It seems incredible that you can buy a multifunction printer with fax for under £60, but that’s all this new office-orientated Canon PIXMA MX455 costs.

Keeping the price down has resulted in a few compromises, but there’s plenty to commend it too.

You can connect through USB or Wi-Fi, but not Ethernet. For mobile printing there’s AirPrint and Canon’s Easy-PhotoPrint app, but PIXMA Cloud Link isn’t supported, which means no native Google Cloud Print.

There’s no colour screen, just a two-line LCD, and only two ink tanks, a pigment black and tri-colour. This makes it more expensive to run, as you have to replace the three-colour tank even if only one of the colours has run out. Don’t expect auto-duplex either.

There’s a 30-sheet ADF for the scanner, but only one 100-sheet paper input. If you want to switch to photo paper or letterheads, you have to reload. The output tray is a little short too.

The MX455 excels in print quality. Text is clear and bright, though a little slow. Photo paper prints are near lab quality, and even a default-settings plain paper photo print impressed. Although not very lively, it was clear, smooth and made good use of colour. A photocopy of a recent MacFormat cover was very good, despite a little banding.

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