Canon Color imageCLASS MF656Cdw - Wireless Duplex Laser Printer, All-in-One with Copier, Scanner, Fax, Auto Document Feeder, Mobile Ready, 3 Year Limited Warranty, 22 PPM, White

For the last month I've been researching and debating which AIO color laser printer to get after being completely fed up with inkjets and all of the cartridge issues that come along with them, especially Epson. There are a lot of mixed reviews out there for this MF644Cdw, but I took a chance on it based on even worse reviews for other comparable brands, like HP and Brother. I'm glad I did. I feel compelled to write a review based on my surprisingly good experience so far.First is the initial setup. A lot of reviewers reported a horrible setup experience. This was not the case for me. Unbox it, untape it, turn it on, connect to your wifi using the LCD panel, and load the drivers on your PC (download the latest from Canon's website). That's it. I have only tested on Windows at home so can't speak for MAC drivers. I also haven't experienced any issues with the touch panel functionality. Some people say they have to push unreasonably hard on the LCD screen to get actions to register. This is not my experience and mine accepts inputs just fine like any other office printer I've ever used.Prints came out perfect right out of the box starting with the first test page, although I did go through the full gradation calibration anyway just to be thorough. Seeing how I don't plan on using this for full photo prints I left most of the print settings at their defaults, but you can bump up the quality higher than the default dpi if you desire. Copies were accurate and scans were more than sufficient.I was most concerned with the scan quality based on some online reviews, but I found that the scans on the glass plate turn out to be more than acceptable even at the standard 300dpi. You can easily modify this to go up to 600dpi which produced great results. I'll note that I have not yet attempted to scan using the ADF function. There are additional scan quality settings in the settings menu as well as copy settings, so experiment with them to see which suits your needs. For copy, I set mine to the "Text/Photo/Map (Quality)" setting which proved to be sufficient, but there is a "Printed Image" option which provides even more detail. There are a ton of settings on this thing, and I'm still testing all of them out one function at a time. The MF Scan utility allows for customizing scan quality settings, file types, destinations, etc., but it does lack any truly helpful post-processing or cropping. Some users have reported that the NAPS2 utility addresses these post-processing shortcomings if that is an issue for you. I have not yet tested it but plan on doing so soon.The only hiccup I've encountered so far was when I tried to use the MF Scan Utility to pull a scan from the printer to a PC. The utility wouldn't connect to the printer no matter what, even though the printer was online and I could print to it just fine. No number of uninstalls/reinstalls of the scan driver or utility made a difference. Rebooting the printer did not help either. Surprisingly, I found that a simple reboot of the affected PC fixed it (an increasingly rare occurrence these days) and now everything is working. Finally, scan to email works great and is not too bad to set up at all using the Remote UI.You definitely want to set up the Remote UI pin during initial setup in order to fine tune this thing. It will help immensely when customizing and enabling features. Also, download and read the manual! I was able to configure everything over the course of about two hours including getting the Android Canon print app to print from my phones.I've been using this thing for only one day so far but have really put it through it's paces. Sleep mode works well with adjustable timers. Wake from sleep works perfectly for me (using DHCP reservation for the printer wifi address). Wifi signal is good and stable at about 40 ft away from router through multiple walls and obstructions. Double sided print works great. The only features I haven't tested yet are ADF scans, fax, and print from USB drive.The bottom line is that I was a bit skeptical when pulling the trigger on this one after reading hundreds of reviews from multiple sites. I ended up narrowing it down to either this or the Brother 3770. The brother has much better scanner specs and reviews, whereas a lot of reviews of the Canon mention functionality issues or disappointing scanner quality. On the other hand, the Canon seemed to win when it came to color accuracy and overall print quality. Reviewers also had some pretty bad things to say about the Brother toners and drum. It turns out my primary concern with the Canon MF644 scanner was unfounded and it performs better than expected. If you are looking to archive old photos for enlargement and print then you are better off getting a dedicated standalone scanner anyway. But for everyday documents or photos that you don't plan on enlarging this performs very well.I'll try to update this review as time goes by if I end up running into any issues or if there are any surprises when it comes to toner usage and replacement. Until then, I have to give this 5 stars based so far and will be recommending to friends and family.

