Canon MX850 - what a disappointing product

Author's Rating:

Pros: Adequate printer performance

Cons: Lousy scanner interface for custom scanning. Lousy fax receiving. Lousy tech support.

The Bottom Line: 
Don't buy this machine.  Not user friendly and does not perform to advertised specifications/owners manual specs.  You should add a third category in "Recommend to a friend?"  "Hell no."

Author's Review
I can't believe Canon put out this product. I previously owned a MP780 and printed probably close to 30K pages over 4 years before it wore out. Hence I bought the follow-on MX850. How could I go wrong? A little more speed, maybe an extra improvement here and there. Well, how wrong I was. For starters, they made a major "upgrade" to the user interface, way over-complicating it. Simple custom settings in the scanning in particular are very difficult to use, and to sequence through a basic scan now takes probably 3 - 4x the "clicks" clicks, screens, and time. If there is anywhere I can reconfigure the default settings to avoid this, I can't find it in the screens or their crappy documentation.
The real kicker was the fax setup. I have a dual number line, with double ring on one of the numbers which is the fax line. The MP780 would switch on the fax on one ring, and over 4 years, never once missed an incoming fax. The MX850 setting minimum is two rings, and it NEVER answers on two rings. It usually takes four. That means that I have to set the forwarding to my cell phone delay (which acts on both lines, can't get around that) to about 25 seconds, and sometimes faxes still forward to my cell because this piece of crap ignores them. Plus it is unacceptable for my clients/prospective clients to sit there while the phone rings for 30 seconds while it forwards to my cell. I'll bet I lose business due to this. When I got Canon tech support on the line, we went round and round, with them blaming the voltage on my phone line as being the problem. When I asked them, "OK then how come YOUR previous MP780 product never missed receiving a fax on one ring over four years?" They couldn't answer that. The MX850 is a lousy product with lousy tech support. I am shocked that a product like this comes from Canon. I certainly DON'T recommend it. The MP780 was a great product, they should know "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Well they fixed it alright. Piece of junk.