Canon PIXMA G4270 Printer Review

The Canon G4270 feels well-built. It's entirely plastic but feels sturdy, with no gaps in the construction. The power cable is removable, making it easy to replace if damaged; however, it feels like the connector doesn't go all the way into the power input and detaches rather easily. Design-wise, there are pros and cons. The ink tanks are accessible from the front, which is great for maintenance, and there are good dampers to prevent the top of the printer from slamming down when closing it. There's no damper for the scanner lid, though, so you'll have to lower it gently. Removing paper jams can be challenging, as you can only get to the sheet rollers through the printing bay on the front, and there's very little access to the automatic feeder's sheet rollers.

This printer only requires the typical maintenance procedures expected on most inkjet printers. It has many built-in functions, like Nozzle Check, Cleaning, Printhead Alignment, Roller Cleaning, Bottom Plate Cleaning, and Head Replacement. You may encounter some print quality issues when you use the printer for the first time. A printhead cleaning will likely resolve the issue.

Since this is a supertank printer that yields a large number of prints, you likely won't need to refill the tank often. Refilling is easy; the tanks are easily accessible, and the bottles have keyed nozzles that only fit the corresponding tank. As for paper, the input tray holds 100 sheets, so you might have to refill it frequently if you print in high volume. Unfortunately, the only way to remove paper jams is through the printing bay on the front. You must be careful when pulling on the jammed sheet and avoid touching the tubes. You can access the automatic feeder's rollers by opening the top panel.

You can see the user's manual here.

The display is bad. It's small, monochrome, and low resolution. It's hard to see, and there's no way to adjust the screen's tilt to improve visibility. Thankfully, the interface feels responsive, and navigating the menus is fairly straightforward. You can access the same functions via the Canon IJ Printer Assistant Tool application or the remote web UI.

The Canon G4270 is a supertank printer with refillable ink tanks. A full tank yields an incredibly large number of prints, so you likely won't need to buy new ink often unless you print a lot. The printer warns you when the ink is low, but you can continue printing. It only stops printing when the ink reaches the lowest line on the tank.

The scanner can scan double-sided sheets, but you need to flip the pages manually. The Canon IJ Scan Utility application has a step-by-step guide to help you do so; here's an example. To use the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) feature, you can either generate a TXT file with the text from the scan via the Canon IJ Scan Utility app or scan the document as a PDF directly from the printer.

The scan quality is mediocre. The scanner captures text well; however, it makes colored areas look grainy and has trouble picking up finer details, which isn't ideal for digitizing photos and graphics. If you want a similar all-in-one with better scan quality, check out the Epson EcoTank ET-2840 Special Edition.

• Power cord
• RJ11 Phone cord
• Documentation
• Set of Canon GI-21 ink:
• 1x black
• 1x cyan
• 1x magenta
• 1x yellow

The Canon G4270 prints black-and-white documents well. Text looks sharp, and fine details look clear. There's some banding, but it isn't overly distracting.

The print quality of color documents is outstanding. Everything looks sharp and detailed; there are misalignments, but they're hard to spot and less of an issue when printing in portrait orientation.

The cost per print is superb because a full tank yields a large number of prints, and replacement ink is relatively cheap. This printer is eligible for Canon's Auto Replenishment Service, which sends you new ink bottles when the printer detects low ink levels.

The Canon PIXMA G4270 takes a while to initialize and get a single page out, and it's also slow to print longer multi-page documents. However, its photo printing speed is good and within the typical range of most inkjet printers. You can print double-sided, but you'll have to manually turn the pages when prompted. The rear input tray holds 100 sheets of paper.

The color gamut is okay. The printer has trouble reproducing bright, saturated colors, which causes some loss of fine details and makes pictures look somewhat dull. There isn't much banding, but color transitions look grainy.

This printer's color accuracy is mediocre. Grays, blues, and skin tones are noticeably off. The pictures still look pleasing; just don't expect them to look exactly like the original.

The Canon G4270 reproduces small details well. Fine details look relatively clear; the halftones (dots) obscure some finer elements, and the contrast could be better.

You can see the power input more clearly here.

This printer is compatible with the Canon PRINT Inkjet/SELPHY mobile app. It lets you print, scan (using the printer or your smartphone's camera), copy, access the user manual, perform maintenance tasks, order ink, and manage your ink subscription. In addition to locally stored content, you can print from cloud services like iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Instagram. The app doesn't support TXT and HTML files, so you'll have to print from the browser or whichever application you use to see TXT files.

You don't have to manually install drivers to use the printer on macOS and Chrome OS devices, but you do on Windows devices. You can download the drivers here. Though not mandatory, you can use the Canon Print Inkjet/Selphy app from the Google Play Store on Chromebooks; it gives you the same functionalities as on an Android device.