Canon PIXMA TS6420a  Printer Review

The Canon PIXMA TS6420a's body is entirely plastic. It feels okay, though a bit cheap. It has a smooth finish; however, fingerprints are very noticeable due to the texture, so you might need to wipe it down often if this bothers you. The power cable is removable, making it easy to replace if damaged. The lid dampener keeps the lid open on its own and slowly closes once you release it, so you don't need to worry about it slamming shut. Its rear feeder is quite flimsy and feels like it might snap in half if too much pressure is applied. The cartridges are easy to remove when the printer is on, but the B (black) and C (color) labels are on the clips, so they aren't visible with both clips lifted. You'll need to check the label before removing the cartridges to ensure you're placing them in the correct location.

This printer has a small display with a few navigation buttons. The display has good contrast, which helps with visibility; however, some text is too small for comfortable viewing. Also, because the screen is small, you'll need to wait for long phrases to scroll. The screen is easily visible when standing, and you can tilt it upward to improve visibility, although the range is limited. The menu is very simple; the only drawback is that it doesn't allow you to access scanning features directly from the printer, so you'll need to initiate the scan from a computer or mobile device.

This printer doesn't yield many pages before its cartridges run out of ink. It has only one color cartridge, making it cheaper to replace all three colors, but it's more wasteful since you need to replace the entire cartridge if one color runs out. The printer displays low ink warnings when it estimates the ink is running low, but you can still get a few full pages out of it after that. Also, it doesn't stop printing when the cartridge is empty, so you might end up with a few blank pages if you continue printing after the warning. You can increase the page yield with high-yield cartridges (PG-260XL and CL-261XL), though we haven't tested them.

If you're looking for a good photo printer with much higher page yields, check out the Canon PIXMA TR8620a.

Like all inkjet printers, the Canon PIXMA TS6420a needs maintenance to prevent printhead clogging and dried-up ink. There are several built-in tasks designed to help address these issues, including printhead nozzle checks, printhead cleanings, printhead alignments, sheet roller cleanings, and bottom plate cleanings. The ink cartridges are easy to replace, though the printer needs to be on. The only way to know which cartridge goes where is by looking at the cartridge clips before removing the cartridges, as you can't see the labels with both clips lifted. However, since you'll need to replace the cartridges fairly often due to the low page yield, you might memorize their placement. The input tray and the rear feeder each hold 100 pages, so you'll likely need to refill them around the same time you replace the cartridges.

Paper jams are easy to access by lifting the rear feeder and removing both the back panel and transport unit cover. You can also access paper jams from the cartridge bay, but be sure not to touch the white ribbons on the inside, as this can damage the printer.

See the user manual.

This is an inkjet printer, which means it can clog if left unused for an extended period. Inkjet printers use liquid ink that flows through extremely fine printhead nozzles. During extended periods of inactivity, this ink can evaporate, thicken, or dry out, potentially blocking the ink flow. Environmental factors such as dry air, dust, temperature fluctuations, or direct sunlight can accelerate clog formation. Clogs may cause missing lines, faded colors, or complete print failures. To reduce the risk, we recommend printing periodically and storing the printer in a cool, stable environment. If clogs occur, most inkjet printers include built-in maintenance routines to help clear the printheads, which are detailed in the Expected Maintenance test box of this review.

If you don't want to deal with unclogging, laser printers use a different system with dry toner and a drum instead of ink and printheads, which avoids this issue.

This printer uses cartridges with built-in printheads, but the ink volume is quite limited. That small supply is usually enough to clear lighter clogs through standard maintenance cycles. When it isn't, simply replacing the cartridge also replaces the printheads, giving you a straightforward way to restore print quality. This makes clogs very easy to manage. The downside is that relying on new cartridges for clog fixes can become expensive over time.

• User manuals
• 4x6 Photo Paper Plus Glossy II (3-sheet sample)
• 1x PG-260 starter black cartridge
• 1x CL-261 starter tri-color cartridge
• Power cable

The cost-per-print is decent. The ink cartridges are relatively cheap; however, since you need to replace them every hundred or so pages, the costs can quickly add up if you print a lot. The tri-color cartridge helps cut costs since you don't need to buy three cartridges at once, but this also means you need to replace the cartridge if only one color runs out.

Overall, it's slow to print documents and significantly slower than advertised. The 200-sheet input tray capacity encompasses both the main cassette and the rear paper tray, each capable of holding 100 sheets.

The print quality of black-and-white documents is great. The printer reproduces black-color text and fine elements clearly. However, white-color text on a colored background is harder to read. There's some vertical banding, but it's only noticeable in colored areas, and it isn't as much of an issue when printing in portrait orientation.

The print quality of color documents is good. The text looks sharp enough, and all the fine elements are present, albeit not as clearly as when printing in black and white. There's some banding, but again, it's only noticeable in colored areas.

The Canon PIXMA TS6420a has presets for the most common paper sizes. You can also set a custom size between 2.17" x 3.5" (55 mm x 89 mm) and 16.54" x 26.61" (420 mm x 676 mm). The front input tray only supports regular copy paper of letter, Legal, and A4 sizes. You'll need to use the rear manual feeder if you want to print different sizes or on different paper types.

This printer supports optical character recognition (OCR), which allows you to scan and save documents as TXT files for quick keyword searches. However, it's software-based, meaning you need to use the Canon IJ Scan Utility software to use it. It works well for the most part; transcription errors mainly occur with special characters.

The scanner produces good-quality scans. Black-color text looks clear; however, some finer elements, like the lines in the graph, are very faint. Also, the colored areas look grainy, making white-color text hard to see.

The Canon PIXMA TS6420a's color gamut is decent. It mainly struggles with bright, saturated greens and reds, as well as lighter shades of blue. Blacks have a greenish hue, but it isn't too noticeable unless you directly compare it to true black. Color transitions aren't smooth, as there's a lot of grain.

Color accuracy is okay. Some colors look off from their originals, especially blues and reds. Black tends to have a greenish hue, but this is only noticeable when compared directly to true black.

The Canon PIXMA TS6420a is excellent at reproducing small details. Although its print resolution isn't as high as that of other photo printers like the Epson EcoTank Photo ET-8550, there are still a lot of fine details in the pictures. The main issue is that the halftones (dot effect) make edges look softer and distant objects harder to see.

This printer supports borderless printing, but only on the following paper sizes:

• 2.17" x 3.52" (card)
• 3.5" x 5"
• 3.94" x 5.83" (Hagaki)
• 4" x 6"
• 5" x 5"
• 5" x 7" (2L)
• 8" x 10"
• 8.27" x 11.7" (A4)
• 8.5" x 11" (Letter)
• 8.5" x 14" (Legal)

The Canon PRINT Inkjet/SELPHY app is a feature-rich application. You can use it to print, scan, copy, and manage your ink subscription. It also features an Easy-PhotoPrint Editor, which allows you to create collages, calendars, labels, posters, and more. It can't print text files and webpages, so you'll have to print them from whichever app you use to view them.

You must manually install drivers on Windows devices to use the printer, but not on macOS or Chrome OS devices. Get the drivers here.