Canon Pixma MG8250 vs HP Photosmart 7510 e-All-In-One

Canon Pixma MG8250

HP Photosmart 7510 e-All-In-One

A smaller non-touch screen: the Canon screen combines fewer elements than the HP. If you're anything like us, you'll also keep pressing on the screen, trying to get some kind of response out of it. Annoying.

Pixma Cloud Link: users can print photos straight from their online albums using Canon Image Gateway and Picasa. This feature gives direct access to different print sizes via a Google Chrome account. It's much less practical and intuitive than what you get on the HP however.

1 paper drawer on the Canon, 2 on the HP: It's practical to be able to differentiate between A4 and 10 x 15 cm formats.

1st page: the HP is more responsive. If you launch a print from standby, the first page comes out 8 seconds faster on the HP than the Canon. From off position, the HP only takes 26 seconds to print the first page, whereas the Canon takes 2 mn 44.
 

Colour and black & white speeds (pages per minute)

Desktop prints: the droplets are very visible on both printers though the Canon is at just 1 picolitre and the HP at 2. The size of the droplets are therefore a little more visible on the HP. On standard A4 paper however, HP gives better colour accuracy with an average deltaE 94 (colour difference) of 9.7 against 12 for Canon (the higher the deltaE the less accurate the colours - for comparison, good monitors have a deltaE of under 3).

Photo prints: no surprises here, the Canon is more precise than the  HP, both to the eye and with the colour sensor. The photo prints  on the Canon are very much comparable to those you get from a good photo lab, both in colour and black & white. The traits are sharp and colour reproduction accurate. Canon pushes certain colours, like the blue or the red, to give additional intensity. The colours are however still more accurate than on the HP, with an average deltaE of 4.7 for the Canon and 7.2 for the HP.

HP

No gold stars here: both printers have a standby consumption of 3 Watts. This may seem low but most recent inkjets manage to go under 1 Watt. As printers are on standby for the vast majority of the time, standby consumption is particularly important. In our rating system, printers that don't draw under 1 Watt in standby can't obtain a 5-star rating.

This Canon has an 'eco' mode that allows you to set it to turn off after 15 minutes of inactivity. This is a good idea and you can extend this period but why isn't it possible to set it to start before 15 minutes?

The Canon has an excellent photo scanner: the scanner built into the three-in-one Canon is a CCD type scanner with a resolution of 4800 dpi. CCD technology allows you to reproduce relief when you scan documents. It includes an adapter to scan negatives and slides. You can scan straight to a USB key or a memory card. The HP scanner, with a resolution of 1200 dpi, is less precise and has no adapter. However, as well as allowing you to scan to a card, it allows you to send the scanned document to a computer connected to the printer or by mail to the address of your choice.
 

 

Canon more expensive across the board, both in black & white and colour: at a time when all other manufacturers are offering two cartridge formats (standard and high capacity), Canon has decided to stay with just one (standard). While high capacity cartridges obviously imply a higher initial outlay, they work out to be more economical in the long run. The MG8250 is above average with 13.4 pence per page for text and 25.2 pence per page for photos. Remember this is for ink only, so although Canon certainly does give better quality photo prints, just behind Epson photo printers, it will be expensive.