Canon Pixma TR150 review

Our Verdict

Low ink costs, fast text printing, and faster-than-boilerplate graphics and photo print speeds, make the Pixma TR150 a solid choice for portable printing, though the quality of prints on manifestly paper could exist improved.

For

Fast text printing
Depression ink costs
Attractive photo prints
Optional bombardment pack
Control panel buttons are responsive

Confronting

Print quality on plain paper is middle-of-the-road
No re-create or scan functions
Modest, monochrome OLED display

Tom's Guide Verdict

Low ink costs, fast text printing, and faster-than-boilerplate graphics and photo impress speeds, brand the Pixma TR150 a solid choice for portable printing, though the quality of prints on plainly paper could be improved.

Pros

+
Fast text printing
+
Low ink costs
+
Bonny photo prints
+
Optional battery pack
+
Control panel buttons are responsive

Cons

-
Impress quality on plain newspaper is center-of-the-road
-
No copy or scan functions
-
Small, monochrome OLED brandish

The Catechism Pixma TR150 is a meaty, portable inkjet printer offering basic features and solid performance. The TR150 is a unmarried role printer; it does not copy or scan. What it does offering, nonetheless, is a compact size that tin be carried in a standard haversack.

The printer alone uses a standard wall outlet. For off-the-filigree printing, you can buy the bundle with printer and mobile battery for $298. The battery is expected to last up to 330 sheets on a total charge.

Catechism Pixma TR150 review: Design

The TR150 is small, measuring 12.7 x seven.three x 2.6 inches, when airtight for travel. The hat lifts up to serve as a 50-sheet input paper tray, dropping a forepart flap to reveal the output slot. The vertical paper tray increases the depth to 12.ane inches, and the height to 9.7 inches.

Canon Pixma TR150 review — (Image credit: Canon)

At 4.5 pounds, the printer is rather lightweight for a portable model. Attaching the optional bombardment to the back of the unit of measurement increases the weight to five.1 pounds. By comparison, the HP OfficeJet 250 weighs half-dozen.7 pounds, with battery.

Opening the chapeau reveals the command panel on the acme of the body. There is a iv-way control, a small one.4-inch monochrome OLED display, and a wireless connectivity push button.

There are no retentiveness carte du jour slots. The USB port is on the right panel, near the dorsum, side by side to the ability port. Information technology offers Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi Straight support, and comes with a USB-C cable. In addition to AirPrint, Google Cloud Impress, and Mopria support, the TR150 also offers support for voice commands via Amazon Alexa and Google Banana, and supports the pairing of devices using IFTTT (If This Then That).

Canon Pixma TR150 review: Print speed

The Pixma TR150 performed well in our testing, printing a 5-folio text document in forty.v seconds. or 7.four pages per infinitesimal (ppm). The average for portable printers is six.ix ppm. By contrast, our top-ranked portable printer, the HP OfficeJet 250, was faster, printing text at 9 ppm.

The TR150 was quick to print text from an iPhone 7, turning in the fastest times we've recorded on this exam. The TR150 printed a unmarried page in just x.3 seconds, and a 5-page document in 38.seven seconds, or 7.8 ppm. Other portable models averaged 14.half dozen seconds on a single page, and 1 minute and 3 seconds (or, 4.8 ppm) on the five-folio document. By comparison, the HP Tango X printed a page of text in 11.three seconds. Several other models were significantly slower to print the five-page text certificate, such as the Epson WorkForce EC-C110, at a much slower 54.three seconds, or 5.v ppm.

The TR150 was slightly faster than the boilerplate on mixed text and colour graphics. It printed our vi-page PDF in 2 minutes and 22 seconds, or ii.5 ppm. That's just a hair faster than the category average (2.4 ppm), just lagged behind the HP OfficeJet 250, which printed the same document in but nether two minutes, at 3.1 ppm.

Canon Pixma TR150 — (Epitome credit: Catechism)

Photo printing speed also was faster than the category average. From a Windows PC, the TR150 fabricated a iv-by-half dozen-inch sleeky photo impress at default settings in 1 minute and iv.8 seconds, versus the boilerplate of 1 infinitesimal and 11 seconds. Printing at high resolution, the TR150 fabricated the same glossy print in i minute and 45 seconds, which was significantly faster than the category average of 2 minutes and half-dozen seconds. The HP OfficeJet 250, however, was twice as fast at default and high-resolution settings, making iv-past-half-dozen-inch sleeky prints in 37.6 and 49.5 seconds, respectively.

