Canon PIXMA MG3620 Review (2026): Best $50 Printer?

At around $50, the Canon PIXMA MG3620 is often the cheapest functional wireless all-in-one printer you can buy new. It prints, scans, copies, and connects to WiFi. For someone who prints a boarding pass twice a year and the occasional recipe, it's exactly enough. For anyone who prints regularly, it becomes expensive very quickly. This is a printer with a very specific use case — let's figure out if it's yours.

What You Get for $50

The MG3620 is a compact inkjet all-in-one with print, scan, and copy functions. It connects wirelessly via WiFi and supports AirPrint and Google Cloud Print for easy mobile printing. Auto duplex (two-sided printing) is included, which is rare at this price point. The printer is small enough to fit on a shelf or desk corner without dominating the space. Setup is straightforward — about 10 minutes from box to first print.

Print Quality

For a $50 printer, output quality is acceptable. Text documents are legible and adequately sharp for everyday use. Color output on standard paper is decent — not vibrant, but fine for web pages and basic graphics. Photos printed on Canon photo paper look better than you'd expect at this price, though serious photo printing requires a better printer. The 4800×1200 dpi resolution handles most home printing tasks competently.

Speed — The Big Compromise

At 5.7ppm black and 5.0ppm color, the MG3620 is slow. A 10-page document takes about 2 minutes. If you're printing a single page here and there, this doesn't matter much. If you regularly print larger documents, you will notice. This is a printer for light, occasional use — not for anyone printing homework assignments, work reports, or multi-page documents regularly.

The Ink Cost Problem

Here's the reality of ultra-budget printers: Canon makes money on ink, not hardware. The MG3620 uses Canon PG-245 and CL-246 cartridges. Standard cartridges yield only about 180 black pages and 180 color pages. At roughly $15 per black cartridge and $20 per color cartridge, you're looking at around $0.08 per black page and $0.15+ per color page. Compare that to an EcoTank at $0.003 per page, and the math becomes clear: if you print 100 pages a month, you'll spend $120/year on ink for a $50 printer. The MG3620 only makes financial sense if you print very little — under 30–50 pages per month.

The XL cartridges (PG-245XL and CL-246XL) improve the math slightly, yielding 300 black / 300 color pages, but the fundamental cost-per-page issue remains.

Should You Buy the MG3620?

Buy it if: You print fewer than 30 pages per month, need the absolute cheapest upfront cost, and value compact size. It's perfect for a dorm room, guest bedroom, or as a backup printer for occasional use. At $50, it's also a reasonable choice if you just need something that works and don't want to think about it.

Skip it if: You print more than 50 pages a month. At that volume, the ink costs will frustrate you quickly. Spend the extra $80 for an Epson EcoTank ET-2803 and save dramatically on ink over the printer's lifetime. Also skip it if you need speed or scan multi-page documents regularly.