You start by fitting its print heads, which look much like a pair of empty cartridges, then set about filling its six large tanks from the bottles in the box. This unusual arrangement does make setting up the Canon PIXMA G550 a little more involved. The extra grey ink helps give it fine shading control, and enhances the contrast of black and white images, while the red extends the range of colours it can reproduce.

On plain paper you’re unlikely to spot the difference, but the G550 is designed to deliver great photos. And instead of the typical four-ink arrangement of black, cyan, magenta and yellow, this printer adds red and grey inks to create a six-ink setup. Ink comes in bottles, lasts for ages and is cheap to replace. Colourful ink tanks in the front panel reveal that it’s one of Canon’s Megatank range of refillable inkjets. It doesn’t sound especially impressive, but look again and you might spot the features that set this printer apart. Importantly, this printer supports Wi-Fi networks, allowing you to share it easily across your household. The PIXMA G550 does have a simple mono display, though, together with a smattering of buttons to help you configure and operate its core features. At the back it has a single paper tray, at the front a simple output tray, and there’s no support for automatic double-sided (duplex) printing. Instead, it’s built just for printing, supporting up to A4 or Legal paper. It’s a single-function device, which means it can’t help you scan or copy images. Design and featuresįor the most part, the Canon PIXMA G550 is a simple printer. Best of all it uses cheaper bottled ink, so prints cost less and there’s less plastic waste.īut does it offer enough quality to make our Best Printer list? Here are my thoughts. It doesn’t have a scanner, so you can’t scan or copy, but it does have six inks, letting it produce more accurate colour and black and white photos.

Wi-Fi support Connect and share wirelesslyĬanon’s PIXMA G550 is an inkjet printer, aimed at users who want to print great photos.

Ink tanks No expensive and wasteful cartridges, just tanks, filled using cheaper bottled ink.

A strong photo printer Extra red and grey inks help the G550 deliver more accurate shading and a wider range of colours.

Canon pixma print test page