Canon PIXMA TR4720/TR4722 Printer Review

The Canon PIXMA TR4722's build quality is sub-par. Its body uses cheap-feeling plastic; some parts feel especially flimsy, like the output tray and scanner lid hinges. Design-wise, the paper input tray isn't removable, limiting your access to the printer's internals, and if you want to store paper in the printer, you need to keep both the input and output trays open. If you need to replace the cartridge in the middle of a print job, the output tray could also get in the way and make replacement difficult. Also, in the case of a paper jam, you need to tilt the printer forward to gain access to the sheet rollers; this is hard to accomplish without help, as it could require two sets of hands. On the bright side, the cable is detachable for easy replacement in case it gets damaged, and the cartridges have an easy-clip system that makes them easy to insert.

The Canon PIXMA TR4720 requires a lot of maintenance. Like most inkjet printers, the printheads can clog if left unused for an extended period. If the printer clogs or the print quality degrades, a few maintenance tasks can help resolve the issue, like printhead nozzle checks, cleaning, deep cleaning, and alignment. There are also sheet roller and bottom plate cleaning routines if you notice smears. You'll have to replace the cartridges often if you print frequently or in high volume, as they have extremely low page yields. Unfortunately, accessing the cartridge bay can be tricky. First, before opening the door to access the cartridge bay, you need to open the input and output trays; however, having paper in the input tray will impede your access, preventing the front door from fully opening. The input tray only holds 100 sheets of paper; while this is more than the yield of either black or color cartridges, you can still expect to add paper frequently if you print a lot.

In case of a paper jam, you can access the sheet rollers via the ink cartridge bay by moving the cartridge holder out of the way. Alternatively, you can flip the printer onto its right side, then pinch two tabs to open the rear cover to access paper jams close to the rear. You can lift the button control panel to access any paper jams in the automatic document feeder.

See Canon's website for the user manual.

The display is bad. It's a two-line LCD that doesn't allow for tilt or swivel adjustments, so you must stand up and look down at the screen to see the displayed text properly. It's also hard to navigate through the printer's functions, as the display only shows a limited amount of text at one time.

This printer has an extremely low page yield, so you'll need to replace the cartridges often if you print a lot. Additionally, since the CL-276 is a tri-color cartridge, you'll need to replace the whole thing even if you only run out of one color. High-yield cartridges are available—the PG-275XL and CL-276XL cartridges have an advertised yield of 300 pages each. You can find value packs with two sets of XL cartridges, which may save you money.

There are two ways to use this printer's OCR function. Scanning directly from the printer using the 'Document' preset will produce a searchable PDF. You can also use the Canon IJ Scan Utility software and select the 'OCR' option; this outputs both a .txt file and a JPEG version of the document.

The scan quality is mediocre. While text is fairly crisp and legible, the scanner's image processing overexposes the image, resulting in blown-out colors. The image processing is also very aggressive in removing artifacts and grain from the page while using Default scan settings; as a result, it also removes fine details that should be preserved, like lines on a graph and background watermarks.

The scan resolution maxes out at 600 DPI by default when using the Canon IJ Scanning Utility software. You need to change the settings to the 'Advanced Mode' (found by clicking on the 'Scan Gear') to access the full 1200 DPI resolution. Just know that using the full scan resolution will create large files, requiring you to disable the thumbnail in the top-left corner of the ScanGear window.

• Setup instructions
• Power cord
• Fax cable
• PG-275 black starter cartridge
• CL-276 tri-color starter cartridge

The quality of black-and-white documents is great. Text looks clear, and most of the fine details are present. That said, some graining and print artifacts are present, particularly around fine details, and some slight printhead alignment issues result in banding. Finally, this printer struggles to reproduce contrast between darker shades like burnt sienna and dark purple when converting colors to grayscale.

The print quality of color documents is excellent. The text is sharp, and the colors look punchy without being oversaturated. Finer details, like the lines in the graph, are present but appear slightly grainy.

This printer is compatible with two Canon ink services. The first is called 'Auto Replenishment Service,' which uses the printer's built-in status monitoring to detect when you're low on ink and order more for you; you can read more about it on Canon's website. The second service is called 'PIXMA Print Plan,' a monthly subscription service with different tiers based on how many pages you print each month. You can check out Canon's website to read more about this service.

You can set custom print sizes from 4” x 6" (101.6 mm x 152.4 mm) to 8.5” x 26.6” (215.9 mm x 675.6 mm).

The Canon TR4720 has a fairly wide color gamut. The printer can reproduce most dark shades and bright hues well, although it struggles to reproduce lighter shades of blue and green. Color transitions are mostly smooth with minimal banding; however, there's some graining throughout; it's particularly noticeable in shades of green. Overall, the color gamut results in nicely detailed photos, as the saturated colors help to provide definition, like with the feathers in the parrot photo.

The color accuracy is adequate. A few colors are noticeably inaccurate, with dark shades of yellow, dark and light blue, skin tones, and grays being the least accurate. This negatively impacts the image quality, resulting in an overly warm appearance. Nevertheless, this level of color accuracy is still fine for casual use, like printing photos at home. If you want a printer with better color accuracy, check out the Canon PIXMA MG2522.

This printer is excellent at reproducing small details. While the color contrast helps to differentiate background details from foreground objects, the printer's halftone pattern produces some softness in the image, resulting in a loss of clarity.

This printer is compatible with the Canon PRINT Inkjet/SELPHY app. You can use the app to print documents and photos, initiate scans from the printer, or scan with your mobile device's camera. You can also print files from various cloud services and save scans directly to the cloud. Finally, you can set up and manage your ink subscription, purchase consumables, and monitor the printer's status.

You must manually install drivers to print on Windows, and also install the Canon IJ Scan Utility to scan using your computer. You can print and scan without manually installing any drivers or software on macOS and Chrome OS devices.