Canon MegaTank Pixma G3290 review

The Canon MegaTank Pixma G3290 ($249) is an entry-level ink tank printer that offers basic features and very low ink costs. It is outfitted with four ink tanks, comes with four bottles of ink and has a flat-bed scanner for copying and scanning.

The duplexer enables two-sided printing, but otherwise this Canon foregoes additional features such as a second paper tray, a USB thumb drive port or an automatic document feeder.

Yet this printer remains versatile and easy to print from despite its frugal design. You can connect to this MegaTank via the USB port, wireless, and Wi-Fi Direct. Mobile devices can use the Canon Print app to perform print, scanning and copy functions.

In our tests, the MegaTank G3290 turned in consistent speeds and image quality. It's no speed demon, but neither does it have an Achilles' heel. The Pixma G3290 can copy documents up to 8.5 x 11.7 inches, make borderless prints up to letter size, and has a duty cycle of up to 3,000 pages per month.

For delivering that level of reliable workhorse performance with such low ink costs, this Canon is one of the best printers you can buy if you're on a budget. In this Canon MegaTank Pixma G3290 review I'll show you why.

Canon MegaTank Pixma G3290 review: Design

The G3290 has a 2.7-inch LCD touchscreen on its control panel, which can be angled upward roughly 45 degrees. There are physical buttons for home, back, monochrome copy/scan and color copy/scan, as well as a stop button. The LCD offers four scene selections: standard, work, study and lifestyle (pattern papers, e.g.).

The LCD responded well to input in our testing, but menu navigation wasn't always ideal. For example, using the LCD to change paper size required scrolling past many sizes I will never use, and some I don't even know. Locating my preferred print sizes was made less intuitive because they were identified by multiple names, such as KG/4"x6" (10x15). However, after using 4 x 6-inch paper, this paper size setting showed up at the top of the menu list.

The paper tray can hold up to 100 sheets of paper or 20 sheets of photo paper. The paper tray is at the back of the unit; you raise a support and load paper vertically. This adds a few inches in height and depth to the printer. The G3290 measures 16.4 x 14.3 x 7 inches closed up for shipping, and measures 16.4 x 21.9 x 10.6 inches with the output tray and input support extended. This MegaTank model weighs 14.2 pounds.

The black ink tank is to the left of the control panel. The three color ink tanks are to the right. Windows into the ink tanks allow you to see the ink levels.

Canon MegaTank Pixma G3290 review: Print speed

The MegaTank Pixma G3290 was consistent in our speed tests. Neither blisteringly fast nor agonizingly slow, the G3290 tended to perform at roughly average speeds. It printed our five-page text document in 32.8 seconds, or 9.2 pages per minute (ppm). This was faster than the similarly outfitted Epson EcoTank ET-2850, at 8.7 ppm, though slightly slower than the category average of 9.8 ppm for the ink tank models we've tested.

The G3290 printed two-sided text documents quickly at 7.2 ppm, which was the fastest duplexer speed amongst recently tested ink tank models. This was a little faster than the Epson ET-2850, at 6.5 ppm, and significantly faster than the category average duplex speed of 5.5 ppm.

The Canon G3290 printed our six-page PDF of mixed text and color graphics in 2 minutes and 42 seconds, or 2.2 ppm. The Epson ET-2850 was faster, at 2.7 ppm, and ink tank models in general have averaged 3 ppm.

Using its duplexer, the G3290 printed the same color PDF at 1.9 ppm, which is the slowest time for recently tested ink tank printers—but not by much. The Epson ET-2850 made the same two-sided print at 2.4 ppm; the category average is 2.5 ppm.

The G3290 took 4 minutes and 12 seconds to make a high-resolution 8 x 10-inch glossy photo print. This was only 10 seconds slower than the category average. The Epson ET-2850 was significantly slower, taking just over 6 minutes to make the same print.

Canon MegaTank Pixma G3290 review: Copy and scan speed

The MegaTank G3290 made copies at roughly average speeds. It took 27.5 seconds to make a color copy, compared to the category average of 25.3 seconds. Similarly, black-and-white copies took 12.5 seconds on average to produce, compared to the average of 11.4 seconds for ink tank models.

The G3290 was relatively quick to scan in color, but slower than average at scanning and saving in grayscale or black-and-white (see the Software section for more details). Making a 600 dpi scan to JPEG format was quick, taking 1 minute and 5 seconds. The category average, by contrast, was slower, at 1 minute and 23 seconds.

Scanning in black-and-white at 300 dpi to PDF format took 21.8 seconds. The average for ink tank models is a much quicker 14.4 seconds.

Canon MegaTank Pixma G3290 review: Print quality

The MegaTank G3290 makes attractive text document prints. Letterforms look fairly sharp and sleek. The text looked sufficiently dark, though not quite the darkest we've seen. Some duplex prints had a top line of slightly misaligned text.

