A multifunction printer is better than a print-only unit because it can scan and copy in addition to printing pages. Today there are many such printers available at affordable prices, including the Canon MG8170.

What makes it different than many consumer-grade printers are its six cartridges, 2-way pape30r feeding system, one special tray to load CD or DVD, direct printing capability, and automatic duplex printing, scanning, and copying.

Features and Highlights

Double Trays

Almost every consumer-grade inkjet printers come with a single paper input tray which is typically located in the rear. The Canon MG8170 also has such tray, but it also comes with another input tray in front. It’s not a vertical tray, but a drawer that can be closed during printing. After printing, the paper stock can be left inside for future use.

The capacity of the drawer is the same as that of the rear input tray, which is 150 sheets of plain paper. This means you can print up to 300 pages before you need to refill the trays if the print job requires more paper. You can also fill each tray with a different paper type to complete different print jobs.

Direct Printing

Printing can be done without using a PC for files that are stored on a memory card or digital camera or another external storage media. The PictBridge slot can connect a digital camera or video camcorder to the printer for direct printing. The multi card slot can receive various common memory cards. If the files are stored on a USB drive, there is also a USB port to connect the drive to the machine.

More Than Four Inks

The Canon MG8170 uses six ink cartridges. For users who just need to print pages for personal needs, the number of cartridges might be overkill.

On the plus side, each cartridge is an individual cartridge, so you will never be in a situation where you have to waste ink just because a color runs out.

The biggest downside is the amount of money you need to spend to replace the empty cartridges.

Performance

For color and monochrome document printing, the Canon MG8170’s print speed is 9.31 ipm and 12.5 ipm, respectively. For photo printing, it depends on whether you print a photo with or without margins. A borderless photo can exit from the printer in approximately twenty seconds, while a photo with borders need approximately forty one seconds to come out.

The color scanner’s speed is approximately seven seconds for one A4 page at 300 dot per inch. On a side note, it can directly scan to a memory card.

Copy speed is 7.2 cpm for a color document. And the machine can create up to 99 copies per session.

Canon MG8170 Driver Free Download

The inkjet printer’s driver lets you control all of its functions to complete numerous print jobs. Therefore, installing the driver is a must if you want to print from Microsoft Office, Open Office, browsers, image viewers, or any other applications running on Windows. You can click the link below to download Canon MG8170 Driver for Windows: