The Canon Color imageClass MF741Cdw ($489) is a midrange color laser all-in-one printer (print, scan, copy, fax) targeted primarily at small to midsize offices and workgroups that require low- to medium-volume printing and copying.
Like the somewhat beefier Editors' Choice Lexmark MC2535adwe, the MF741Cdw is relatively fast and prints terrific-looking text, graphics, and photos.
Its running costs are competitive with similarly priced color laser AIOs, but not as low as those of several inkjet laser alternatives such as Epson's WorkForce Pro WF-C5790 Network Multifunction Color Printer.
Overall, though, there's a lot to like about this middle-of-the-road color laser AIO, including Canon's exceptionally detailed, brilliant, and accurate color imaging, making the MF741Cdw a good value for environments that require several hundred to a few thousand top-quality prints and copies per month.
Expandable Size and Capacity
Measuring 18.4 by 18.8 by 18.8 inches (HWD) and weighing about 64 pounds, the MF741Cdw is about 5 inches shorter from front to back and 4 pounds heavier than Lexmark's workhorse MC2535adwe.
Several entry-level machines, including Canon's MF731Cdw and Brother's Editors' Choice MFC-L3770CW, take up a little less desk space, but they also deliver less in terms of capacity and robustness.
A disappointing shortcoming of the MF741Cdw's otherwise impressive feature set is that its 50-sheet automatic document feeder (ADF), which sends multipage documents to the scanner, features manual duplexing, meaning that it can't scan or copy two-sided multipage jobs without your having to flip the stack of originals, well, manually.
Of the other color laser AIOs mentioned here so far, only the Canon MF731Cdw lacks automatic duplexing or the ability to scan two-sided pages without user intervention.
Auto-duplexing ADFs are great time- and tedium-savers, and often well worth the extra $50 to $100 they tack onto the purchase price.
In any case, setting up copy jobs, printing from and scanning to the cloud, monitoring consumables, and configuring security, networking, and other functions are all handled from the MF741Cdw's spacious and easy-to-navigate 5-inch color touch screen control panel, shown here.
The highly customizable control panel and its set of preconfigured workflows and shortcuts, dubbed the Application Library, provides users and departments with their own home screens consisting of icons that, in addition to providing access to everyday functions such as making copies or scanning to a local network drive, launch repetitive tasks such as scanning and distributing documents to various cloud sites or document management systems or protecting sensitive documents with PINs and other security measures.
Like most other business AIOs, this Canon also provides extensive controls, including configuring security options, generating reports, monitoring and ordering supplies, and tinkering with user sections and the Application Library, via its built-in web portal.
The portal is accessible from virtually any web browser, including your smartphone's, locally or over the Internet.
Paper handling consists of a 250-sheet main cassette and a 50-sheet override (what Canon calls a "stack bypass") tray, for a total of 300 sheets from two sources.
You can boost capacity and versatility by adding an optional 550-sheet cassette ($199), bringing capacity to 850 sheets.
The MF731Cdw also comes ready to hold 300 sheets and is expandable to 850, while the Epson WF-C5790 defaults to 330 sheets with an expansion option that takes it to 830.
Meanwhile, Lexmark's MC2535adwe manages a mere 251 sheets out of the box, but that's expandable to 1,451.
For some reason, Canon hasn't published a maximum monthly duty cycle for the MF741Cdw, but its closely configured sibling, the MF731Cdw, has a maximum monthly rating of 50,000 pages.
The more relevant number, though, the recommended monthly print volume, is 4,000 pages, the same as the MF731Cdw.
That's 1,500 more pages than the WF-C5790 and 2,500 more than the MFC-L3770CDW, but a whopping 4,500 pages less than the MC2535adwe.
Copious Connections, Simple Security
The Color imageClass MF741Cdw supports most connection types.
Standard interfaces include Ethernet up to 1000BaseT, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Direct, connecting to a single PC via USB 2.0, and printing from or scanning to thumb drives or other USB storage devices through the port located on the left side of the chassis beneath the scanner, outlined in red in the image below.
In addition to Wi-Fi Direct, other mobile connectivity methods include Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Mopria Print Service, and Canon Print Business.
That last one lets you connect to several popular cloud sites, print two-sided pages, and perform several other functions from both Apple iOS and Android mobile devices.
Security is fairly simple, consisting of the standard network authentication and encryption protocols in addition to Secure Print for assigning personal identification numbers (PINs) to sensitive documents to lock out prying eyes.
You also get the usual department ID authentication for controlling which features, such as color printing, are allowed for which users.
A Strong Performer
Canon rates the MF741Cdw at 28 pages per minute in simplex (one-sided) mode.
