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Review This is a squat machine, cased all in white, with a simple, LED-filled status panel. It has a single paper tray, holding just 150 sheets, which isn’t a lot if you print frequently. There’s a multi-feed slot for envelopes and other media.

The machine uses a print engine integrated into the toner cartridge, with cartridges good for 2300 pages of black and 1500 pages of each colour. These capacities are about average, and the combined drum and toner cartridges are the only consumables. They slot in easily, once you slide out the rack containing them, from the front of the machine.

The only connection method is USB, though a version with a network adaptor – the LBP5050n – is available for around £30 more. Drivers are provided for Windows and Mac OS X, but Canon doesn’t offer any Linux support.

Canon quotes speeds of 12ppm and 8ppm for black and colour print, though under test we saw a maximum speed of 9.9ppm black, but only 4.7ppm in colour. Both these results are pretty modest, and include the slowest colour speed of any printer in the group. This is partly due to processing times of up to 20 seconds a job, before printing starts.

Print quality is generally good, with dense, clean black text. But colours are a bit over-bright, and blues and greens tend to come through dark. There’s some mis-registration of black text over colour.

The drum and toner cartridges are only available in a one yield and give running costs of 3.3p for black and 17.1p for colour. The colour cost is second highest in the group, though the black cost lies in the middle of the field. ®

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