Canon Pixma TR7020a review: a budget all-in-one with an ADF

Canon’s Pixma TR7020a is a compact all-in-one inkjet printer with an automatic document feeder (ADF) that’s often on sale for less than $100. For a home office or a part-time business, that’s an intriguing combination.

There are some great deals on good printers, but when prices are this low, it’s wise to use caution in case some critical feature has been cut to reduce costs. I reviewed the Pixma TR7020a, checking quality and performance to find out if Canon found a good balance of features for this budget-priced office printer.

Design

The Canon Pixma TR7020a has an off-white body with light gray panels on the bottom. Combined with the slim profile, it’s an attractive design that works well in the home.

The footprint measures 15.9 inches by 14.4 inches and stands 8.2 inches tall. It weighs just 18 pounds, so it’s easy to unpack and move around.

Since the Pixma TR7020a’s 1.4-inch monochrome display is on the front, it works well when you’re sitting, but you’d have to bend to read it if it’s at desk height. The clearly labeled buttons are simple to use, particularly for copies.

Canon gave the Pixma TR7020a two paper trays. Both the main tray in the front and the rear tray hold 100 sheets of paper. The rear tray has a straight path to the printheads and is best for glossy paper, photo paper, labels, and envelopes.

Overall, it’s a nice design that’s quite compact for an all-in-one with an automatic document feeder (ADF).

Printing performance

Canon’s Pixma TR7020a has good print quality. Monochrome documents are crisp and even fine print is easy to read. The first page takes about 20 seconds, but the Pixma TR7020a can reach 13 pages per minute (ppm) on long monochrome documents.

Color documents look great, but take almost twice as long. An average color document prints at up to 7 ppm, which is OK for a budget printer. A faster inkjet costs more. For example, HP’s OfficeJet Pro 8135e manages 20 ppm black and 10 ppm color, but costs twice as much.

Canon points out that the Pixma TR7020a uses Chromalife100 System13 ink that extends the lifespan of photo prints. Pictures could remain vivid for up to 100 years in a photo album, 30 years behind glass, or 20 years unprotected.

Pictures had good contrast and accurate colors when I used glossy photo paper. However, the Pixma TR7020a doesn’t handle plain paper photos well. Blacks look gray and colors are washed-out. I dug through the controls and tweaked everything I could, but saw little improvement.

The best I managed was lying to the Pixma TR7020a by choosing the photo matte paper setting when printing on plain paper. Even then, the contrast was still too low. For important photos, glossy paper is always best for inkjet printers.

Special features

The Canon Pixma TR7020a is an all-in-one printer that includes a 35-sheet ADF, so I can copy multipage documents without standing nearby to swap single sheets on the flatbed scanner.

While it doesn’t support full-duplex copies, I can copy single-sided pages and print them double-sided to save paper. It also supports reduction and enlargements from 25% to 400%, collation, as well as printing two pages on one sheet.

Computer scans look good at 600 dots per inch (dpi) with accurate color. The scanner is slower than the printer, so copies take a bit longer than an original print — 13 ppm for black-and-white and 6 ppm for color.

Software and compatibility

Installing Canon’s Pixma TR7020a was simple. It’s a lightweight all-in-one that’s easy to move around. I plugged it in, inserted the two ink cartridges and paper, then let the printer automatically align its printheads.

While some inkjet printers require manual adjustments or placing a printed page in the flatbed scanner, the Pixma TR7020a prints two pages and pulls them back into the printer to complete alignment.

To connect the printer to Wi-Fi, I used the Canon Print mobile app. It quickly found my local network and connected without the need to type out my password on the tiny screen of the printer. More printers should take advantage of this capability. With Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, a phone can transmit those details, taking the burden off the user.

Although this printer only supports 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi, it seems very responsive. I could also use a wired connection to a computer via a USB-B cable. Wi-Fi is faster and easier, but a wired connection eliminates any security concerns.

Canon built in a QR button that provides a quick link to the online manual if you have any trouble. However, installation was effortless and everything was set up and ready to use within a few minutes.

The Canon Print app works well in most cases, but I couldn’t print an envelope from an iPhone or Android phone. It’s also lacking an options for scan resolution. While the Pixma TR7020a supports 600 dpi, the app only scans at 300 dpi.

If you want a high-resolution scan from your phone, the Epson Workforce WF-2930 supports up to 600 dpi.

Price

Canon’s Pixma TR7020a retails for $16,0 but you can get it for half that price in stores and online. For an all-in-one with a duplex ADF and great picture quality on photo paper at acceptable speeds, $80 is a bargain.

The greater concern is ink. Since this is a cartridge printer, you’ll need to replenish supplies more frequently. An inkjet tank offers better long-term value since ink costs pennies per page.

The Pixma TR7020a comes with standard PG-260 Black and CL-261 Color cartridges and each can print about 180 pages. When it’s time for a new cartridges, you’ll pay between $20 and $36 each to replenish the supply. The larger XL cartridges cost more upfront, but have better value. Black ink costs nine to 11 cents per page, and a tri-color ink cartridge is 11 to 16 cents per page.

It’s almost always better to buy ink and toner in larger capacities. You save money, save time swapping cartridges, and create less plastic waste.

Is this the printer for you?

Canon’s Pixma TR7020a has an attractive price and a manageable size. It handles monochrome and color documents well and includes scan and copy features, along with an ADF to handle multiple pages at once. It might work well for a home office or a part-time business that doesn’t print in high volume.

If you anticipate daily printing or copying, the somewhat high cost of ink cartridges will begin to add up. Pictures look great on glossy photo paper, but appear washed-out on plain paper. I was also disappointed by the lack of duplex copying from the ADF. Canon’s Pixma G3270 is an excellent alternative that doesn’t have any of these issues.

Laser printers have much larger cartridges than inkjets, so you won’t need to buy supplies as often. If you don’t need color, there are some great deals on fast monochrome laser printers that can save you time and money in the long term.

If you like the look of the Pixma TR7020a, but don’t really need the ADF, Canon’s Pixma TS6420a costs less and has similar performance and quality.