Canon Pixma MG6350 review

Canon's Pixma MG6350 premium multi-function inkjet printer is packed with features. You can connect it to your computer using USB, or to your local network over Ethernet or Wi-Fi.

A networked Canon Pixma MG6350 is AirPrint compatible and Google Cloud Print ready. A free mobile app enables you to print from and scan to your smartphone or tablet, too.

It has twin paper trays for regular and photo paper, and can print directly onto optical discs. It's far more elegant than its predecessor, the Canon Pixma MG6250. It's better looking, and adds a touchscreen interface. It supports all popular memory card formats, and WLAN PictBridge.

We liked

The Canon Pixma MG6350 is great at printing high-quality photos, and it does so pretty quickly too. Indeed, its overall speeds are excellent for a home printer, and even rival some office-orientated inkjets. Text printing is clear and well defined, and it has automatic Duplex for two-sided printing.

We certainly welcome the six-tank ink system, with the usual cyan, magenta, yellow and black inks augmented by a grey cartridge for better defined colours when photo printing, and pigment-based black for superior text printing.

The new touchscreen interface is very welcome, bringing Canon printers into line with some of its rivals. We love the way the tray used for optical disc on-body printing is caddied by one of the paper trays when not in use, too. You're far less likely to lose it this way.

We disliked

Although overall printing standards are very good, the Canon Pixma MG6350's plain-paper photo and graphics prints suffered from banding. This didn't happen on the Canon Pixma MG6250, and it shouldn't happen here.

It's also too noisy, making an irritating knocking sound over and above the usual noises you'd expect from an inkjet printer. Fitting the ink cartridges is a little awkward too, and definitely more fiddly than the Canon Pixma MG6250, but this is the price you pay for the new printer's more elegant form factor. It's a little more expensive than average, both to buy and to run.

Final verdict

When designing the Canon Pixma MG6350, Canon wisely refrained from 'fixing' things that weren't broken in its predecessor, the Pixma MG6250. The celebrated six-tank print engine is retained, giving the same stellar photo and text printing.

The feature set is the same too, with comprehensive mobile and internet printing available out of the box. Instead, a few areas of inelegance about the Canon Pixma MG6250 have been addressed.

The new printer is better looking, the untidy rear sheet feeder for photo papers has been replaced by a second paper tray. The loose caddy for optical disc printing now fits on the underside of one of the paper trays when not in use, where previously you had to find a convenient drawer or shelf.

The touchscreen interface is much better than the Canon Pixma MG6250's push-button controls, too.

Unfortunately, a few negatives have crept in. The Canon Pixma MG6350 bands much more than its predecessor when printing images on plain paper, and it's irritatingly noisy, too. Even so, its speed, quality text printing and stellar photo reproduction win through.

As long as you don't need office-orientated features such as a fax and ADF, the Canon Pixma MG6350 is an excellent choice of multi-function inkjet printer.