electronics Canon Laser Shot LBP-5200 opinions and reviews

Canon Laser Shot LBP-5200

Canon's Laser Shot LBP-5200 is an entry-level colour laser printer with very few control panels and no network interface.

But while, it doesn’t include some advanced features, it is actually not that bad a printer. Given the features, it performs reasonably well. Monochrome prints can deliver a speed of 19 pages per minute (ppm) though the pace of 4ppm for colour prints isn’t encouraging at all.

Getting the printer ready for the very first time might need some hard work. The toner doesn’t come pre-fixed, so you have to first put it in place before proceeding further. Not only that, some more shipping locks will have to be detached before the printer is well and truly ready for printing.

It’s quite expected that with low-cost colour laser printers, you will not find any paper cassette. Canon Laser Shot LBP-5200 falls into the same category. Of course there is the 150-sheet tray which is reasonably good for gentle use. However, it has some big disadvantages as the printing papers are in constant touch with dirt particles, making them dusty.

To print envelopes, you will need to take out all the plain papers from the tray. Thankfully, the printers don’t crush them and you can get quite nice envelope prints.

Printing speeds aren’t totally disappointing. After switching the device on, the first mono print comes out in 20 seconds. Overall, though, the monochrome prints registered 16.3ppm slightly slower than some others in the class. While the quality of mono prints is highly good, the colour photograph prints lose out to its competitor, both in terms of speed and quality.

At the end of the day, the Laser Shot LBP-5200 is a decent offering. But some rival printers offer much superior features like duplex printing and network options which make a big difference.