Many cheap multifunction devices become expensive in the long run: If you print a lot, you will soon find yourself with empty ink cartridges and have to buy replacements at high prices. That doesn’t happen with the Canon Pixma G3560 Megatank: its ink tanks are huge and refilling with an ink bottle costs little.
Printers more expensive, ink much cheaper
The price of the Canon Pixma G3560 Megatank is significantly higher than that of a multifunction device with ink cartridges: buyers have to plan around 250 euros (at the time of testing at the end of April 2022). But if you print a lot, you’ll get this extra edition back in quickly, because it’s filled with ink an extremely large number of texts, graphics or photos can be printed: Over 17,000 pages of text, a good 10,000 pages of color graphics or over 3,000 photos in the standard 10×15 centimeter format. Such quantities quickly cost a few hundred euros with conventional printers, with the Pixma G3560 it beats Replacement ink set, on the other hand, only costs about 44 euros: 14 euros for the extra large bottle with black ink (135 milliliters) and 10 euros each for the (still huge) ink bottles with the color inks cyan, magenta and yellow (each 70 milliliters). Typical ink tank printer: The Pixma G3560 comes with two ink bottles with black ink. The biggest cost factor with the Pixma G3560 is no longer the ink, but the paper.
The printing costs of the Pixma G3560 in comparison
High quality, high speed
In the quality tests, the Canon Pixma G3560 Megatank received good marks across the board. The Pixma G3560 performed particularly well when printing in terms of the level of detail and the display of grayscale. The built-in scanner scores with high color fidelity and precise gray scale reproduction, but does not have a particularly high resolution: 512 ppi (pixels per inch, dots per inch) are easily sufficient for larger templates – even smaller photos can be scanned in high quality with it, but the resolution is no longer sufficient for slides or film negatives. Waiting a long time for a printout, scan or copy? Not on the Pixma G3560: It took him twelve seconds to write one page of text in the test, for six pages 36 seconds. A color graphics page was in the output tray after one minute and 17 seconds, a photo in the standard format 10×15 centimeters after one minute and 38 seconds. And the Canon makes copies particularly quickly: a text page in ten seconds, a photo page in 33 seconds.
Photo print quality: color fidelity / grayscale fidelity / contrast range (Michelson contrast) / level of detail
Graphic print quality: color fidelity / grayscale fidelity / contrast range (Michelson contrast) / detail accuracy
Visual test: text printing / photo printing
Scan quality: color fidelity / grayscale fidelity / achieved resolution
Black text smudge resistance with highlighter
Text printing on DIN A4 (ink costs per page) / range of black and white cartridges
Graphic printing on DIN A4 (ink costs per page) / range of color ink set
Photo print on 10 x 15 cm (ink cost per photo) / yield color ink set
Energy consumption (electricity costs per year) / consumption in standby mode
18 x 24 cm / 10 x 15 cm / 3 x 10 x 15 cm / 10 x 15 cm color photos print speed from standby (min:sec)
Print speed color graphics: one page / five pages / one page from standby (min:sec)
Print speed text: one page / six pages / one page from standby (min:sec)
Duration of copying an A4 text page / A4 photo page (min.:sec.)
Service (personal opinion of the testers)
Control Panel: Display Options (Diagonal)
connectivity options
Paper supply in the printer input tray (normal paper) / in the output tray / max. paper weight (according to manufacturer)
Operating noise when printing / scanning
Scanner text recognition / preview / document feeder / transmitted light for slides
Copying of documents possible without a PC / printout scalable
Borderless printing on DIN A4 / 10 x 15 cm / duplex printing possible
Sustainability: Printing more than 10,000 pages per ink set / refill ink in at least 50 ml tanks / power consumption grade “very good”
Easy handling
Test conclusion Canon Pixma G3560 Megatank
Of the Canon Pixma G3560 mega tank (Test grade 1.9) offers a great mixture of simple operation, high print quality and extremely low printing costs, which are typical for ink tank printers. Copying and scanning also works well with the Pixma G3560, best with large originals because the resolution is rather moderate.