MegaTank madness! Canon lays siege with six new cartridge

Should you buy one of Canon's six new MegaTank printers for your home or office?

Canon has expanded its range of printers that make use of refillable ink tanks, which Canon has coined "MegaTank". The cartridgeless system is designed for more economical print costs over conventional ink cartridges which have typically been expensive, ineffecient and wasteful.

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The six new printers to feature Canon's MegaTank technology are spread across its MAXIFY and PIXMA ranges. Canon Europe adds two new printers to its MAXIFY range, the Maxify GX3050 and Maxify GX4050, and also broadens the PIXMA range with an additional four - the Canon PIXMA G4570, PIXMA G3570, PIXMA G2570 and the PIXMA G1530. The models have not yet been announced in North America - and would, as is customary, likely to have slightly different names.

Ink cartridges are known for being expensive and inefficient, especially if your printer uses a tri-color cartridge which combines all three magenta, cyan and yellow colors into a single cartridge, meaning if any one color becomes low you'll need to replace the whole lot. Ink tank printers have grown in popularity over recent years as they break away from the cartridge format and allow consumers to buy large bottles of ink to refill the ink tanks in their printers as they need and are often more cost-effective with higher yields.

Here's everything you need to know about all six new MegaTank models…

Canon's latest four PIXMA inkjet printers are said to be fast, high quality and offer high yields with their refillable ink tanks, ideal for families and students wanting to save costs on how printing. Canon also states they have a streamlined interface for easier printing.

As a 4-in-1 printer, Canon's PIXMA G4570 is the most advanced of the four PIXMA models. It can print, scan, copy and fax as well as features a 35-sheet Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) to scan and copy multi-page documents quickly, helping to improve productivity. It features a 1.3" LCD, has a 100-sheet capacity, and has WiFi built-in.

The PIXMA G3570 is a 3-in-1 printer that makes use of the MegaTank system, capable of printing, scanning and copying and has a 1.3" LCD as well as WiFi. It's also available to buy in three colorways - black, white or red.

The PIXMA G2570 is a 3-in-1 multifunction printer capable of printing, scanning and copying and has a 1.2" LCD, while the PIXMA G1530 is the most basic of the bunch which is purely for printing (no scan, copy or fax capability) and has LED indicators on the operation panel rather than an LCD.

Low running costs are boasted with Canon claiming a single black ink bottle can last for 6,000 pages, or 7,600 in Eco mode, and 7,600 color pages or 8,100 in Eco mode. All four models are also designed to be capable of 11 images per minute (black and white) or 6ipm for color.

Canon's MAXIFY printer range is aimed more at small businesses, home offices and those working from home and hybrid working. Both the new MAXIFY GX3050 and MAXIFY GX4050 are said to have a low downtime and high volume printing of up to 14,000 pages from a set of color ink bottles, increasing to a huge 21,000 pages when used in Eco mode. They're also designed to be low maintenance and easy to use with a 350 sheet paper capacity and user replaceable maintenance cartridge.

Canon also claims both models have quick print speeds of 18ipm for black and 13ipm for color. They both offer a more compact alternative to conventional office laser printers with a competitive high yield and Canon is keen to stress crisp and easily readable text, ideal for printing office documents and PDFs.

The Canon MAXIFY GX3050 is a 3-in1 printer with print, scan and copy functions as well as a 1.35" mono square LCD screen and featrues WiFi. The MAXIFY GX4050 is the more advanced of the duo as a 4-in-1 model it also has a fax function, 35 sheet ADF, 2.7" color touch screen as well as WiFi and the addition of Ethernet.

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Deputy Editor on PhotoPlus: The Canon Magazine, Dan also brings his technical wizardry and editing skills to Digital Camera World. He has been writing about all aspects of photography for over 10 years, having previously served as technical writer and technical editor for Practical Photography magazine, as well as Photoshop editor on Digital Photo.

Dan is an Adobe-certified Photoshop guru, making him officially a beast at post-processing – so he's the perfect person to share tips and tricks both in-camera and in post. Able to shoot all genres, Dan provides news, techniques and tutorials on everything from portraits and landscapes to macro and wildlife, helping photographers get the most out of their cameras, lenses, filters, lighting, tripods, and, of course, editing software.