Press from an iPhone 7, the TR150 printed at comparable speed to press from a PC, making a 4-by-six-inch glossy at default settings in ane minute and five seconds. The Canon iOS app did not offer a loftier-resolution setting.

Catechism Pixma TR150 review: Print quality

Text printed a little on the lite side, rather than in a rich black. Edges of letterforms looked a little rough, and not razor sharp. Color graphics printed on plain paper looked a little washed-out, and banding was visible. The graphics also lacked the sharper details, stronger contrast and richer color saturation of ameliorate-looking prints, such equally from the HP OfficeJet 250. Pixels were more than visible in the TR150'southward graphics prints.

Sleeky photograph prints, nevertheless, were pinnacle-notch. Details looked very abrupt and color saturation was very pleasing. In particular, the colors in our landscape photo looked very natural. Past comparing, the same print made by the HP OfficeJet 250 looked a little unnatural due to hyped-upwardly yellowish shades.

Catechism Pixma TR150 review: Ink cost and yield

The printer takes two ink cartridges: A dye-based ink cartridge with three colors (cyan, magenta, yellow), plus black. The second cartridge holds a paint-based blackness ink.

The Pixma TR150 offers low ink costs for a portable printer. At 7.5 cents per text folio, information technology is well below the viii.9 cents category boilerplate. By contrast, the HP OfficeJet 250 offers an estimated cost of 9 cents per text page.

The same is true for color pages: At 14.8 cents, the TR150 offers the lowest color folio price of the portable printers nosotros've tested. Buying an ink cartridge packet should lower that cost to roughly 12.vii cents. By comparing, the HP OfficeJet 250 has the highest estimated color page ink cost we've seen, at 23 cents, and just lowers that price per page to 17.three cents when using high-yield cartridges (which are non available for the TR150).

Catechism Pixma TR150 review: Setup and software

Setting upwards the TR150 was simple. You but demand to remove a couple pieces of packaging tape. You lift the hat to reveal the cartridge bay, and get-go install the print head, which you insert in a similar way to the two ink cartridges, which follow. Yous download the software online, or insert the installation disc in your PC. I used my iPhone to capture the included QR code in society to launch the online setup instructions. After the printer performs a print head alignment, and y'all print a test page, yous're ready to go.

To ease the wireless setup, the TR150 has a dedicated wireless connect button on its control panel. Following menu instructions on the one.4-inch OLED screen, I used the WPS connect method; pressing the WPS button on my wireless router put the TR150 on my network.

Alternatively, you can use Wi-Fi Directly and setup the TR150 every bit the wireless network connectedness on your mobile device. I had trouble with my first attempts to do this with my iPhone 7; ane possible culprit is that my home wireless network was set to "machine join" and thus interfering with the printer connexion. Afterward turning off "machine join", I continued successfully and printed to the TR150 over Wi-Fi Direct.

The TR150 starts upward apace, displaying its dwelling screen menu in but 4.2 seconds.

Canon Pixma TR150 review: Verdict

The Catechism Pixma TR150 performed solidly across our tests. Text printing, in particular, was fast—both from a PC and an iPhone. Color graphics and photograph print speeds were faster than the average, and a quick startup time under 5 seconds will get y'all working speedily. Low ink costs make this portable Pixma very attractive to the pocketbook, and the high quality of the photo prints is tough to friction match. Text and color graphics quality on plain newspaper, however, left a little chip to exist desired.

By comparison, the peak-ranked HP OfficeJet 250 is faster, makes copies and scans, and offers superior obviously-paper print quality—but information technology'due south besides larger and much more than expensive.

Eric Butterfield is a freelance author and musician from California. His piece of work has appeared in PC Earth magazine, CNET, Taproot, and Alter Activity — plus Tom's Guide, of form — while his music has appeared in more than 260 Idiot box show episodes for major networks such every bit NBC, Hulu, BBC America, and more than. Y'all can check out his work on Spotify.