the printer works together with an Android smartphone by installing the free app from the Google Play store. There are two applications on the Maxify Cloud link: PIXMA/MAXIFY Printing Solutions and Canon Mobile Printing. The second is designed to print wirelessly on laser devices, but the first is just the thing to use your mobile device with the PIXMA and MAXIFY families of inkjet printers.
So it makes sense to include “high quality” when printing drawings and photos. We should add that compared to the template prints printed in color, the monochrome prints are much better at rendering the traditionally difficult for printers RGB scale patterns with a density of 70 to 100%.
According to the color print samples, it is clear that the printer copes with CMYK gradation scales with confidence, and the most difficult for him was the Cyan part of the scale with high density. The same can be said for RGB scales. The “High Quality” setting is especially useful on elements where fill and fine lines of different colors are combined, as well as on fine hatchings.
Judging by the sample pattern printed in high quality color on photographic paper, one can judge that when printing thin hatchings the limit of the printer’s resolution is thin lines of two points thickness, and in the case of single lines and “thin line on another color background” combinations, elements of 1 point thickness are confidently reproduced.
The output of an additional template with typed text samples showed that even in standard quality the printer is able to reproduce readable black text with a pinpoint of up to 3 points.
Samples of photo images show that the printer does a good job with correct color reproduction and reproducing most of brightness gradation. The exception is the lightest hues, for the output of which photo printers usually use extra cartridges with so-called light ink.
Conclusions
After reviewing the design of the Canon Maxify iB4040 printer and the results of the completed tests, we can say that this device is very attractive in a number of characteristics and well suits the needs of document-intensive individual consumers, as well as small work groups.
A device that’s truly desktop, high-performance, and economical. Features low printing costs, produces durable prints and offers modern communication tools. What more could you want? Low cost of the device itself? The price is also quite acceptable: about 10 thousand roubles.
Can the Canon Maxify iB4040 inkjet printer handle high-volume printing in a small office while keeping operational costs low and maintaining printing speed?
How does the Canon Maxify iB4040 inkjet printer compare to other printers in terms of cost-efficiency and printing speed for small office use?
Does the Canon Maxify iB4040 inkjet printer offer wireless connectivity for easy printing from multiple devices?
Can anyone share their experience with the Canon Maxify iB4040 inkjet printer? I’m particularly interested in its low cost and fast printing capabilities for a small office. Is it reliable and efficient? Any drawbacks or limitations? Appreciate any insights or recommendations!