Canon imageCLASS MF656Cdw Multifunction Wireless Color Laser Printer

To say this Canon is a “printer” is an insult to all other printers. I have gone through probably 10 to 15 different printers over the past 40 years. I print a lot. This is by far the worst. First, it is noisy. What is going on inside this thing to cause such a racket? Every time you put new paper in, it sounds like a team of very tiny engineers are rebuilding the inside mechanisms for a good minute or two. The print quality is meh, colors are dull and prints can come out with toner dust on them. It freaks out over everything. Paper isn’t in the tray just right, it signals a jam. It doesn’t grab the paper out of the tray, it signals a jam. The wind blows too hard outside, it signals a jam. And you can’t just take the jammed paper out. No, Canon has to send its team of tiny engineers to work for 5 minutes or so, just to give you a screen telling you to open the back of the unit, even though you already got the jam unstuck. Then the tiny guys get back to work again, banging and grinding and weezing for another 5 minutes before it is ready to jam another piece of paper.
I am a very experienced laser printer user having repaired them and rebuilt other’s discards. I cannot see anything wrong with it internally. It looks brand new. The rollers are all in good shape, nothing is jamming the transport mechanism. I’ve cleaned everything inside by hand. Yeah, I voided the warrantee by doing that, but I think when I threw it out the front door this afternoon, that ship sailed. Any recommendations on a good color printer? Please – NO Canons!

Bought this about 7 months ago. Waste of money. A great printer until you have to refill toner. You MUST use the VERY OVERPRICED Canon toner cartridges or it won’t work. So if you are on a budget, this is definitely not the printer for you. I would go with a Brother. Mine was a complete waste of money.

It takes some patience setting up properly, but when done the print quality is superb! It even does a good job with photos with a little color adjusting, which was a shock to me. The one pass duplex ADF is terrific, the printer is built like a tank, and comes with a 3-year warranty, which can be extended to 5 years for $40. It’s not quiet, but it’s a small/medium business printer so it shouldn’t be near your pillow. I only use Ethernet connections with printers, and it’s been rock solid with that. It’s hard to understand where some of these poor reviews come from. I’ve recommended this printer to other people and they love it.
Cons? The Canon drivers are always a little funky, as is the driver for this printer. The device has a host of settings available through its “Remote UI” web interface, which can be intimidating for some and incredibly helpful to others, and it’s Mac OS driver is capable but you have to dig for some commonly used settings such as changing from one-sided to two sided, or color to B&W, but which is solvable by creating custom Presets. The LCD works very well for on-the-device for copying, and you can use all of the scanner features fairly easily from a computer, but the LCD’s Scan-To-File and Scan-To-Email features are a bit primitive and a PIA to set up. None of this changes my BUY recommendation for this printer, which is a tremendous value for the price, and you cannot beat the output. But the ability and patience to tweak things will get you even more value.

The Canon 650c color laser printer is a machine that delivers impressive print quality and vibrant and detailed color prints. Pros – It’s versatile and has great features – Duplex/two-sided printing – Paper fed and Flatbed copier options – Saving commonly used settings for printing and copying item specific formats such as passport and ID card photos – A secure print function which will keep a document in the machine’s memory and will require a PIN code to print it out. Securing secret and confidential documents is critical for businesses and individuals. Not doing so risks data getting into the wrong hands. – Great for printing titles, documents or other items that a user may want restricted. – Moveable display. It is bright and the touch screen options are very responsive. When the machine goes into sleep mode, the display shuts off and a little “moon” indicator is shown. Touching this brings it alive. Nice touch! Cons – The quick start documentation doesn’t detail all of the shipping security items that need to be removed. – The unit came with a plastic cover that, as far as I can tell, has no function or mention in the documentation. Not sure what to do with this. – One of the most notable issues with the Canon 650c is its noise level. This printer is undeniably loud, and its constant humming and whirring can be distracting in quiet environments. It’s more suitable for a printer room that is isolated from the work crowd. It is heavy and bulky, which can make it difficult to move around or transport. – The toner cartridges for the Canon 650c are quite expensive. If you plan on printing large volumes or frequently, you may find yourself spending a significant amount of money on toner. This can be a considerable expense that needs to be factored into the overall cost of ownership. Overall, the Canon 650c color laser printer is a machine that can deliver high-quality prints but comes with some drawbacks. Its loud operation, heavy weight, and expensive toner cartridges make it a less than ideal choice for some home users.

