REASONS TO BUY
Good overall performance
Solid value per dollar
Relatively easy to use
REASONS TO AVOID
Limited print sizes
Tends to oversaturate
Canon Pixma TR8620 Review
A great choice for those seeking a multi-use midsize printer with an accessible price, but a miss for someone looking for truly superior photo printing
Credit: Canon
By Paige Klugherz ⋅ Review Editor ⋅ June 17, 2022
Contributions From: Genaveve Bradshaw
RELATED: The Best Photo Printers of 2025
Our Verdict
The Canon Pixma TR8620 prints highly saturated photos at a reasonable price point. Once set up, the easy-to-use app makes printing photos a breeze, but one of this printer's limiting factors is that you can only use a fairly small range of paper sizes. For the average user, the vibrancy and clarity will more than satisfy, but this wouldn't be the pick for someone looking to recreate precise colors or high-quality black and white prints.
Our Analysis and Test Results
The Canon Pixma TR8620 checks a lot of boxes for a home photo printer; while it may not reign supreme in any of our testing categories, it performs above average across the board among our lineup of tested printers and has an appealing price point. Its color prints tend to be a bit over-saturated, while black and white photos lack some clarity, but overall most photos are vivid and smooth. It handles the basic photo paper sizes, but has limitations if you're trying to print particularly small or large.
The printer's front control panel tilts upward for ease of use.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
Color Prints
Although not always the most accurate in its color representations, the Pixma TR 8620 produces crisp, vibrant images. We were pleasantly surprised by how this printer handled varying skin tones, representing a wide range of colors and making everyone look natural.
Although we appreciate vibrant prints, this printer does have a tendency to oversaturate certain colors, especially blues.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
We were less impressed by the landscape prints, where the blue tones were often oversaturated and unnatural. Our testers found that this printer stylized its prints as though a filter had been applied. Clarity was sometimes affected in those areas of deep saturation, but if you like vivid, high-contrast photos, this printer could be a good choice.
Black and White Prints
The Pixma TR8620 was only an average performer with black and white prints, with a tendency to increase saturation and give the photos a cool tint.
This printer produces a wide greyscale range with both true blacks and bright whites.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
We liked that the printer creates a wide grayscale range. There was a slight loss of clarity in the highest contrast areas, and it could occasionally be grainy. Just like with the color prints, the user would want to be sure that they are okay with the style of this printer affecting their images and the way it dials up the contrast in the photos.
Print Capabilities
One of the limiting factors of the Pixma TR8620 is that it can't print larger than 8.5" x 11" or smaller than 3.5" x 3.5". While you may not need to print those tiny sizes very often, if you're hoping to use this printer for prints to frame, you might be disappointed about not being able to print bigger. Our testers did note that it can handle quite a few styles of paper, from the standard glossy and matte to iron-on transfers and cardstock.
Our testers were happy with the multiple options for how to print, as well as the many different styles of paper that can be printed on.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
Operating Costs
While this is an estimate, we've developed this method after thoroughly testing and applying it to every printer. The TR8620 has a fairly low operating cost at just 40 cents per photo which is slightly below average.
With its reasonable operating costs, you won't think twice about printing out all of your vacation photos!
Credit: Abriah Wofford
Set-up
In terms of those first straight-out-of-the-box steps, the Pixma is super simple. The ink cartridges lock into place with a satisfying click so you know you've done it correctly, and the screen tilts outward, making it easy to read. In order to connect to a smartphone, you'll follow on-screen prompts. This in and of itself is not complicated, but our testers occasionally experienced the printer disconnecting itself from the Wi-Fi, which required them to restart the app and repeat the process.
An easy-to-use app makes printing photos a quick process once the printer is set-up.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
Once connected, printing photos via the app was quick and easy! There were similar Wi-Fi connectivity issues with the printer when installing the software on a computer, which affected its performance in this category.
As a mid-size printer, the TR8620 won't overtake your workspace.
Credit: Abriah Wofford
Should You Buy the Canon Pixma TR8620?
The Canon Pixma TR8620 is consistent across our testing metrics, albeit not a standout in any particular category. So while it wasn't quite special enough to earn a top spot in our lineup, it's still a solid photo printer for the casual home user looking to easily print pictures directly from their phone or computer.
What Other Photo Printers Should You Consider?
We feel that the Pixma TR8620 does provide a good value for its quality, but the Epson Expression Photo HD XP-15000 is another similar mid-size printer with greater printing capabilities in terms of paper size and produces consistent color in its photos. See our top-ranked photo printers review for more info.
—Paige Klugherz and Genaveve Bradshaw
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