The best Canon printers should be capable of quick and affordable printing, with ink cartridges that won’t cost you an arm and a leg. An added bonus is if the printer is compact too, preventing it from taking up too much desk space while still having all the functionality you’d expect. Our top pick with all these features is the Canon PIXMA TR8520 at Best Buy.It’s compact, being 38 percent smaller than most other printers and packing in printing, scanning, copying, and faxing. It also supports Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

If you’re in the market for all-in-one printers, you should also browse our general list of the best AIO printers to see options for other brands. For the best Canon printers, read on.

Don’t let the diminutive size of this printer fool you. The Canon PIXMA TR8520 may be 38 percent smaller than its predecessor, the MX920, but the all-in-one inkjet is still packed with top-of-the-line features. Like most printers in the PIXMA series, it has exceptional photo printing capabilities. This is thanks to a five-color individual ink system—as opposed to your standard four cartridges—which allows for vivid colors and evenly filled blacks. Unlike the rest of the PIXMAs, however, this particular model was built to fit comfortably in your home office.

Best Overall

Canon PIXMA TR8520 Wireless All In One Printer

  • Excellent print quality

  • Relatively compact

  • SD card slot

  • A bit expensive

  • high run cost

Measuring 17.3 x 13.8 x 7.5 inches, the PIXMA TR8520 is compact, but the four-in-one machine is still capable of printing, scanning, copying, and faxing. Additional features include a document feeder, front and rear paper support trays, a 4.3-inch display, double-sided printing, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth connectivity. The latter is perhaps the most exciting addition as users can connect their smartphone or tablet in order to print remotely. The large touchscreen display is also a nice touch—especially considering the printer’s low price point. It makes initial setup a breeze and allows you to monitor your work mid-print. 

Measuring 12.7 x 7.3 x 2.5 inches, Canon’s PIXMA iP110 is small, but it’s packed with tons of modern features. While it’s not tiny enough to slip into a laptop bag, it can easily fit in a backpack or a carry-on. Even with its battery attached, it weighs under five pounds, making it an ideal choice for students and professionals who need to get a lot of work done while on the go. The PIXMA iP110 can print letter-sized as well as legal-sized documents, and it’s quite fast at nine black and white pages per minute.

Most Popular

Canon PIXMA iP110 Wireless Printer

  • High DPI photo quality

  • Fast print speeds

  • Affordable

  • Rechargeable battery is expensive

  • No included USB cable

Designed as a compact photo printer, Canon has equipped the PIXMA iP110 with two ink cartridges. The first is multi-colored with cyan, yellow, magenta, and black. The second is mainly for black ink. Thanks to this dual system, the PIXMA iP110 can produce crisp, glossy images without fail. Like the other Wi-Fi enabled models on our list, it also allows for wireless printing via the Canon PRINT app. 

Printing photos should always be this easy. Whether you are looking to save desk space or print photos on the go, the Canon SELPHY CP1300 is convenient and ultra-portable. It weighs less than 2 pounds and its 3.2-inch LCD screen lets you easily choose and edit your photos. Print from your phone, tablet, or camera for photos that, thanks to thermal dye sublimation, have dynamic colors, can last for up to 100 years, and are water-resistant. Photo sizes range from postcard size 4 x 6 to square 2.1 x 2.1 inches. For extra juice, an optional battery pack is available for purchase and is said to offer 54 prints per charge. 

Best Compact

Canon SELPHY CP1300

  • Excellent print quality

  • Versatile features

  • Multiple connectivity options

  • No touchscreen

  • Slow operation

When spending time with family or friends, treat the SELPHY CP1300 as your personal photo booth, printing two strips of four photos each to share with others or using Party Shuffle to allow multiple people to send photos to the printer and create a collage. 

This wide-format printer is a perfect choice for photo enthusiasts and crafters looking to produce medium- to large-sized prints — up to 13 x 19 inches — from the comfort of their home. The Canon PIXMA iP8720 has six color cartridges: cyan, yellow, magenta, black, photo black, and photo gray. It prints with 9600 x 2400 DPI, resulting in highly detailed images. It’s pretty speedy, too. The iP8720 can print a 4 x 6-inch color photo in 21 seconds.

Best for Photos

Canon PIXMA iP8720

  • Large print sizes

  • Easy wireless operation

  • Simple to set up

  • No thumb drive or SD card support

  • No multi function display

Keep in mind the PIXMA iP8720 is a single-function printer; it doesn’t have a scanner, a copier, or fax functions, which are pretty common in most general-purpose printers nowadays. It also doesn’t have a touchscreen display like some others on our list, but don’t worry — it’s still full of modern features. The PIXMA iP8720 has high-speed USB and Wi-Fi connectivity, and it also supports Google Cloud Print and Apple AirPrint so you can print remotely. Using the Canon PRINT app, you can also scan documents and images directly from your phone or tablet. The printer is moderately sized at 23.3 x 13.1 x 6.3 inches and it weighs 18.6 pounds. 