This is the biggest piece of crap all in one. I have been so disappointed. It continually goes in sleep mode and takes forever to wake up when a program needs to print. Half the time the programs can’t find the printer which is direct wired not wi-fi. The display sucks. If you scan something from the display it scans it as a picture and you can’t change it to pdf. It’s not user friendly. Will never buy Canon again for an all in one. Don’t waste your money.

I had an old Epson workforce for years that really served me well. But as time went on it worked less and less reliably and seemed to lose functionality(good old planned obsolecense). Also everytime I would go to print I needed to do a nozzle clean and kept buying new cartridges. I wanted to get a laser printer because you don’t have the hassle of nozzles and I also wanted a document feeder for doing large multi document scans. I got this printer for under $300 which I think is a great price for a machine of this caliber. It was very quick and easy to set up and while it was noisy during setup it runs pretty quiet for printing and scanning. I’ve read that people have had trouble setting this up and I’m not sure why. For my windows 11 machine it was litterly plug and play after downloading the drivers. It also scans and prints very quickly and the quality is very good. I haven’t used the fax but I’m sure it’s fine and I don’t plan to do too much faxing anyway. The only things I think I can complain about are; 1)the size(it’s big but not terribly so for a multi) and 2)I wish the scanning resolution was more than 600 dpi (especially for photos). Those are my only complaints and really, it’s not a big deal. It’s a great machine for general printing and scanning. If you primarily want to scan and print photos you may want to look at another machine because the limited resolution even using just the flat glass for scans. And also laser isn’t the best for photo prints. But the scans it does do are great for documents and photos where you don’t need a lot of resolution. It’s a great do-it-all machine and an amazing price for a color laser printer.

Printer itself seems fine so far – good print/scan quality. The remote UI portal is not accessable to the average user, but is required for full functionality of the unit (scan to email, stop printing error reports, etc). Lots of frustration and multiple factory resets later I still cannot get remote UI portal to make the unit work the way I want/need it to. Ruins an otherwise solid performer.

