The printer is rarely the expensive part of printing at home: the cartridges are, and they tend to run dry the evening before a school project is due. Tank printers were designed to end that routine by replacing cartridges with bottles of ink, and one of Canon’s is discounted at the moment, since the MegaTank G3270 drops from $248.99 to $144 on Amazon, 42% below its list price. Amazon labels it a limited time deal on the black version of this wireless all-in-one.
Ink by the Bottle, 7,700 Color Pages per Set
Four refillable tanks sit at the front of the G3270, one each for black, cyan, magenta and yellow, and they are transparent so the level is visible at a glance. Canon includes a full set of GI-21 bottles in the box and says that set is good for up to 6,000 black-and-white pages or 7,700 color pages, which it translates into up to two years of ink. The company also puts a figure on the saving compared with cartridges, up to $1,000, though both numbers carry footnotes and depend on how much you print. What I take from them is simpler: for a family that prints homework, boarding passes and the odd photo, buying ink stops being a monthly errand.
Beyond printing, the G3270 copies and scans with a flatbed under its hinged lid. Resolution reaches 4800 x 1200 dpi, and the printer handles borderless photos on glossy paper as well as envelopes, card stock and legal-size sheets. Paper goes in through a single rear tray that holds 100 sheets and comes out on a fold-out tray at the front. One less common ability is banner printing: custom paper sizes go up to 47.2 inches in length, and Canon bundles its PosterArtist Online software, which is handy for a birthday banner or a sign for a yard sale.
Speed is where expectations need adjusting. Canon rates the G3270 at 11 images per minute in black and 6 in color, fine for a ten-page report and slow for a hundred-page handout. Printing is also single-sided only, so double-sided documents mean turning the stack over by hand, and that’s the omission I find hardest to overlook on a machine built for volume. The control panel is basic too, with nine physical buttons and a 1.35-inch backlit LCD.
Connections are Wi-Fi and USB, and the printer works with Windows, Mac and Chromebook computers as well as phones and tablets through Canon’s app, Apple AirPrint or Mopria. Sending a document from the sofa without opening a laptop is the kind of thing that gets used daily once it is set up. The G3270 weighs 13.2 pounds, draws 16 watts, is Energy Star certified and comes with a one-year limited warranty. The listing also carries Amazon’s “Works with Alexa” certification for households that use an Echo device. Amazon buyers give it 4.1 out of 5 across more than 5,100 ratings.
In black, the Canon MegaTank printer is $144 on Amazon, against a list price of $248.99, as a limited time deal with free returns. The box contains the printer, the four GI-21 ink bottles, the print heads and the power cord. Two other styles appear on the same page, the G3270 in white and the G3290 with a touch screen.