However, since the printer defaults to duplex mode (though the company does not publish a duplex rating), we also test and record how fast it churns out two-sided prints.
Of the other printers mentioned here, the Canon MF731Cdw and Lexmark MC2535adwe also default to duplex, but the other two do not; hence, we have no duplex print speeds for the Brother MFC-L3770CDW and Epson WF-C5790.
I tested the MF741Cdw over Ethernet from our standard Intel Core i5 testbed running Windows 10 Pro.
See How We Test Printers
When printing our standard 12-page Microsoft Word text document, I clocked the MF741Cdw at 22.8ppm in duplex mode and 27.5ppm in simplex mode.
That's slightly ahead of the MF731Cdw when printing two-sided pages and about 2ppm behind it for single-sided prints.
The Lexmark, on the other hand, beat the MF741Cdw in simplex mode by 12.3ppm but fell behind it in duplex mode by 5.6ppm, while the Brother and Epson trailed my test unit's simplex speed by 0.7ppm and 3.1ppm respectively.
During the next portion of my testing routine, I clocked the MF741Cdw as it churned out our collection of colorful and complex business documents consisting of intricate Adobe Acrobat PDFs, PowerPoint handouts, and Excel spreadsheets, charts, and graphs.
Then I combined those results with the scores from printing the Word document and came up with an overall rating of 18.7ppm.
That's 3.9ppm simplex and 1.1ppm duplex ahead of its sibling, the MF731Cdw.
The MC2535adwe was 0.9ppm faster in simplex and 2.9ppm slower in duplex mode.
In other results for single-sided pages, the MFC-L3770CDW outpaced the MF741Cdw by 1.9ppm and the Epson inkjet did so by 2ppm.
Overall, the MF741Cdw performed respectably in our tests,
Canon imageClass Quality
Like its predecessor the MF731Cdw, the MF741Cdw's output quality is above average.
Text came out sharp, well-shaped, and highly legible down to the smallest type I could make out without magnification, making it more than suitable for most business applications.
The PowerPoint handouts and Excel charts I printed, packed with intricate, difficult-to-reproduce gradients and solid fills, looked nearly flawless, with smooth gradations from one color to the next.
Blacks and other dark fills and backgrounds came out uniformly, and colors were brilliant and accurate.
Only one of our complex PowerPoint slides—a handout page that many of the printers we test struggle with—showed slight banding in a dark green gradient.
Photos, too, looked good, with bright and accurate colors and excellent detail—no match for images printed on photo-centric inkjets, such as Canon's TS Series Pixmas, but otherwise excellent for a color laser AIO.
Competitive Consumables Costs
Unfortunately, the toner required to keep entry-level and midrange laser printers up and running is pricey compared to some other alternatives.
If you spring for Canon's highest-yield toner cartridges for the MF741Cdw, monochrome pages will run you about 2.2 cents apiece and color pages about 13 cents, which is about average among laser AIOs.
This may not sound like much, but when you crank out several thousand pages each month, even a fraction of a cent can add up to hundreds or thousands of dollars over the life of the machine.
Say, for example, that you print 4,000 pages a month.
A penny's difference in the cost per page adds $40 to the monthly expense of using your printer.
That's almost $500 per year, $2,000 for four years, and so on.
With that in mind, then, the imageClass MF741Cdw costs the same to use as the MF731Cdw did.
Lexmark's MC2535adwe runs about 0.4 cents less for monochrome prints and 2.3 cents less for color, while Brother's MFC-L3770CDW will cost you about 0.4 cents more for black prints and 2.5 cents more for color.
Epson's WF-C5790 inkjet alternative is the thriftiest choice, beating the MF741Cdw by 0.5 cents monochrome and 5.3 cents color.
Up Against Stiff Competition
Overall, the MF741Cdw is a capable color laser AIO.
It prints well at a good pace and comes with most of the features small offices and workgroups are usually looking for, though the lack of an auto-duplexing ADF could be a deal-breaker for some.
If you regularly copy or scan two-sided multipage documents, our current favorite color laser AIO, the Lexmark MC2535adwe, is a more practical value.
If your application doesn't require laser output, Epson's WF-C5790 inkjet combines duplex scanning and copying with significantly lower costs per page.
If you insist on typeset-quality output but don't demand an auto-duplexing ADF, however, the Color imageClass MF741Cdw is a strong contender.
Canon Color imageClass MF741Cdw
The Bottom Line
The Canon Color imageClass MF741Cdw churns out good-looking output at a respectable clip, though an auto-duplexing ADF would round out its otherwise strong feature set nicely.
