This sleek device is easy to use, and lets you print pictures straight from a camera, USB stick or mobile phone

This Canon printer is rather big for an inkjet but it looks like quality kit, with its clean lines and glossy black finish. The preview screen pops up from the centre of the printer and, despite the shiny surface, it’s easy to find the best viewing angle. The memory card slots are concealed behind a door on the front of the printer, with the PictBridge port underneath for printing directly from a camera or USB stick.

You can also print directly from your mobile phone if it has infrared, but remember that some cropping may occur on borderless prints – as we noticed – and it may not be possible to send files larger than 1.8MB. You can buy a separate Bluetooth adaptor (BU-30) to print Jpeg or PNG images via Bluetooth.

Setting up
The getting-started manual was easy to follow and setting up the Wi-Fi connection simple. It’s compatible with Apple as well as Windows operating systems. Installing the software took around 20 minutes.

Intelligent Touch System
The printer has a preview screen so you don’t need to turn on your computer to change print settings.

This screen is not touch sensitive. Instead, the controls are on a touch-sensitive area in front of the screen – Canon’s Intelligent Touch System. This illuminates only the controls that are useful for the print, scan or copy job you’re undertaking, so you’re not confused by irrelevant buttons and controls.

Printing
The MG8170 doesn’t automatically recognise the paper you’re using – there are default settings when you first print, but you can change them on the printer in the ‘Setup’ menu. We found that while printing photos, the printer remembered the photo paper we last used.

When printing directly from camera or memory card, you can jump through photos 10 or even 100 at a time, which speeds things up if you only want to print one from many on your USB drive. There are several photo editing options, such as cropping and red eye reduction, so you can tweak your images just before you print. Photo print speeds seem reasonable. However, we noticed a slight difference in colour reproduction after scanning and printing original photos. The printer costs approximately Rs.25,995.

Verdict: Easy to use with useful photo-editing features, this is a good buy if you print lots of your pictures.