The Canon Pixma TS9520 All In One was our choice as one of the best printers for Mac due to a combination of great value for money, rock solid Apple compatibility, reliability and high quality printing for both text and photos.
Whether you need a printer or scanner for your home or office, the Pixma TS9520 is a great compact all rounder.
In this Canon Pixma TS9520 review, we take a closer look at what it can do.
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The Canon Pixma TS9520 is an all-in-one (AIO) inkjet printer that connects instantly with Macs, iPads and iPhones making it popular choice for Apple users.
It’s better than the older Canon Pixma TS9120 because it has a sheetfed scanner and automatic document feeder.
The Canon Pimxa TS9520 can be used either wirelessly via Bluetooth or Wifi or via a USB cable.
It’s a powerful but compact printer measuring just 18.5 (W) x 14.5 (D) x 7.6 (H) inches. It’s remarkably fast for a printer in this price range for both black and white text documents and those with images.
It also does two sided printing and although this is considerably slower, it’s still pretty fast for an inkjet printer on this level.
Everything is controlled by a large, well thought-out 5 inch responsive color touch-screen which is easy to use and navigate.
There are no physical buttons as everything is controlled via the touch screen.
The Pixma TS9520 has a 6 color individual ink system which gives incredibly high quality color printing and refills are some of the most reasonably priced on the market.
You can also use cheaper third party cartridges instead of Canon originals.
The Pixma TS9520 can scan and photocopy documents in high-resolution of up to 2400 x 4800 dpi optical.
Scanning and copying are built in and both printing and scanning are surprisingly fast for an inkjet in this price range although two side printing is somewhat slower.
Note that there is no fax machine built into the Canon Pixma TS9520 although since macOS no longer supports all-in-one printer faxes, it’s no big loss for Mac users.
There are also better ways to fax from a Mac nowadays which are far more convenient and efficient anyway.
There’s a 35-sheet vertical document feeder and the output tray underneath that extends to catch printed sheets.
However there’s also no Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) which may be an issue if you’re planning on using it for heavy duty printing on a daily basis.
The Pixma TS9520 even includes software to design and print your own custom CDs, DVDs, and Blu-rays.
For photo buffs, there’s a neat HD Movie Print feature which can take a frame from an HD movie recorded on a compatible digital camera such as Canon EOS, PowerShot, or VIXIA camcorder and print it as a photo.
At the bottom of the touch screen is also an SD card slot which you can use to print photos without even connecting your Mac.
For those that love to make home movies but also like to have photos of their favorite moments, this is a really useful feature.
Other nice touches to the Canon Pixma TS9520 include the ability to scan pages to and print directly from a Google Drive account.
There’s no Near Field Connection (NFC) option in the TS9520 but this is a small drawback considering the price.
In terms of styling, the Canon Pixma TS9520 is available in 3 colors red, grey and gold which all cost the same price.
What is a “vertical document feeder”? How does it work if I have a three-page document? Can I load the three pages into the document feeder and have it work as an automatic document feeder? These are critical issues for a $400 printer that should have been included in the review.
Good question and to clarify, a vertical document feeder is what all printers have – it’s the tray that sticks up at the back and allows you to slot paper in for printing. Usually these accept no more than 20 or 30 sheets of paper and yes, if you wanted to print a 3 page document it would feed one after the other automatically. However, it would not feed them for scanning. For this you’d have to place each sheet in manually or get a printer with an automatic document feeder which is usually horizontal and automatically feeds both the printer and scanner with paper. If you want a Canon Pixma with an automatic document feeder, try the Canon Pixma TR8520. Hope this helps.
An automatic document feeder
For printer of this cost I would expect it to also have a fax built in and an ADF. Pricey otherwise.
Not even sure why it is even called an AIO with at least the fax missing.
Also, do these function even if one cartridge needs replacing or work with 3rd party cartridges? A big issue these days.
There’s not much point having a fax built in for Mac users nowadays because Apple has removed fax support from Mojave and Catalina. There are however other ways to fax from a Mac still.
But yes, normally with an AIO printer you’d assume there’s a fax built in.
Yes, you can still use it if one cartridge runs out and it does work with 3rd party cartridges such as these.
Looking to get rid of my HP OfficeJet Pro 8710 (their support sucks and HP Easy Scan etc does nothing). No longer will scan photos to Google Photos on my Mac. The photos have never looked crisp etc after scanning anyway, so wondering if TS 9100 scans are better.
The TS9120 scans at 2400 x 4800 dpi. There’s some tips on improving scanning with the TS9100 printers here.