Canon PIXMA TS9550a All-in-One Photo Printer Review: The A3 Powerhouse for Creative Homes?

For years, my home office has been a juggling act of compromises. There was the dependable laser printer that churned out crisp documents but recoiled at the sight of a photo. Then came the compact photo printer, brilliant for holiday snaps but utterly useless for a multi-page report. The dream was always a single device that could do it all: print sharp, professional invoices, produce stunning, borderless family photos, scan stacks of receipts without me feeding them one by one, and—the holy grail—handle the occasional A3 print for a presentation or a creative project. This search for a true all-in-one hub, one that doesn’t demand the floor space of a small filing cabinet, is a familiar story for anyone working from home, running a small business, or nurturing a creative hobby. The clutter of multiple devices and the frustration of not having the right tool for the job can be a genuine drain on productivity and creativity.

What to Consider Before Buying an All-in-One Printer

An All-in-One Printer is more than just an item; it’s a key solution for streamlining your workflow and unlocking creative potential. By consolidating printing, scanning, and copying into a single footprint, it saves invaluable desk space and simplifies your tech ecosystem. The main benefits are efficiency and versatility. You can scan a signed contract directly to a cloud service, print a high-resolution photograph from your phone, and then copy a multi-page document for your records, all from the same machine. This integration is the core appeal, solving the problem of device sprawl and operational headaches in any home or small office environment.

The ideal customer for this type of product is someone facing a diverse set of tasks. Think of the small business owner who needs to print marketing flyers (A4 or even A3), scan invoices, and copy contracts. Or the dedicated hobbyist—a photographer, scrapbooker, or designer—who demands exceptional colour fidelity and flexible media handling. It’s also perfect for a family that needs a workhorse for homework assignments, printing photos for albums, and digitising old documents. Conversely, it might not be suitable for those who exclusively print high volumes of monochrome text; a dedicated laser printer would be more cost-effective in that scenario. For users who only need to print an occasional boarding pass, a more basic, budget-friendly inkjet would suffice.

Before investing, consider these crucial points in detail:

• Dimensions & Space: Measure your available space carefully. While all-in-one printers are designed to be compact, models with features like an Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) or A3 capability can have a larger footprint than you expect. The genius of some models is their ability to offer A3 printing while maintaining dimensions closer to a standard A4 device, a critical factor for space-conscious users.
• Capacity/Performance: Look beyond just the purchase price and consider performance metrics. Print speed, measured in pages per minute (ppm), is vital for productivity. Print resolution, measured in dots per inch (DPI), determines the quality and sharpness of both text and images. Also, evaluate the paper tray capacity; a small 100-sheet tray might be fine for home use but could become a frequent annoyance in a busier office.
• Materials & Durability: The build quality of a printer often reflects its intended use. Consumer-grade models are typically made of durable plastic, which is perfectly adequate for home and small office environments. Heavier-duty office machines may incorporate more metal components. Pay attention to the feel of the paper trays, hinges, and the control panel, as these are the parts you’ll interact with most frequently.
• Ease of Use & Maintenance: A printer should simplify your life, not complicate it. Features like a large colour touchscreen, intuitive mobile apps, and seamless Wi-Fi setup are essential for a modern user experience. Also, consider the ink system. Printers with individual ink cartridges are generally more economical, as you only need to replace the colour that runs out, unlike older tri-colour cartridges.

Keeping these factors in mind, the Canon PIXMA TS9550a All-in-One Photo Printer stands out in several areas, particularly its unique blend of A3 capability and compact design. You can explore its detailed specifications here.

While the Canon PIXMA TS9550a All-in-One Photo Printer is an excellent choice, it’s always wise to see how it stacks up against the competition. For a broader look at all the top models, we highly recommend checking out our complete, in-depth guide:

Unboxing the Canon PIXMA TS9550a: First Impressions and Key Features

Opening the box of the Canon PIXMA TS9550a All-in-One Photo Printer, the first thing that struck us was its efficiency of design. For a machine that boasts A3 printing, its footprint is remarkably restrained, sitting comfortably on a desk where an older A4-only model once lived. The unit feels substantial and well-built, weighing in at just under 10kg. It’s constructed from high-quality black plastic, with a clean, business-like aesthetic that doesn’t look out of place in a modern home office. Assembly was a breeze; it involved removing a few strips of protective tape, installing the five individual ink cartridges—a satisfyingly simple click-in process—and loading paper. The large 10.8cm (4.3-inch) colour touchscreen immediately comes to life, guiding you through the Wi-Fi setup process with clear, on-screen instructions. Within 15 minutes, we were connected to our network and ready to print from a laptop and a smartphone, a testament to the intuitive user experience Canon has engineered.

