Canon ImageCLASS MF624Cw Wireless Color Laser Printer with Scanner, Copier & Fax | All-in-One Office Printer for Home & Business Use

Working on a large network with expensive 4 foot-tall printers all over the building, I have had a great deal of experience installing and connecting printers. That said, most laser printers seem to do well when they cost 10K or better. But for home printers, it's another story. The thing that turned me off to inkjet printers was when I found out that the printer companies, some of them anyway, set their printers to fail if you use aftermarket ink. Lets face it, we all know they sell you the printer for almost nothing and the make it all up on the ink. Ink that dries out and does not last long. The worst part is when you get a new operating system on your computer or update and now the printer will not work with it. And yes, even us IT guys can't get the little gargoyles to work. I say gargoyles because they sit there on the ledge smiling at you as they fail to print or connect. It just seems to me that they are designed to fail - just to keep us buying new printers and their overpriced ink. And that is why I bought the Canon MF624Cw - it works with aftermarket toner and because there are so many ways to connect to it and print. That is rarely the case with inkjets - its wired or wireless. But this Canon printer lets you connect directly to the printer: wired, or wireless, wireless direct, or even use a cloud print app.The setup was a breeze. I connected with the WPS button on my router and that was that. It only took a few seconds to be done. Then I installed the drivers and the computer connected right to it. Even my wife said it was the fastest and easiest printer install she had ever done. Normally she tries but has to come to me to get it installed. But not this time, and she loves the printer now too. Not just because of the easy install, but the quality of the print.I bought some HaloFox Compatible Toner Cartridge Replacements for Canon 131 imageClass MF624Cw printers from Amazon for $60 and they work perfectly. Not a glitch and so finally, I am happy with a printer. Yes, I realize that people have different expectations and different experiences, but if you are looking for a solid laser printer for home, or a small business, this is a good choice. Be aware that it has a small paper tray, only 150 sheets and does not do duplex printing, and you have to fax from your PC, but everything else is rock-solid. And if you do what I did, you might find a Canon refurbished model for a lot less. If you told me the one I purchased was new, I would have believed you other than the manual being a bit beat up from shipping (it was not secured). Other than that, not a mark on the printer and the performance couldn't be better.All of that said, if you really want duplex printing, fax, and a larger paper tray, there are several very similar Canon printers around the same price that have all of that. Just make sure you check out the aftermarket toner before you buy - find one with at least 4 out of 5 star reviews. Because the real trick is not finding a refurbished model, but one where you can afford the toner! Heck, I found one laser printer where the toner cost so much, that it was actually cheaper to throw away the printer and buy a new one than to buy the regular priced toner.Day 1: Both the hard-copy instruction manual and the software manual for wireless setup refer you to the CANON website, but when you get there, it says NO MANUAL exists?!? Really?Then, I go to try to register at the CANON site, as prompted by the software setup DVD, and after filling out all the information, it won't let me submit because apparently "New York"--chosen from their drop down--is an "INVALID STATE"--despite the fact I clearly have the correct zip code and address entered. Anddd, there's nothing I can do. Really?! Day 1 and already having the most basic issues with support. Part of the reason I switched to CANON was all their recent TV ads touting their customer support/service.. UPDATE EDIT: It seems their product registration website doesn't work with Google Chrome, only Internet Explorer. However, I emailed them about the problem with the website, and an actual person did respond within like 10 minutes, so points for that. However, I was the one who figured out the IE vs. Chrome glitch, which the IT guy said he would pass along.In other news, their manual was a nightmare to try and read follow, as others have mentioned. There were like 30 black & white drawings where you had to figure out what the heck it was showing you to do. Could've been improved by adding like 3 simple words ever so often, like "Remove Orange Tab" or "Remove foam pieces" every 5 drawings or so--just so you don't have to decipher what the heck the tiny B&W images are showing you. Also, they just threw in a random plastic piece with no description of what it went to (and it wasn't obvious). I had to come back on here on Amazon to read other people's questions to know it was a cover for the paper tray when you switch to legal size. (I saw no label or anything identifying it in the manual).So, negative points for the bad links and website glitches, but positive points for the fast response, so I'll move it up to 3 stars for now, but -2 stars still for:1) NO USB cord is included in the box to connect the printer--apparently they assume you'll do wireless--but yet the links they tell you to get wireless setup instructions at don't have instructions for this model;2) user manual and instructions are poorly laid out and hard to follow;3) website registration is glitchy.However, I'm hoping I can figure out wireless on my own. Print quality looks good on a color