Canon PC430 Personal Copier

PC 430 Series Personal Copier has a compact, sleek design with pop-up handle that offers easy portability and fits neatly into any work space. Single cartridge system produces four copies per minute and up to 50 copies at a time on full feed mode. Copier features a 50-sheet stack tray that accepts postcard to legal-size paper, instant warm-up, auto shut off, and automatic and manual exposure control. Includes starter cartridge. Personal copier produces four letter-size copies per minute and three legal-size copies per minute.

Copiers don't have to be big and expensive to make great copies. With Canon's PC430 personal copier, you can get clean and clear copies from a small, relatively inexpensive unit, in your own home or small office.

To set up the Canon PC430 photocopier, we opened the copier's cover, took out the toner cartridge, removed the protective sealing tape, reinserted the toner cartridge, closed the copier's cover, and plugged in the AC power cord. The copier was ready to make copies without needing even a short warm-up period.

In our test of the PC430, we copied a variety of documents, and, in most cases, the black-and-white copies were nearly indistinguishable from the black-and-white originals. There were no unexpected smudges or grains unless the originals contained colors or shades of gray. For detailed images and photographs, the automatic exposure system consistently made copies that were too dark; so we turned off the automatic system with the touch of a button, and adjusted the exposure by turning a dial--and saw dramatic improvement.

The copier is rated at four ppm, which is slow for an office copier but consistent with copiers in this price range.

Pros:

• Easy setup
• Intuitive controls
• Instant warm-up
• Toner cartridge included

Cons

• Slow copy rate

This sturdy little copier brings new levels of reliability and ease of use to your office machines. Canon's patented one-cartridge system puts all consumables (toner, drum, and development unit) in one container that pops out simply. The cartridge for the PC430 is even smaller than that of other Canon models, giving this copier the easiest replacement method of all. Five different color cartridges are available--the black lasts for an average of 2,000 copies, and any of the colors lasts through approximately 1,000 pages. It can handle originals sized from postcards to legal documents, and up to 4 inches thick, and can transfer these images to normal paper, card stock, transparencies, and labels. The automatic shutoff kicks in after five minutes of nonuse for improved energy efficiency, but it's ready to go instantly when you need it--there's no warmup time. Canon includes a one-year warranty with instant exchange service.