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Canon i-Sensys LBP7660Cdn review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £282
inc VAT

This colour laser’s a good choice if print quality’s important, but it’s rather expensive to run

Specifications

single-pass colour laser, 20ppm print speed, USB, 10/100/1000 Ethernet, 346x414x499mm

http://www.printerland.co.uk

Canon’s i-Sensys LBP7660Cdn is a no-frills workgroup colour laser printer designed to withstand the rigors of an office print group. It has a one-time maximum monthly duty cycle of 60,000 pages, but expect it to cope with a realistic regular yield of around 6,000 pages per month.

Unusually, the printer has Gigabit rather than 10/100 Ethernet, but network speed isn’t the bottleneck when it comes to print speeds, so it’ll make no practical difference to the printer’s performance in real terms. It also has an automatic duplexer, a 250-sheet paper tray, a 50-sheet fold-out special media tray, and PCL 5c and PCL 6 page description languages built in.

Canon i-Sensys LBP7660Cdn

Getting the printer set up on our network proved to be a little challenging, although the driver disc is refreshingly free of excess bloatware. Indeed, all that’s on it are the UFR II and PCL printer drivers, as well as a manual. The installer offered to search our network for compatible printers, but even though this process should have been simple, its initial attempt at auto-detection failed. We resolved the issue using the printer’s onboard menu system, setting its IP mode to auto rather than manual, which let it take its address from our DHCP server. With that done, the rest of the installation process went swiftly and smoothly.

Resetting the printer’s IP mode was rendered more difficult than it should have been by the poor design of the LBP7660Cdn’s menu system. The directional keys used to navigate the menus double as shortcuts to the menus themselves, which makes navigation a somewhat ambiguous process. We preferred using the printer’s HTML interface, although you’ll have to get it talking to your network before you can access it.

The HTML interface simply replicates the onboard menu system, providing options that control networking, and the setting of default paper sizes and feeds. Alternatively, you can manually set the paper size of the pull-down special media tray if you wish to print on items such as envelopes, although you’ll be prompted to do so by the printer’s LCD display when this is required.

Canon i-Sensys LBP7660Cdn

Once sizing issues had been resolved, our envelope was printed smoothly. In fact, the LBP7660Cdn’s print quality makes up for a lot of other issues. The quality of its colour prints is astonishingly good, having bright, accurate tones and smooth gradation, even on challenging areas of subtle shading. Mono text is also pin-sharp and both colour and mono prints have the trademark glossiness that makes laser prints look so professional.

It even has a vivid colour mode for photo prints. It doesn’t change the printer’s enhanced resolution and it doesn’t make your prints any slower. As an example, two 10x8in prints took exactly 25 seconds in both normal and vivid photo modes. In fact, the only noticeable difference is slightly enhanced magenta tones that make pale skin look like someone’s taken a bottle of fake tan to it.

Happily, the printer proved to be no slouch in our tests, giving a mono print speed of 13.6ppm and a colour speed of 10.7ppm, while a 10-page colour duplex document printed in one minute and 21 seconds. Print costs aren’t too painful, either, with a page of mixed black and colour printing coming in at 14.9p and a mono page costing 3.2p.

Overall, we found the i-Sensys LBP7660Cdn to be a bit fiddly to set up, and three years’ total cost of ownership adds up to £1,839, making this one of the more expensive colour laser printers to run, but it is pretty quick at printing in colour.

Basic Specifications

Rating ****
Maximum native print resolution 600x600dpi
Maximum enhanced print resolution 9,600x600dpi

Quoted Speeds

Quoted speed, mono A4 20ppm
Quoted speed, colour A4 20ppm

Tested Speeds

Mono page from sleep time 1.0 34s
Colour page from sleep time 1.0 40s
Time for two 10x8in photos 1.0 25s
Time for six 6x4in photos 1.0 30s

Physical and Environmental

Standard printer interfaces USB, 10/100/1000 Ethernet
Optional printer interfaces none
Size 346x414x499mm
Weight 25.0kg
Noise (in normal use) 52dB(A)
Duty cycle 60,000 pages

Paper Handling

Maximum paper size A4, custom length to 356mm
Maximum paper weight 220gsm
Standard paper inputs 2
Standard paper input capacity 300
Maximum paper inputs 3
Maximum paper input capacity 550
Duplex (code, cost if option) No

General

Printer technology single-pass colour laser
Language(s) PCL5c, PCL6, UFR II
Supported operating systems Windows XP/Vista/7, Mac OS X 10.4.9 – 10.7.x, Linux
Standard printer memory 768MB
Maximum printer memory 768MB
Other laser features and options £451 Barcode Printing Kit- F1 (Barcode ROM module)

Buying Information

Price £282
Price of 2nd paper cassette £180
Capacity of supplied black toner 1,200 pages
Capacity of supplied colour toners 1,400 pages
Capacity of supplied drum(s) integrated
Estimated colour TCO – three years medium £1839
Estimated colour TCO – three years heavy £6618
Warranty one year onsite
Supplier http://www.printerland.co.uk
Details www.canon.co.uk
Consumable parts and prices £113 each

Tested Print Speeds

Time for two 10x8in photos 1.0 25s
Time for six 6x4in photos 1.0 30s