I recently got the Canon Color imageCLASS MF656Cdw – All in One, Duplex, Wireless Laser Printer for use at home in a mixed Windows 11 laptop, Android, and iOS environment. For a TL;DR, please skip to the end. Specs: A business-class printer, the MF656Cdw supports Windows 8.1 and up, Windows Server 2012 and up, Mac OS X 10.11 and up, as well as Chromebooks. It works flawlessly with apple airprint… and supports mopria. It prints up to 22 pages per minute (letter). Max print/copy resolution is 1200 x 1200 dpi. Max scan resolution is 600 x 600 dpi. Onboard memory is 1GB. You get a 250‐sheet cassette, a 1‐sheet multi-purpose manual feed slot (3″ x 5″ to 8.5″ x 14″), and a 50-sheet (max) auto-document feeder. The printer supports auto 2-sided printing and one-pass 2-sided scanning. The printer’s language is UFR II. USB 2.0 Direct supports JPG, TIFF, & PDF. The printer has an available Energy Saver feature to cut energy costs. When running, it can use up to 900w. When in standby, it drops to 10.5w. In sleep mode, it drops further, to an energy sipping .8w. Warranty is a three-year limited manufacturer. OOB: You get the Canon Color imageCLASS MF656Cdw printer, a 067 starter cartridge – up to 680p (CMY)/1,350p (B), a fax cable, a power cord, and a starter guide/other safety-related paperwork. There was no included no DVD-ROM for software installs, but it’s better to go to the manufacturer’s website to get the latest drivers anyway, if needed. And all devices in our home had no problem finding the printer on our wireless network and automatically installing the correct, basic drivers. Unboxing: Unboxing the device was interesting, as it’s a business class machine. It has a reserved yet larger-than-home-use footprint (L:17.8” x D:18.2” x H:16.3”) and, because of the extra functionality and mechanics needed to support the functionality, at almost 50 lbs, is on the heavier side. Note that in tight spaces, the touchpad “juts” out just a hint further than the right-most side of the printer housing. Canon recommends that two people lift the device out of the box and move it to its install location. I agree. I did it myself, as I had no other choice. Two people would make machine placement easier, and safer. Setup: Bar none, the easiest that I’ve ever did. I’m former IT with years of printer installs (local and network) and maintenance under my belt. Granted, this was a home network install (not server-side) but it was plug and play. Insert paper, plug in the printer, turn it on, select home network & enter password, and, short of manually starting a firmware update from the menu, setting the time/date, and configuring sleep start and end (which, sans the firmware update as best practice, is truly optional), the machine did the rest. Yes, there are more configurations you can run on the super-easy-to-use GUI offered in the oh-so-buttery-smooth / responsive 5” color LCD touchpad and in the remote UI, but, within 10-15 minutes, you can go from unboxing to running a quick print job. After connecting the printer to my wireless network, both my Android phone and my wife’s iPhone immediately found the printer through the built-in print-share drivers – although an on-screen QR code is available if needed. My Windows 11 PC saw the printer on the network (via Add Printer), recognized the device make/model, and pulled in the necessary basic print drivers. With only the basic drivers, which saw the device as a “Canon MF650c Series,” the printer worked flawlessly (producing a sharp & crisp… even on standard 20# copy/print paper… color reproduction of a photo I sent to it). I might download the Canon Business app for Google and IOS at some point, but didn’t yet need it. I went to the Canon site to download the Windows drivers – printer/generic fax/”scan gear” – with optional (I didn’t install, as this won’t be a printer shared through my Windows laptop) Canon Driver Information Assist service. Drivers can be downloaded as an all-in-one package or individually. Installation was mostly automated after starting setup. The Canon installer found the printer on my network and walked me through the full installation. The installer lets you create an optional desktop shortcut to the printer’s remote UI. Set your device (printer/fax/scanner) names, when prompted, and, if desired, print an optional test page. The driver suite installed print drivers, generic functionality fax drivers, and a network scanner selector, the latter of which connects your printer and your Windows machine, making scanning from the printer’s touchpad and sending to your Windows machine easier. Although not necessary as you can set scan parameters using the Canon’s touchpad, if you want Canon-specific scanning software on your Windows machine, you must download a separate MF Scan Utility that Canon offers on the device software webpage. I opted to install Canon’s Toner Status app – a value add allowing you to see the cartridge toner levels and model information… although it did take about a minute for the software to pull in the toner status from the printer… and you cannot access the toner info in-app, only from the Windows notification tray, which is strange. Network security and connections: The MF656Cdw offers IP/MAC Address Filtering, IPSEC, TLS 1.3, SNMP V3.0, IEEE 802.1X, IPv4/IPv6, SMTP Authentication, POP3. It supports USB 2.0 High‐Speed, 10/100/1000Base‐T/TX Ethernet, Wi‐Fi 802.11b/g/n, and Wi‐Fi Direct. Print Speed, Quality, and Print Availability: Print speed is good for a business class machine. Once printing started (in about 5 seconds, from PC send to printer generation) the Canon printed a full-page color reproduction (crisp, clean, and clear lines and great color) in a little over 4 seconds. A former network administrator with thousands of printer support hours under my belt, this printer definitely has a place in both the home office and in the workplace. Its auto-wake and auto-sleep feature allows you to turn on and off the Canon at certain times… lessening the need to walk to the Canon and turn it on so your devices see the printer on the network. You can also set an auto off timer. Recommended Purchase?: Absolutely. The Canon MFC656Cdw is a business-/family-ready laser printer that will impress. It offers a lot of functionality at a reasonable price… packed in a relatively small footprint. It can be as power-hungry and ready to print or as power-frugal as you’d like. It offers a host of security, user, and function management features – manageable using either the onboard (easy-to-use) color touchpad and/or remote UI. Connecting to Android, Apple, and Windows devices was easy. The printer comes OOB ready to hold up to 250 sheets and supports numerous file and print types and connections. It has a 50-page auto feeder and can scan and print two-sided. All features tested (I didn’t use fax capabilities) are easy to use and work splendidly. Overall setup and use was a snap. From unboxing to first print, you can be ready to generate a clean, crisp print job in 10 minutes or fewer. The Canon MFC656Cdw offers a host of features and is a solid four-star purchase in my book. Five stars, at least for me, means that a product goes beyond expectations… doing more than a manufacturer says it will. Four stars is great in that the product does exactly what it says it will do. The Canon MFC656Cdw definitely lived up to my expectations so far. I think it will likely prove to be a solid purchase for your office and/or for your family.

Good features and performance which equals very good value at this price point. As is typical with lasers, the cartridges are obscenely expensive and the double-sided scanning can only be performed via pc, not on the control panel which is ridiculous. It’s pretty compact but it’s heavy as a lead weight.

I bought this 2 weeks ago & will never buy another Canon printer. I have been on the phone with Canon practically every day. The scanner function only works sporadically & communication is not good between the computer & scanning function. I have now figured out a way to jury rig it every time it goes off but this is NOT ideal for my mental health. Also, the functions are very complicated & the manual is terrible at describing them. I will NEVER stray from HP again. Buyer beware.