The Canon PIXMA TS6420a is a budget all-in-one inkjet printer designed for home use. It replaces the Canon PIXMA TS6420. Like its predecessor, this model utilizes a two-cartridge system, featuring one black and one tri-color cartridge. It's compatible with Canon's PG-260 and CL-260 cartridges, as well as the PG-260XL and CL-261XL high-yield cartridges. It has a 1.5-inch OLED display, an 8.5x11 flatbed scanner, two input trays, a main cassette, and a rear manual feeder. Connectivity options include Wi-Fi and USB, and there's support for Apple AirPrint and Mopria Print Service.
Our Verdict
The Canon PIXMA TS6420a is decent for home use and is easy to store, thanks to its small size. It features a flatbed scanner to fulfill basic needs, such as digitizing a few photos, recipes, or signed documents. It prints high-quality documents; it's just slow, so you may have to wait a while when printing multi-page documents. Printed photos look very detailed, but the colors aren't very accurate, especially blues and reds. It doesn't print many pages before its cartridges run out of ink, so you'll need to replace them often.
- Produces high-quality documents.
- Produces detailed photos.
- Flatbed scanner with extendable hinges.
- Good wireless connection options.
- Decent color range.
- Reasonably accurate colors.
- Low page yield.
- High cost-per-print for black-only prints.
- Photos look grainy.
- Slow printing speed.
Can clog if it's left unused.
The Canon PIXMA TS6420a is inadequate for small offices. Although it produces high-quality documents, it doesn't print many pages before its cartridges run out of ink, so you'll need to buy new cartridges frequently if you print often for work. Since it doesn't have an automatic document feeder, you need to manually position and scan each sheet on the flatbed, which can be a time-consuming process. Additionally, printing is slow, so your 20-page documents will take a few minutes to be ready.
- Produces high-quality documents.
- Good wireless connection options.
- High cost-per-print for black-only prints.
- Slow printing speed.
- No automatic document feeder.
The Canon TS6420a is a poor choice if you're looking for a printer that works consistently, even if you only use it occasionally. It's an inkjet printer that can clog when it's IDLE for too long. Thankfully, since the printheads are built into the cartridges, replacing the cartridge will easily resolve the more severe blockages. Since it only yields around 100 pages before the ink runs out, you'll need to monitor your ink levels to ensure you don't run out. It also doesn't print very quickly, so printing long documents will take some time. If you tend to print out just one page every few hours, it takes a while to wake up and print it if it's been idle for over an hour. On the other hand, it supports all major wireless protocols, making it easy to print from a wide range of devices.
- Good wireless connection options.
- Low page yield.
- High cost-per-print for black-only prints.
- Slow printing speed.
Can clog if it's left unused.
The Canon PIXMA TS6420a is good for photo printing since it prints nice images that look detailed and sharp. Most colors look okay, but blues, reds, and blacks look the most off. Otherwise, it prints a 4x6 photo in under a minute and prints on various paper types, including heat-transfer sheets, glossy photo paper, and magnetic photo paper.
- Produces detailed photos.
- Decent color range.
- Reasonably accurate colors.
- Photos look grainy.
The Canon TS6420a has very poor page yields. Its cartridges are relatively inexpensive, but they only last for about 100 pages, so you will likely need to replace them often if you print regularly.
- Low page yield.
The Canon TS6420a delivers poor printing speeds. The document printing is slow and noticeably below the advertised speed. It can print around 8 black and white pages per minute, and less than half the amount in color pages.
- Slow printing speed.
The Canon TS6420a's print quality is great, with text and fine details reproduced clearly. White text on colored backgrounds is harder to read, and some vertical banding appears in colored areas. However, banding is less noticeable when printing in portrait orientation.
- Produces high-quality documents.
The Canon TS6420a has an adequate scanner. While it's slow and lacks an ADF, it delivers good results. This printer supports a software-based optical character recognition (OCR), allowing you to scan documents and save them as TXT files for easy keyword searches. The scans are clean, with black text appearing clear; however, finer elements, such as graph lines, can be faint. Colored areas may appear grainy, making white text difficult to read, and transcription errors in OCR are more likely to occur with special characters.
- Flatbed scanner with extendable hinges.
Performance Usages
Changelog
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Updated Dec 16, 2025:
We've updated text throughout the review after converting to Test Bench 1.3.
- Updated Dec 16, 2025: We've updated the review to Test Bench 1.3, which adds a number of test boxes including Risk of Clogging and Ease of Unclogging. We also updated the Usage and Performance boxes at the top of the review to better integrate the new aspects covered. See the changelog.
- Updated Apr 16, 2024: We've updated the review for clarity.
- Updated Apr 21, 2023: We've updated the review to provide more information in the Black and White Documents, Color Documents, Small Details, and Photo Printing Sizes sections.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the Canon PIXMA TS6420a in black, but it's also available in white. There are no other variants.
See our unit's label here.
Popular Printer Comparisons
The Canon PIXMA TS6420a is similar to many other inkjet printers in its price range. Like other models that use traditional cartridges, its page yield is low, so you don't get many pages out of it before you need to buy ink replacements. It has a higher color page yield than other similar printers, which is beneficial if you frequently print photos or colorful reports. It's a decent choice if you need a simple inkjet printer for occasional use, but it's not an ideal choice if you print frequently.
See our recommendations for the best home printers, the best all-in-one printers, and the best cheap printers.
The Canon PIXMA TS6420a and the Epson Expression Home XP-4200 each has its own strengths. The Epson feels better built, delivers superior scan quality, has a more feature-dense companion app, and is fractionally better at resolving fine details in photos. The Epson printer's 232 cartridges also have a slightly higher yield than the Canon's PG-260 cartridges, though both systems have a disappointingly low overall page yield. The Canon is easier to maintain, warms up considerably faster, and offers more accurate color reproduction in printed photos.
The Canon PIXMA TR8620 is overall better than the Canon PIXMA TS6420a. The TR8620 has a higher page yield, which results in a lower cost-per-print, even if its five cartridges cost more to replace than the TS6420a's two cartridges. Also, it has an automatic document feeder, an Ethernet port, and support for a USB drive. It also prints colors more accurately, so your photos will look truer to life.
The Canon PIXMA TR7020/TR7020a and the Canon PIXMA TS6420a are very similar inkjet printers, but the TR7020 is better suited for a home office thanks to its automatic document feeder. It lets you scan a stack of pages much quicker than using the flatbed scanner on the TS6420a. On the other hand, the TS6420a is a better choice if you print photos often. Its photos look much nicer than the TR7020's, and it prints them much faster.
The Canon PIXMA MG3620 and the Canon PIXMA TS6420a are all-in-one printers with similar features. Their document print quality and scan quality are similar. Scans from the MG3620 tend to look a bit oversaturated, while those from the TS6420a look a tad grainy. Photos are also decent across the board; the TS6420a has a slightly wider color gamut, so colors look more saturated, but the MG3620 has better color accuracy, giving photos a more natural appearance.
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