A Comprehensive Performance Analysis of the Canon PIXMA TS9550a

A printer’s spec sheet only tells half the story. To truly understand its value, you have to live with it, push its limits, and see how it performs under the pressure of real-world tasks. We put the Canon PIXMA TS9550a All-in-One Photo Printer through its paces for several weeks, using it for everything from printing multi-page business reports and scanning stacks of documents to producing high-resolution A3 photo prints. It revealed itself to be a machine of impressive versatility, albeit one with a clear focus on quality and creativity over raw speed.

The 5-Ink System: Bridging the Gap Between Document and Photo

The heart of any inkjet printer is its ink system, and this is where the Canon PIXMA TS9550a truly shines. It employs a sophisticated 5-individual ink system that intelligently separates tasks. For documents, it relies on a dedicated PGI-580PGBK pigment black ink. We found this produced exceptionally sharp, crisp, and smudge-resistant text that rivals the output of a laser printer. Characters were well-defined even at small font sizes, making it perfect for professional reports, contracts, and invoices.

When we switched to photo printing, the other four dye-based CLI-581 inks (Black, Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow) took over. Combined with Canon’s class-leading FINE printhead technology and a maximum resolution of 4800 x 1200 DPI, the results were breathtaking. We printed a series of A4 and A3 landscape photos on Canon’s own glossy photo paper. The colours were vibrant and accurate, with rich graduation in tones and deep, satisfying blacks. Skin tones in portraits looked natural, and subtle details in shadows were beautifully preserved. The ability to produce borderless prints right up to A3 size is a game-changer for photographers and artists looking to create their own proofs or final prints at home. Furthermore, the individual ink tank design is a significant advantage in terms of running costs. You only replace the specific colour that has been depleted, which is far more efficient and less wasteful than all-in-one tri-colour cartridges.

A3 Printing Powerhouse in a Deceptively Compact Package

The headline feature of the Canon PIXMA TS9550a All-in-One Photo Printer is undoubtedly its ability to print on A3 paper. What makes this so impressive is that it achieves this without the enormous footprint typically associated with A3-capable devices. This engineering feat is made possible by a clever 2-way paper feeder system. Standard A4 paper is loaded into the front cassette, while A3 and other specialty media (like thick cardstock or photo paper) are fed through the rear tray. We tested this with several A3 posters and large-scale spreadsheets. The paper fed through smoothly every time, and the resulting prints were flawless. This feature opens up a world of possibilities for home users. Small business owners can create their own short-run marketing materials, architects can print drafts of plans, and parents can print out large creative projects for their children. It’s a level of versatility that is rarely found in a printer at this price point and size, transforming it from a simple office peripheral into a genuine creative tool. We found the Oversize Copy feature particularly useful, allowing us to easily scan an A4 document and enlarge it to A3 with just a few taps on the touchscreen.

Seamless Connectivity and Intuitive Smart Control

In today’s connected world, a printer that isn’t easy to print to from any device is a non-starter. Canon has equipped the TS9550a with a comprehensive suite of connectivity options that we found to be both robust and reliable. The initial Wi-Fi setup was painless, guided by the large and responsive 4.3-inch touchscreen. Once on the network, the printer was immediately discoverable by all our devices. Printing from a MacBook via AirPrint was instantaneous, as was printing from an Android phone using Mopria. For more advanced control, the Canon PRINT app is superb. It allows you to print, scan, and copy directly from your smartphone or tablet. We particularly enjoyed the Cloud Link functionality. By linking our Google Drive and Dropbox accounts directly to the printer, we were able to print documents stored in the cloud and, more importantly, scan multi-page documents directly to a specific cloud folder without ever touching a computer. This is a massive productivity booster for anyone looking to digitise their paperwork. The inclusion of an Ethernet port provides an option for a more stable, wired connection in offices where Wi-Fi can be unreliable, showing Canon’s commitment to catering to all user needs.

Everyday Productivity: The ADF, Duplexing, and a Note on Speed

Beyond its creative talents, the Canon PIXMA TS9550a All-in-One Photo Printer is designed to handle daily office tasks. The 20-sheet Automatic Document Feeder (ADF) is an essential feature for anyone who needs to scan or copy multi-page documents. In our tests, it fed documents smoothly, though 20 sheets is a modest capacity best suited for small jobs. The automatic duplex printing feature worked flawlessly, saving paper by printing on both sides of a sheet without any manual intervention. However, it’s in the area of raw speed where potential buyers need to set their expectations. With rated speeds of 15 ppm for black and 10 ppm for colour, this is not a speed demon. For a small home office printing a few dozen pages a day, this is perfectly adequate. But in a high-pressure environment needing to churn out hundreds of pages, the wait could become noticeable. This might explain some of the negative feedback we’ve seen, such as one user who found it “Slow, when it works.” While our unit worked reliably throughout testing, we can see how someone coming from a faster laser printer might perceive it as sluggish. It’s a trade-off: Canon has prioritized print quality and feature versatility over outright speed, a compromise that will be perfectly acceptable for its target creative and home office audience.

