This device is basically identical to the MF4370dn which is heavily (and positively) reviewed. As near as I can tell there are three differences between the two units:
1) The D480 is beige, the MF4370 black
2) The D480 has am improved document feeder
3) The D480 has more complete duplexing than the MF4370.
I was actually alerted to #3 by an Amazon review. You can put a stack of two-sided documents into the feeder and produce a set of two-sided duplicates. According to the Amazon reviewer the MF4370 will take two-sided docs in the feeder but can only produce single-sided docs in response.
I haven't tried this with a thick stack of documents but onesie/twosie stuff seems to work great, at least with plain copy paper. I tried duplex-copying a mortgage statement printed on thick paper and the feeder choked on it.
Copying is fast, quiet and sharp. I'm delighted by it, actually. Duplexing is really simple. Manually scanning two different sheets onto one two-sided document or just copying a two-sided document are both very easy. The biggest limitation is the size of the platen. I didn't think I'd even notice this but if you're used to throwing down a book or something of a full-size copy machine you'll feel a bit cramped. If you want to scan oversized stuff you're of out of luck, but that's true of every machine in this price range.
The D480 seems to be a perfectly capable printer and supports full duplexing right from software. I do most of my printing to an HP 3600dn and don't see that changing except for printing music, where duplexing will be really nice to have. Network printing was really easy to set up.
Scanning is where this device falls a bit flat, and that's due almost entirely to the software, not the hardware. Even thought it has a Vista logo on the box it still relies on TWAIN drivers so it doesn't integrate with "Scanners and Cameras" under Vista. The software they ship to scan with is hokey but seems to work. I guess I can hope that Canon will ship updated drivers but I won't hold my breath. I am a little peeved at MSFT for letting Canon put a Vista logo on the box.
Network scanning is a joke on this device (same as with MF4370). The process for doing this is just stupid, and the file transfer is ungodly slow. I was hoping to just pop some docs into the ADF and press a button and have them show up but you can't really do it in the backgrond and the file transfer times are godawful slow. This is partly due to the size of the data but not completely - it's REALLY REALLY SLOW. To give you an idea it took something like a minute or two to transfer an 88KB image. That's KILOBYTES. I think the scanner must send a raw dump over the network which is processed on the host machine. In any case, it's tricky to set up and basically unusable. Note to Canon: "Scan to USB Flash Drive" would be a far better feature.
On the bright side there is support for scanning several pages from the ADF into a single (or multiple) PDFs. There is some sort of OCR software but I haven't tried to use it yet. We hope to scan bills and whatnot and toss the originals - I guess I'll see how well that works out.
I haven't tried the faxing capability. Having a halfway decent ADF will be a godsend for sending contracts or NDAs around, but I'll probably rely more on scanning to PDF than actually faxing. I never receive faxes - I use online services like eFax.
Finally I have to ding the awful documentation. It's really quite bad - I had to call tech support to try to figure out network scanning and found out that even though I didn't want to use USB scanning I still had to do a USB install. Oops. If you want to do anything non-trivial you're going to be experimenting and cursing a bit. Canon's tech support was actually quite good, but better docs would have saved them the cost of the call.
So, as the title says, the hardware is quite good for $250 but the software side is a little lacking. Even though I poo-poo the device a lot I am pretty pleased with it. Based on what I've seen so far I can recommend it for SOHO use if network scanning or tight Vista integration is not going to be a high-priority item for you. I wouldn't recommend using it as a primary departmental printer because the input tray is dinky, but I don't think you'll find a better device under $500. Canon imageCLASS D480 Laser All-in-One Printer (2711B054AA)
My scanner & laser printer wouldn't work with my new Windows Vista 64-bit operating system. I loved my laser printer because the toner seemed to last a very long time compared to my photo printer. So I looked for a laser multifunction. Canon is rated best in most printer reviews. But I also wanted one that was networkable so that I could print from my laptop without having to turn on my desktop computer.
Well, I've had the D480 over 2 months and I really like it. It's like having an office copier, laser printer and scanner next to my desk. (I have not used the fax function so can't report on it.) For all it does, it does not have a large footprint and space is limited for me. It comes alive and copies or prints very quickly. Everything I have printed and scanned has been very clean and professional document quality. The duplex copy, print & scan is a real plus, and I have a bunch of files that I want to scan into electronic format. Paper handling has been perfect. I am very happy with its perforance.
Only problems I had was with documentation. 1)Network Configuration was unclear and incomplete. After repeated efforts, I called Canon support. They were excellent, spoke English, were not in a rush to get me off the line, and knew exactly how to walk be through the network installation. That support is worth a lot these days. By the way, the rest of the documentation was good. 2) Scanning Software is minimalist when scanning on a network configuration and the documentation was unclear. It works but is bare bones. (The unit can be hooked up directly to a PC with a USB cable and the software for that kind of configuration seemed more robust and user friendly.) Maybe I'll purchase a separate software package for scanning.
Bottom Line: I am very happy with this purchase in spite of the documentation and software, especially since I got it for $285 through a Amazon reseller versus the $400 list. - Multifunction Printer - Copier - All-in-one - Canon Laser Printer'
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