Review Canon i-Sensys LBP3010 | If you like white, you’ll love the look of Canon’s entry-level laser, about the size and shape of a large tin loaf. The top panel flips open to become the output tray and the front panel does likewise to become a 150-sheet feed tray. A very nifty little tray cover folds down from inside the front panel, a bit like a classic car bonnet, so you don’t have to close it up when not printing – a nice touch.

Clever, fold-down paper cover sits behind the front panel

The control panel is minimal in the extreme, with a single green light for power and data and a single button, for paper feed. There’s just one USB 2 socket at the back, too, as the only data connection. The combined, 1,500-sheet drum and toner cartridge drops in from the top in seconds and drivers for Windows and OSX are provided on CD. There’s a CAPT driver for Linux available too, that can be downloaded here.

Canon rates the LBP3010 at 14ppm and it managed to get quite close to this under test. The test 5-page text and graphics document returned 11.4ppm and the 20-page text test increased this to 12.1ppm.

Text print is sharp and dense, but greyscales are marred by some obvious dither patterns, which also show up in photo prints on plain paper. Detail levels are good, with little loss even in the shadows.

Verdict

The SRP on the drum and toner cartridge is comparatively high, giving a cost per page of 4.7p. This is the most expensive in the group, topping the Brother and the Samsung by 0.7p per page, and since the asking price is also the highest, the Canon doesn’t look like good value, overall. ®