The best inkjet printer you can buy

Inkjet printers are incredibly versatile. Besides text documents, many can also print photos – some can even make museum-quality prints – as well as labels for optical discs or iron-on graphics for shirts. Multifunction (all-in-one or MFP) variants add scan, copy, and fax, making them ideal for small office/home office environments. Even if you don’t print often, these MFPs can be used for scanning documents to PDF or saving them to the cloud. And while inkjet printers aren’t known for speed, some newer models can rival laser printers in both speed and quality. Here are our current favorites.

Inkjet printers offer many advantages, but traditionally speed hasn’t been one of them. Not anymore: The newest printers designed for the small office/home office are capable of making fast, quality prints, and one terrific option is Canon’s Maxify MB5420

Our pick

Canon’s Maxify MB5420

Why should you buy this: Office machine that makes excellent prints.

Our Score

The best

Canon Maxify MB5420

The MB5420 is ideal for small offices, particularly those that print color documents.

$259.99 from Amazon

$329.99 from Jet

Who’s it for: Small offices that want to share a printer.

How much will it cost: $260

Why we picked the Canon’s Maxify MB5420:

Inkjet printers offer many advantages, but traditionally speed hasn’t been one of them. Not anymore: The newest printers designed for the small office/home office are capable of making fast, quality prints, and one terrific option is Canon’s Maxify MB5420.

The MB5420 is large, but it’s designed to support a multi-person office – up to nine employees, according to Canon. The company claims a page print speed of 24 per minute for black and white or 15.5 for color. In our tests, we achieved 22.2 and 10, respectively, which we find to be in-line with Canon’s rated speed. The printer also supports one-pass duplex printing, and ink cartridges have high yields.

More importantly, the prints are excellent, particularly with color. Although it isn’t a photo printer, the MB5420 could handle the task when we printed on photo paper.

Canon’s latest printers are well connected, whether it’s Ethernet or Wi-Fi. The MB5420 also supports wireless protocols like Apple AirPrint, and can print from cloud-based services like Dropbox or Google Cloud Print.

As a multifunction device, the MB5420 has an automatic document feeder for scanning documents, although its only weakness is slow copying. We also love the two built-in paper trays, and a touchscreen that’s easy to use.

Don’t look at the MB5420 solely as an office product. If you have a household that prints often, the MB5420 is suitable for that environment too. But if it’s overkill for your needs, check out the Maxify MB5120.

Our full review