Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program First, all in all, I really like this printer. For its price, the quality is quite nice. I also own the similarly priced HP Photosmart Premium Wireless e-All-in-One printer, which makes it easier for me to explain what I do and don't like about this Canon.
Let's get print quality out of the way first...to me, most color printers in this price range are perfectly acceptable, and the Canon MX432 fits right in with the rest. For day-to-day printing of documents and photos, this meets my needs. If you are looking for top-of-the-line print quality, you probably are not even reading reviews of low-cost multifunction printers.
Set up: this went very smoothly. The "quick start" guide got me up and running. I used the WPS wireless setup feature which was as simple as pushing a button on my router and my printer and waiting for them to discover each other (my router supports WPS...no big deal if yours doesn't, it will just take a couple extra setup steps to get it working with your network...and of course, USB will work fine too). What I really like about the setup is that it never required a USB connection. Once the printer was on my wireless network, the rest of the setup took place wirelessly. (One exception: AirPrint...see below)
Printing on different media: My HP multifunction printer has separate feeds for photo paper and letter-size paper, meaning I don't have to switch back and forth. The Canon, on the other hand, has no such convenience. Not a big deal, but a minor inconvenience if you plan to switch back and forth frequently.
Scanning: I LOVE the Canon's automatic document feed tray for scanning multiple pages. I tested it out and it worked great. Put in a few pages, start the scanning, and a multi-page pdf is automatically generated and saved on my computer. I expect I'll get a lot of use out of this. By contrast, my HP only scans one page at a time.
Noise: I found printing on the Canon to be peacefully quiet...quieter than the HP. On the other hand, each time I press a button on the Canon's control panel, I get a loud "BEEP!" I fumbled through the controls to try to figure out how to silence this, but I haven't figured it out yet. Time to check the manual.
AirPrint: This was my one big frustration with the Canon, and the sole reason for docking it one star. First, understand what AirPrint is...it allows most newer iOS devices to automatically print to the printer wirelessly...no special app needed. When I got my HP, the process was seamless! I set up the printer for my network, and AirPrint functionality just took care of itself: open an e-mail on my iPhone, go to print it, and voila! There was my HP printer. Now, if you read Amazon's product description for the Canon, you will see that it boasts of the same AirPrint functionality. But be sure to read the fine print! It says that you may need to first update the firmware on the Canon so that it can work with AirPrint. How do you do the updating? Well, my first guess was to check the pdf manual that gets installed with my printer. But there's no mention of updating firmware, and there's no mention of AirPrint! So, I went to Canon's support site, found details there, and downloaded the firmware update. But THEN I found that the firmware could only be updated using a USB cable. So, even though I was pleased that I could set up my Canon without needing a cable, I couldn't get AirPrint to work until I did an update that required the cable.
To be fair: Once the firmware update was completed, AirPrint worked just as well as on my HP. And the USB cable is ONLY needed until the firmware update is complete...you don't need to keep it tethered to your computer. Also, I assume that if you wait long enough to buy this printer, Canon will probably be updating the firmware before you buy it (if they DON'T, then hopefully they will include clear steps on how to do it yourself). However, if you are expecting AirPrint to be as simple as possible, understand that you may have to do a little extra work before it is functional.
I haven't tested faxing yet, but am very happy with scanning, printing, and AirPrint functionality. If you can get over the hurdle of setting up AirPrint, then I expect you will be very happy with this printer!
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