I had an old Epson workforce for years that really served me well. But as time went on it worked less and less reliably and seemed to lose functionality(good old planned obsolecense). Also everytime I would go to print I needed to do a nozzle clean and kept buying new cartridges. I wanted to get a laser printer because you don't have the hassle of nozzles and I also wanted a document feeder for doing large multi document scans. I got this printer for under $300 which I think is a great price for a machine of this caliber. It was very quick and easy to set up and while it was noisy during setup it runs pretty quiet for printing and scanning. I've read that people have had trouble setting this up and I'm not sure why. For my windows 11 machine it was litterly plug and play after downloading the drivers. It also scans and prints very quickly and the quality is very good. I haven't used the fax but I'm sure it's fine and I don't plan to do too much faxing anyway. The only things I think I can complain about are; 1)the size(it's big but not terribly so for a multi) and 2)I wish the scanning resolution was more than 600 dpi (especially for photos). Those are my only complaints and really, it's not a big deal. It's a great machine for general printing and scanning. If you primarily want to scan and print photos you may want to look at another machine because the limited resolution even using just the flat glass for scans. And also laser isn't the best for photo prints. But the scans it does do are great for documents and photos where you don't need a lot of resolution. It's a great do-it-all machine and an amazing price for a color laser printer.

This combo printer-scanner-fax machine functions fine, once it's set up and running -- judging from an identical printer belonging to my husband, which meets our household printer needs quite well. It prints, scans, and faxes as required, and I can't ask much more than that. I thought this was sufficient recommendation, except...The saga of setup. Canon provides a print manual in the box, numerous web-based step-by-step guides, and an instructional video on how to get your printer connected to your computer over wifi. So with all that as reference, besides the fact that I’m an engineering professor, I should be able to figure it out. Right?Nope. Here is what happened yesterday afternoon, I swear to sweet Jiminy, when I followed the setup instructions:1. Extracted printer from box. Actually, multiple boxes. It was like performing an appendectomy on a matryoshka doll.2. Removed all the orange tape keeping everything from falling apart. Plugged unit in with supplied cable. Was not immediately electrocuted.3. Turned on printer. It emitted a noise like a Wagnerian tenor with a bad case of pneumonia trying to French-kiss a duck. So far, so good.4. Set language and desired instrument preferences using instructions in booklet. Consulted archaeologist friend about pictographic form of instructions. Apparently pictographs, once widespread in ancient Egypt, fell out of favor and disappeared from the archaeological record once people realized that words convey information better. Except Canon's instruction booklet writers, who last updated their style around 2,500 B.C.5. Attempted to connect printer to laptop, 3 feet away, over good wifi, with instructions given in video. After step 2, what appeared on my printer screen did not match what appeared on the printer screen in the video. The instructions on the website also didn't match. "Enter the administrator username and password on the printer screen." Well, where? It never asked me for one!6. Attempted to connect printer by manual option. The real-life screens I was dealing with also failed to match anything in the online, print, or video instructions.7. Pushed various buttons in an attempt to find alternate route to connect printer to computer. The menus Canon gives are intuitive, if you have the intuition of Franz Kafka on an LSD trip.8. Called tech support number on website. When robot answered and requested model number of printer, stated "ColorImageClass MF644 CDW." Robot did not recognize model number. Repeated four times with varying intonation. Helpful hint: The robo-call-center only recognizes model numbers when they are intoned in medieval plainchant in the key of B flat minor (organ accompaniment helps).9. Robot transferred call to human line. Tinny, low-fi hold music commenced.10. After 10 minutes and no answer, hold music stopped. I said "Hello?" repeatedly and tried to get to an operator. I would have had more success bench-pressing the Lincoln Memorial.11. Hung up and tried again. Repeated steps 7 through 9.12. Got wise and called the direct Canon printer tech support number in the printed instructions. Was once more answered by Artificial Stupidity. Finally got it to direct my call to the human line. Initial message: "Your estimated hold time is more than 20 minutes."13. Decided to <REDACTED> any Canon executive, engineer, software designer, or even <REDACTED>-ing janitor who ever crosses my path.14 through 25: Freestyle profanity. Text and telephone fees may apply.26. Called tech-savvy spouse who had set up a similar printer before. Repeated most of previous steps, with variations.27. Gave up trying to connect to computer and decided just to put everything I needed to print on a USB stick and then stick the USB stick in the printer.Be ye warned.On a more serious note: When two people with science/engineering Ph.D.s and a combined half-century of computer experience can’t figure out how to connect a printer to a computer despite three sets of instructions and hours of trying, it’s a sign of poor design on Canon’s part.