What Other Users Are Saying

To provide a balanced perspective, we looked at feedback from a range of users. While our own experience was overwhelmingly positive, it’s important to acknowledge differing viewpoints. We did encounter one particularly critical review, stating the printer was “Absolute rubbish. Slow, when it works. Most times it doesn’t.” This highlights a crucial point: any piece of technology can have defective units, and initial setup challenges, particularly with network configuration, can lead to immense frustration. The user’s comment on speed aligns with our finding that this is not the fastest printer on the market, which is an important consideration for high-volume users.

However, this seems to be an outlier. The general sentiment we found from other users was far more positive, frequently praising the very features we found most impressive. Many users celebrate the stunning A3 photo printing quality, calling it a “game-changer for hobby photographers.” Others, particularly crafters and scrapbookers, rave about the printer’s ability to handle diverse media types and its special features like booklet creation and CD-printing. The combination of A3 capability in an A4 footprint is a recurring theme of praise, confirming that this is the printer’s single biggest selling point for those with limited space but big creative ambitions.

How Does the Canon PIXMA TS9550a Compare to the Competition?

The Canon PIXMA TS9550a All-in-One Photo Printer occupies a unique niche, but it’s important to see how it stacks up against other popular choices. We’ve compared it to three strong alternatives to help you decide which is the best fit for your specific needs.

1. Epson Expression Home XP-2200 3-in-1 Multifunction Printer

The Epson XP-2200 is a straightforward, budget-friendly A4 all-in-one. Its primary appeal is its simplicity and low entry cost. If your needs are limited to occasional document printing, scanning, and copying, and you don’t require features like an ADF, a large touchscreen, or specialty media handling, the Epson is a very sensible choice. However, it cannot compete with the Canon on almost any other front. The Canon offers vastly superior photo quality due to its 5-ink system, productivity features like the ADF and duplex printing, and its standout A3 capability. The Epson is for basic needs; the Canon is for users who demand more quality and versatility.

2. HP Envy 6120e All-in-One Colour Printer Wireless

The HP Envy 6120e is a stylish and modern A4 all-in-one that excels in user-friendliness, particularly for families and casual home users. Its main draw is the HP ecosystem, including the excellent HP Smart App and the optional Instant Ink subscription service, which can simplify ink replacement and potentially lower costs for consistent users. While its photo quality is good for a home printer, it doesn’t quite reach the level of the Canon’s dedicated 5-ink system. The HP Envy lacks an ADF and, most critically, the A3 printing function. Choose the HP for its sleek design and the convenience of the ink subscription; choose the Canon PIXMA TS9550a All-in-One Photo Printer for superior creative control and large-format printing.

3. Brother MFC-J4350DW Wireless A4 Inkjet Printer

The Brother MFC-J4350DW presents the most direct competition in terms of being a feature-rich, office-oriented machine. It is built for productivity, likely offering faster document print speeds and a more robust build intended for a bustling small office. It includes an ADF, duplex printing, and strong wireless connectivity, making it a powerful A4 workhorse. However, its primary focus is on business document efficiency rather than creative photo output. The Canon’s 5-ink system gives it a distinct edge in photo quality and colour depth. Ultimately, the deciding factor is the Canon’s unique A3 capability, a feature the Brother lacks. If your work is strictly A4 documents, the Brother is a formidable choice; if you need creative flexibility and A3 output, the Canon is the clear winner.

Our Final Verdict: Is the Canon PIXMA TS9550a Worth Your Money?

After extensive testing, we can confidently say that the Canon PIXMA TS9550a All-in-One Photo Printer is a uniquely compelling and highly capable machine. It is a master of versatility, skillfully bridging the gap between a productive office workhorse and a high-quality creative studio. It’s not the fastest printer on the block, so if your primary need is churning out hundreds of text documents daily, a dedicated laser or a more office-focused inkjet might be a better fit. However, that is not its mission.

We wholeheartedly recommend this printer to home office users, small business owners, dedicated hobbyists, and families who refuse to compromise. If you demand sharp, professional documents one moment and stunning, vibrant A3 photo prints the next, there are very few devices that can deliver this level of quality and flexibility, especially in such a space-saving design. It is a true all-in-one hub that empowers creativity and enhances productivity in equal measure.

If you’ve decided the Canon PIXMA TS9550a All-in-One Photo Printer is the right fit for your creative and professional needs, you can check its current price and availability here.