Canon’s Color imageClass MF733Cdw is the best laser printer you can get. The all-in-one model is packed with features designed to make your work more productive, including a high-capacity toner cartridge which means you don’t have to replace your ink as often. Aside from printing basic documents and photos—the machine can handle 28 pages per minute—this model also functions as a scanner, copier, and fax machine. Easy-to-use features like a five-inch touchscreen panel, duplex scanning, and wireless capability also increase efficiency. Download the Canon PRINT app on your smartphone or tablet and you’ll be able to print remotely and even scan documents directly from your printer.

Best Laser

Canon Color imageClass MF733Cdw

  • Good scanner

  • Efficient power usage

  • Easy to set up

  • Too bulky

  • Loud operation

If you’re looking to print a lot of photos, you’re in good hands with the Canon Color imageClass MF733Cdw. Thanks to its Vivid and Vibrant Color Technology, you can expect photographs to come out crisp, bold, and professional-looking. Its all-mode double-sided option lets you print, scan, fax, or copy your files without interruption and with ease. If you’re printing a large run, you’ll also appreciate the machine’s 850-sheet capacity which is split between the main tray, multipurpose tray, and optional paper tray. This model measures 75 x 19 x 18 inches and weighs 58.3 pounds.

If you’re looking for a multifunctional office printer capable of basic printing, scanning, and copying, the Canon imageCLASS MF244dw is a great budget option. This is a feature-rich all-in-one printer, offering high-quality prints and access to an incredible suite of Canon apps. With a 750- to 3,000-page recommended monthly print volume, it is ideal for startups and small businesses. It’s also quite speedy, printing 28 pages per minute and taking only 14 seconds to warm up after powering it on.

Best Multifunction

Canon imageCLASS MF244dw Wireless

  • Quick print speeds

  • Solid print quality

  • Inexpensive operation

  • Photo printing can be hit-or-miss

Canon’s imageCLASS MF244dw features auto-duplex printing, which lets you save a lot of time and paper through double-sided documents. With a 350-sheet auto document feeder, you’ll have no trouble copying and scanning multi-page documents — and it just gets better from there. The printer has one-touch solution keys, which simplify operations. You can minimize all the button-pushing for mundane and repetitive tasks. Like most multifunctional printers today, it also supports wireless connectivity. You can print from anywhere in the office simply using your smartphone. Canon also equipped the printer with Access Point capability. This lets you connect the printer to a mobile device without having to use a router. The printer measures 14.7 x 15.4 x 14.2 inches and weighs 26.7 pounds. 

The Canon PIXMA TR150 is a wireless mobile printer that’s incredibly compact and easy to use. It’s lightweight, making it portable enough to take with you on the road, especially with an optional battery. It’s able to print documents and photos up to 8.5 x 11 inches in black and color, and features a 1.44-inch OLED display for the interface.

Best Wireless

Canon PIXMA TR150

  • Compact

  • Awesome print quality

  • Optional rechargeable battery

  • Slow print speeds

  • No Flash drive support

Among its wireless connectivity options include, Apple Airprint, Mopria Print Services, Google Cloud Print, and the Canon PRINT app, allowing you to print documents and photos from phones, laptops, tablets, desktops, and other devices.

About Our Trusted Experts

Emmeline Kaser is a tech writer and former editor for Lifewire. She was one of the first Lifewire editors to join Dotdash’s product testing team, allowing her to edit and assign hundreds of tech product reviews.

The best Canon printer to buy is the Canon PIXMA TR8520. It’s a compact multifunction printer that can handle printing, scanning, copying, and faxing. It even supports photo printing, though for a more specialized photo printer we like the portable Canon PIXMA iP110, It can fit into a backpack and supports a battery, it also comes with dual ink cartridges for black and white and color.

  • What is DPI?
  • DPI stands for dots per inch, which is how the resolution is represented when printing. The more dots there are per square inch, the more densely packed they are and the sharper your printing will be. Higher numbers are better.
  • What are the advantages of laser printers versus inkjets?
  • Laser printers use toner, which is a sort of powder instead of ink. Typically, toner is cheaper and the result is less cost per page when printing. Toner cartridges also tend to need replacement less frequently. While black and white laser printers are priced competitively with inkjets, color laser printers tend to be much more expensive.
  • Do I need copying and scanning and faxing?
  • That depends on your situation. In a college dorm, the more functions you can pack into a single device the better. Space tends to be at a premium, the more a single device can do, the less room you’ll need for other things.

DPI stands for dots per inch, which is how the resolution is represented when printing. The more dots there are per square inch, the more densely packed they are and the sharper your printing will be. Higher numbers are better.

Laser printers use toner, which is a sort of powder instead of ink. Typically, toner is cheaper and the result is less cost per page when printing. Toner cartridges also tend to need replacement less frequently. While black and white laser printers are priced competitively with inkjets, color laser printers tend to be much more expensive.

That depends on your situation. In a college dorm, the more functions you can pack into a single device the better. Space tends to be at a premium, the more a single device can do, the less room you’ll need for other things.