Canon Pixma TS6350 review: Back to basics

The TS6350 is the latest upper-mid range inkjet MFP in Canon’s evergreen Pixma range. It replaces the TS6250, and while we’re used to printers getting a light refresh over the old model, the TS6350 is quite a departure. Gone is its predecessor’s full-width, tiltable control panel. Instead, the TS6350 has an unusually asymmetrical front panel that takes us back to the 1990s.

Canon Pixma TS6350 review: Features

But, while its lopsided looks aren’t bad, it seems the TS6350 has taken a small step backwards when it comes to features. Instead of a colour touchscreen, there’s a small mono display and a scattering of buttons. More significantly, with more basic controls this MFP supports fewer advanced services: while you can print with Google Cloud Print, for example, you can’t scan directly to an online service such as Dropbox, a feature we’d generally expect at this price.

Happily, this MFP’s core specifications remain fairly good. In the base there’s a cassette for up to 100 sheets of plain A4 paper, while the rear tray can take another 100, or up to 20 sheets of photo paper. Cleverly, the printer uses the rear tray’s paper guide position to guess which paper size you’ve loaded. There’s support for automatic double-sided (duplex) printing, and the paper output tray motors open and closed.

This printer uses Canon’s five-ink setup, which pairs a pigment black ink with dye-based black, cyan, magenta and yellow inks, with the objective of combining four-colour photo printing with bold black text. It works very well, but it’s a shame that Canon still hasn’t introduced physical keying to prevent you mixing up the colour cartridges. All five cartridges are available in standard, XL and XXL sizes. Calculated for the latter, the colour component of a page of mixed graphics and text is a fairly low 5.8p, but at 3.1p, the black component is comparatively expensive.

READ NEXT: Canon Pixma TS6250 review

Canon Pixma TS6350 review: Performance

This isn’t a particularly fast text printer, delivering our mono letter test at only 11.4 pages per minute (ppm), rising to 12.7ppm in draft mode. Colour graphics were swift, however, with our challenging test arriving at 3.7ppm. Photo printing was quick enough: even at the highest possible quality, each 10x15cm photo completed in less than two minutes. A single A4 photocopy needed just 20 seconds or so in black or colour.

When tested over a wireless connection, scan speeds were disappointing. The TS6350 completed a preview in just eight seconds, but needed 30 seconds to capture an A4 document at 300 dots per inch dpi). This dropped to just 16 seconds over a USB connection, but a 1,200dpi photo scan still took more than a minute.

It’s almost impossible to fault the quality of this MFP’s prints, scans and photocopies. Black text was about as crisp and dark as you’ll get from an inkjet, while graphical prints were punchy and free of blemishes. Photos, too, were detailed and sharp, though the blue sky in one shot had some subtle blotches; not a problem we’ve seen from other recent Pixma printers. Scans were excellent, with crisp focus, accurate colours and a wide dynamic range.

Canon Pixma TS6350 review: Verdict

Overall, there’s lots to like about the TS6350. It’s a decent MFP, but it’s also quite expensive. At this price, we’d usually expect more features or faster performance.