Canon has introduced an interesting new all-in-one inkjet printer, the Pixma MX7600. This is the first all-in-one printer to feature pigment ink in the cartridges, canon's new pigment reaction technology and professional quality LUCIA inks.

PgR (Pigment Reaction) technology works in a revolutionary new way. The printer uses one black cartridge, the high volume Pgi-7 for text printing, one black and three individual colour cartridges (Pgi-9) for photo work. These cartridges contain the same LUCIA ink used in Canon's award winning wide-format printers and in the Pixma Pro 9500 photo printer, the current darling of keen photographers, so provide high quality, long lasting photographs with exceptional colour.

The difference and evolution comes with the sixth cartridge used in the printer. This is a clear ink cartridge (Pgi-9CLEAR), which initially covers the paper and enables the pigment ink to bond with the clear ink, improving saturation, brightness and ink fixation to give outstanding graphics, text and photos. This enables images to be printed on low cost plain paper without the usual ink bleed, curling and scuffing normally associated with colour inkjet printing on this type of paper.

This will be of great benefit to the small business user, allowing them to use the same print device for production of standard print documents and also produce high quality materials on the same low cost paper.

Apart from this feature, the Pixma MX7600 all-in-one is an ideal unit for the small business offering a total solution in colour printing, copying, scanning and faxing in one machine. It claims print and copy times of 28ppm mono/23ppm colour, photo lab quality borderless prints in 43 seconds, built in Ethernet networking capability and a 33.6 kbps Super G3 fax modem. It comes completely equipped with an automatic document feeder (ADF) and advanced media handling with auto duplex printing and a two way paper feed. The ADF allows for both sides of a document to be copied/scanned automatically while auto duplex printing of a similar document can be achieved without manually turning the document.

As the unit can scan and print at the same time this will result in a dramatic decrease in the time required to complete a project. When copying a multi-page document, the Pixma MX7600 will scan the first page and start the print process while the scanner is scanning and printing each successive page.

I have become a great fan of the latest Pixma range of ink printers from Canon and this unit does the range proud as probably the most complete all-in-one printer currently available to offer such a wide range of features and capabilities. Designed for SMEs and departments that demand high quality and efficiency it certainly fulfils its brief.

At a retail price over £300, this is no means a bargain printer but given the range of its capabilities and the quality of its output it could easily earn its keep. The cost of cartridges is reasonable at under £10 each, the only untested element at the moment being the life expectancy of the unique CLEAR ink cartridge. So if you are looking for the most versatile multifunction printer for your business which will cover all the bases, this is the machine for you.