Upon its debut, the Canon imageCLASS MF8170C was the first color laser printer to sell for under a thousand dollars, ushering in a new era of color laser technology affordable enough even for the small, or home, office. If you’re looking for a printer that means business, the eighty pound imageCLASS MF8170C is a good place to start. With such a heavy curb weight, and massive dimensions of 20.1″ x 20.2″ x 25.2″, you would expect there to not only be color print technology under its hood, but also a lot of power.
The Canon imageCLASS MF8170C can perform a feat that few other laser printers can: full color laser copying. Monochrome laser printers may be literally half this unit’s size and weight, but they are restricted to black and white printing and copying, whereas the MF8170C can pull off tone on tone clarity, keeping your copies true to the original. Resolutions are at a bare minimum, ranking it at 600 x 600 dots per inch for copies, making color photo reproductions suffer a significant quality loss. However, print resolutions are considerably higher, along with scanning. If one were so inclined, they could simply scan a photo quality image and print it directly from the computer for a higher resolution outcome.
With charge coupled device optical scanning rated at a crystal clear 1200 x 2400 dots per inch, and interpolated scanning at 9600 dpi thanks to the convenient flatbed design of the hardware, photo quality scans are not a problem. Print resolutions are also incredibly high, ranging from 600 x 600 dots per inch all the way up to 2400 x 600 dots per inch in both monochrome and color.
Speed is not a factor when printing in black and white, as the Canon imageCLASS MF8170C runs at a speed of 16 pages per minute. When printing in full color, however, you will have to wait a little longer, as color printing tops out at a sluggish 4 pages per minute for letter sized documents or images.
Fast faxing is made possible by a 33.6 Kbps Super G3 modem, at resolutions of up to 406 x 391 dots per inch. Unfortunately, unlike some super high end machines out there, the Canon imageCLASS MF8170C cannot pull off a color fax, but this is to be expected for a unit with such a reasonable price tag, as color faxing is reserved exclusively for industrial grade printers, and, in an age of high powered e mail, its applications are limited to begin with.
Considering the price tag, and the sheer size of the unit, network ability is a must for this medium level laser. A built in Ethernet port and network card allows the Canon imageCLASS MF8170C network access, and a USB 2.0 high speed port is also implemented for an individual setup.
Much like monochrome lasers, the full color MF8170C operates on a toner cartridge system, but with three color units and a black one, a four cartridge system is implemented to produce 48 bit output. The Canon imageCLASS MF8170C uses this technology in an efficient, and cost effective way, affordable enough even for a small office.
Source: http://printdocs.org/2010/01/18/canon-imageclass-mf8170c-affordable-color-laser/
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