Graphics prints were similarly attractive. Colors looked natural and adequately saturated. Details in graphics were reproduced well. The quality on duplex prints was comparable. However, there was some very slight banding in some flat areas, and some black boxes with white text printed with a slightly different background shade than the surrounding area, which had matched in single-sided prints.

Glossy photos printed with well saturated colors and plenty of details. Dark shadow areas retained fine details rather than get blocked up, skin tones looked natural, and images had a warm appearance overall.

Copy quality was good overall. Copies of magazine pages were reproduced with sharp-looking text. Copies of a laser print of a text document, however, had letterforms that looked a little thick, having lost their sleekness. Reproductions of graphics were very attractive and retained the colors and details in the original.

In particular, copies of photographic prints were impressive. Most copies of professional photo prints looked nearly as sharp as the original, and were faithful to the color tint and saturation. Only one photo print copy looked subpar, losing some mid tones, which gave the photo a slightly unnatural and flattened appearance.

Scans of photographs and documents were faithful to the originals. Photo scans looked attractive, with well saturated colors that looked natural and warm overall. Scans also retained fine details in dark shadow areas.

Canon MegaTank Pixma G3290 review: Ink cost and yield

The MegaTank G3290 delivers bargain ink costs of just 0.4 cents per text page, which is the category average. On color pages, however, this printer offers drastic savings of 0.9 cents per color page—significantly lower than the category average of 1.9 cents.

A bottle of the pigment-based black ink costs $21.99. The three dye-based color inks cost $13.99 each. The bottles of ink last an estimated 6,000 text pages or 7,700 color pages.

Canon MegaTank Pixma G3290 review: Setup and software

Packing material was minimal, and I quickly had this MegaTank out of the box and ready to set up. The printed setup guide instructs you to plug in the printer and to follow the instructions on the LCD.

After installing the two printheads (black and color), the LCD's on-screen animation depicted how to unlatch the cover of the carriage in order to install the printheads. But, I did not find the animation totally clear; it took some tinkering to figure it out. Then, I poured the inks into their respective well, which was easy. The LCD said it would take about seven minutes for the printer to complete the setup process. Thereafter, screen displayed a URL for setting up the printer with a computer or smart phone. From the web page, I downloaded the software to my Windows 10 PC. It's called Canon Print, but it also offers scanning functionality.

Putting the G3290 on my network was simple. I used the WPS method, which took a few menu steps on the control panel LCD and a press of the WPS button on my router.

Basic copy and scan functions can be performed from the control panel of the G3290, using the dedicated buttons and LCD menu. When my original photo matched the loaded paper, all went well. But, when I tried copying a 5 x 7-inch photo print to 4 x 6-inch photo paper, I did not get a print with the entire image shrunken to fit. The LCD had not offered a choice to fit the entire image or crop; the G3290 simply cropped the image. It did offer an on-screen preview, however. In addition, you can scan multiple photos at one time. The LCD had a tendency to say that the G3290 had failed to correct a slanted photo or document, however, even when I had placed it snuggly in the upper corner, as instructed.

The scanning software in Windows 10 is basic. I did not find a way to customize settings on my PC and set up shortcuts for various document types. As a result, I had to make these selections with each scan. The LCD, however, does offer a little customization; there are four "scenes" to choose from: standard, work, study, and lifestyle. Standard has on-screen buttons for print, copy and scan. Work has buttons for standard copy, two-sided copy, and save to computer. Lifestyle offers three print functions: wallpaper-like patterns, templates, and print from cloud.

Canon Print software asks you to set the type of the original before scanning, either document or photo. But you can't select color or black-and-white scanning—you make this choice when saving the scan, in color, grayscale, or true black-and-white. When scanning from the G3290's control panel, pressing the "black" copy/scan button produced a grayscale JPG or PDF file.

The latest version of the Canon Print iOS app requires iOS 16. However, you can still use a previous version of the app with an older device, such as my iPhone 7, which runs iOS 15. Using the Canon Print app you can print, scan, store to the cloud, and make a smartphone copy (as opposed to scanning on the flatbed). This last feature I am typically skeptical of, but the app did a good job in my testing. Using the flatbed scanner, the G3290 made a copy of a magazine page that was attractive, but had areas where text was distorted because the slightly wrinkled page did not press firmly down on the glass (the scanner lid is lightweight). However, using the Canon Print app, the resulting copy had text in these same areas that was less blurred than in the flatbed copy. In both cases, graphics looked attractive and colorful, and text was moderately, but not razor-, sharp.

The MegaTank G3290 starts up in 12 seconds, which is a few seconds faster than the category average.

Canon MegaTank Pixma G3290 review: Verdict

The Canon MegaTank Pixma G3290 offers a fair number of features for a bargain price, making it a good choice for those who need an all-in-one printer without a lot of frills.

This ink tank model performs consistently well, delivers very low ink costs, and includes a duplexer. The G3290 creates high-quality prints, copies and scans. Although the included software is basic, solid performance and high image quality make this MegaTank model worth a serious look, especially for students and folks on a budget.