photo.I love love this printer. This is my first printer with toner and I'll never look back. No more lifting the lid for copies one at a time. No more expensive ink cartridges that stop up. Fairly easy to set up. Didn't even have to have one of my kids come do it. Here's the most important part. The Cannon Company. I did have trouble getting the printer off legal and to default to letter. I called Cannon. Even their support person couldn't get it to go to letter as default setting. They had me a new printer here in less than 24 hrs. What companies do that any more. I did however after hanging up with cannon and studying the situation for a couple of hours figure out the problem. Letter was listed under frequently used paper sizes. Called Cannon back but they had already shipped the new printer. I just declined the package and it was returned back to them. This is a big printer and it's heavy. So you'll need something sturdy for it to sit on. I've used 300 or better prints from the original toners and have not had to replace those yet. I can now print from my note 5 phone which I use way more than my tablet or laptop. What's not to love. The price was definitely in my bracket as we are a small Farm and I'm not printing everyday. Hey sometimes I print stuff out now just bc I can. Lol way to go Cannon on your customer Service. Oh, and I'm quite satisfied with the photos I've printed from my phone.Update after 14 months.This is still a 5 star. Time to replace the black toner cartridge. Wonderful experience. There was no telling me I didn't put in a true Canon cartridge. No telling me my warranty would be no good if I used it. I just dropped it in and it worked perfectly. Thank you Canon for making a printer thats user friendly. Thank you for letting me the buyer make the decision on what brand toner I wanted to use.I had major Wi-Fi issues with a previous HP all-in-one--among other bad habits, it would literally crash my tellco's router whenever it connected to the network--so I tried this Canon. The Canon MF624CW suffers from connection issues often which require a restart of the printer, which sometimes still doesn't fix the problem. Documents will sit in the printer's queue and remain "paused" permanently. It doesn't matter if I'm printing from a mobile device, Windows 10 computer, or Mac. More recently, I can no longer connect my Mac wirelessly to the printer at all! I've tried everything short of reinstalling MacOS.The touch screen user interface is disorganized and could be much simpler. The printer hardware seems okay; I haven't had any feeding issues and printing costs are decent.HP has let me down in the past, and now Canon is giving me issues. Brother might be my only hope.1. The software does NOT support two-side scanning (duplex document). I bought Canon simply because I used to have a Canon Inkjet, and the scanning suite "Canon MP Navigation" supports a very smart duplex scanning option. You put a stack of two-side papers, scan the odd-number page first, then flip the stack over, put in the feeder again, scan the even-number ones. The "Canon MP Navigation" will put them together in the correct order and generate a pdf. I was looking for the same function in this laserjet. However, the software only supports "feeder 1-side" scanning. Now I have to feed the two-side documents by hand and turn them over one by one. Thanks, Canon.2. A spare plastic piece come with the power cord in the box. You can see it in the "open-box illustration" picture on the second page of the manual, but nothing did they say how to use it, or just let you dump it. I tried every slot that the piece may insert into, but failed. Also I searched the official site, in the manual, on youtube and eventually got the answer from an earlier review on Amazon.com. This piece of xxxx is for "legal size paper drawer".This unit is big and heavy, it takes 2 people to get it out of the box. Software setup is complicated and most will struggle to get it working via wireless Wifi. After a few hours of frustration i was finally able to print directly, via wifi, from my ipad/iphone emails without using an app.No duplex printing ( two sided printing), and surprisingly for the size, the machine does not hold much paper. With those comments, print quality is good, and once warmed up (though a bit noisy warming up), printing is fast. There are other brands out there that are a lot more user friendly to setup. I don't understand why a unit that is (?) Intended for home use wouldn't be simpler to work with and set up.All in all it is a good replacement for an ink jet printer but it may leave you a bit disappointed.We have had this printer for almost three years now. We use it to print from multiple computers on the network, both Mac and PC, tablets, and phones, both iPhone and Android. The scanner and copier features work very well. We are still on the original toner cartridges, although we do not print heavily we have used it a fair amount. Canon makes a great product and I highly recommend to anyone looking for a good quality colour laser printer with other features, can't beat the price.The printer is very large and heavy. The first page out speed is very slow. It takes a long time to process each print job. It does a lot of "thinking" between jobs and makes a loud whining noise while it does this. It sits on my desk and is too noisy when it runs.Just after the warranty ran out (13 months) it broke down. I only print about 100 pages a month, so it was like new. I was told the Fuser and DC Controller board needing replacing at a cost of approx. $300. I was very disappointed and went out and bought a different brand of printer.The only good thing about it is that it prints good quality.