All the features a small office needs—even cheap ink
The Canon Maxify GX4020 all-in-one (AIO) offers most of the same print specs as the Canon GX3020, but thanks to its added automatic document feeder (ADF), fax support, and an Ethernet connection, it’s a qualitatively different beast. Where the GX3020 is suitable for the range from family to home office to a small office with only limited scan and copy needs, the GX4020’s natural home is a busy micro office or small office that needs both heavy-duty printing and moderate-duty scanning, copying, and faxing. Directly competitive with the Epson ST-C4100, it outdoes the Epson printer’s paper handling by enough to replace it as our new Editors’ Choice pick for a tank-based inkjet AIO for a busy small office.Pay More Now, Save More Later
The GX4020 pairs the low running cost of a tank printer with both paper-handling flexibility and a reasonably high paper capacity. In addition to a 250-sheet front drawer and a 100-sheet tray at the top rear of the printer (which makes it easy to add or switch paper types), there’s a single-sheet tray with a straight-through path for heavy weight paper in the back. The 350-sheet capacity is enough to print up to 1,400 sheets per month, and even more printed pages thanks to automatic duplexing, while still keeping paper refills down to about once a week.
For scanning, copying, and faxing, there’s a both a letter-size flatbed and an ADF that can hold up to 35 letter-size or five legal-size pages. The ADF doesn’t offer automatic duplexing, but it will let you scan one side of duplex pages, wait for you to flip the stack over, then scan the second side and automatically interfile the scanned pages in the right order. Combined with the automatic print duplexing, the feature lets you copy either one- or two-sided originals to one- or two-sided copies.
At 20.9 pounds and 9.9 by 15.8 by 16.4 inches (HWD), the GX4020 is easy for one person to move into place and compact enough to share a desk with, so you can easily reach the 2.7-inch color touch-screen control panel and physical buttons. Once in place, all that’s left for physical setup is to load paper and pour in the ink—cyan, yellow, magenta, and black. As is typical, the bottles are keyed to ensure that each color goes into the right tank. After you finish, the printer goes through a completely automated alignment routine.
Software installation is typical as well, requiring downloading a setup program from Canon’s website. For my tests, I connected the GX4020 to the testbed network via Ethernet, then let the program automatically find the printer and set up the print driver and scan utility. You can also download Canon’s apps for both Android and iOS devices for mobile printing and scanning. As with other Canon models we’ve tested, there’s even an option to show a QR code on the printer’s LCD for easy connection.
