When you first look at this printer you'd be forgiven for thinking.. "Wow!" and in some ways it is pretty nifty... The price is RRP £199 but you can get these units for £130 +/- £5 if you hunt around (at time of writing) and the feature set is pretty good too.

First though let's look at what this unit doesn't come with so you don't find you've "assume"d a little too much while looking at the "neat" stuff.

What's Missing
For one thing, the auto-duplexer is gone, which is something you'd sort of expect given the raft of other features, Add to that, there's no photo black cartridge but you could easily argue that this is no bad thing as it's not really billed as a photo printer. Personally the next feature is no biggy but for some it'll be a deal breaker and that's the CD/DVD printing has gone too...

At a guess the reason for these items being removed has been to make the unit smaller.. After all this unit is now around the same height as an MP500 even with the ADF unit on top which is quite a surprise.

So, this is where we find ourselves looking at the features this unit DOES come with...

The Goodies
Probably the major one is the inclusion of a built in Ethernet port so you can finally have your unit shared out on your network and used by multiple machines. Whilst I've not had a chance to test this out (yet!) the inclusion means you no longer have to purchase a separate print server like the Silex 6200U which can cost upwards of £60-£70 and sourcing these is a major headache as virtually nobody stocks them!... So that headache is now gone with the MX700..

Next up you have the FAX, which is, well, it's a fax, what more do you want?.. So nothing special there but it's something extra.

Then there's the copier function.. Now like the MP500 and the MP830 the general quality of the printout on "normal" is very good indeed but this unit has one advantage over the older models in that it doesn't sit for hours warming up... It tends to go from the button press to printing in a very short period of time indeed.

... however the "High Speed ADF" isn't really all the fast when it comes to copying... may'be it excels when scanning (part 2 of the review) but when you use it for copying you're going to be a little disappointed with the hype. That said, it still kicks out copies at a reasonable clip so it's not all bad.

Beyond that there's really only a few small but nice touches that have been added to this machine..

Small but significant
The bottom paper tray has disposed of the pull out, disassemble and try to slot back in tray that has been around for years. That's probably why the auto-duplex functionality has gone too but instead the paper tray is a subtle blend of the printer front door and a slot under the output tray... It actually works very well and I'm something of a fan.

Then we come to the output tray has done away with the flimsy plastic pull outs that any self respecting clumsy person will have broken off in no time and replaced it with a solid bit of plastic that rotates out from the door which doubles as the primary output tray and provides more support. It's something that pictures can only describe but again it's rather neat.

Conclusion
So features aside what's it like when it prints... Well this is where I have something of a question... This unit has a nice selection of features that could make it a decent workgroup machine tasked for outputting documents. Problem is, it's really not all that fast and the print quality while good, is on a par with the iP4000 rather than the much nippier iP4300. On "normal" print quality it manages reasonably well but if you ever decide to go for "high" quality you're going to be very unpopular with anyone else waiting to print, especially if you've sent a 20 page plus document.

Granted the addition of the LAN port is a real boost and must have increased the costs somewhat but to then take that major feature and put a low-medium grade print engine in the machine strikes me as biting off your nose to spite your face. The word "Weird" springs to mind.

Either way it's a nice little unit and would doubtless be a good machine to put in a small home office for say 2 or 3 computers but if you wanted to be printing in quantity I'd head for the more expensive MP830 and an external print server.


Note: pictures, and scanner review to be added at a later date.


_________________
Printers: (Canon) MP500/830, MX700, iP4000/4200/4300/4500/5200, iX4000(A3) (Epson) C84/86, D88, CX6600, R285/800/1900 (HP) K550, K850, K5400, L7680

Follow up.

Given that 4 months or more have passed I've had a chance to return to this printer which hasn't seen too much use since the original review.

A few things have happened to bear out my original thoughts in that the MX850 has been released at long last and it contains all the extra trimmings this little nugget introduced but with the additional oomph that the MP830 introduced but boosted with the iP4500 print engine. So, it seems my instincts were on the nose when I suggested it might be worth waiting and saving your money there.

That said, my better half has made the rather telling point this poor MX700 unit has been a little maligned when considered from the point of view of someone on a tighter budget or less exacting demands than little ole' me.. *cue: being handed hat and shown door*

Regular Printing
Probably the biggest change in opinion came when Becky sent the printer 50 worksheets for a class in school. Because it wasn't handling photos or trying to photocopy something from cold it actually started off a little slow but once it had started it was whizzing through the rest of the jobs quite quickly. Not quite iP4300 speeds but definitely giving the older iP4200 a run for its money.

Photocopy Update
That said, when it came to photocopying I spotted that the printer seems to lack any cache memory to store what it's scanned in. This means that the MX700 scans the document it's copying for each sheet of paper. Ouch! If you're looking for an occasional copier this isn't going to be a deal breaker but if you need to copy something in a hurry, this isn't the printer for you.

Ink Tanks
It's something I've taken for granted as I always get the higher end printers but this has the individual ink tank cartridges unlike the MX300/310 units which have the evil tri-colour cartridge + black arrangement. So in that sense you're not wasting ink needlessly because your youngest did lots of "yellow" pictures


Overall
From my own point of view this printer has not really lived up to the hopes I had for it but I've come to realise it was never really intended for folks with greater speed, less time requirements such as my own. Had the MX850 been released (or even mentioned as a future release) at the time of review I probably would have been a lot more forgiving and treated it less as a high end unit.

Ultimately I could see myself recommending this printer to a small office with limited budget, some colour printing needs and perhaps one looking to replace their fax machine. The built-in printserver is a definite boost in value so it could be worse.

In the pecking order I'd put this printer as 3rd in line with the MX850 and MP610 preceding it in budget and functionality.

Hope this update proves useful as this little unit is now on eBay waiting for a more forgiving owner


_________________
Printers: (Canon) MP500/830, MX700, iP4000/4200/4300/4500/5200, iX4000(A3) (Epson) C84/86, D88, CX6600, R285/800/1900 (HP) K550, K850, K5400, L7680