If you manage office supplies for a living—like I do for a 150-person company across two locations—you know the Canon name comes up a lot. We have a mix of older Canon 2900s in the shipping department and newer TR4722s in the admin wing. People ask me all the time: 'Which one should we buy more of?' It's not a simple answer.
Here's the thing: the Canon 2900 is a laser monochrome workhorse, while the Canon TR4722 is an inkjet all-in-one. They serve different masters. But the real decision isn't just about hardware. It's about ink costs, paper handling, and what happens when your finance team starts asking about line items. Let me walk you through the three dimensions that matter most to a procurement person like me.
Dimension 1: The Real Cost of Ink (It's Not What You Think)
People assume the cheaper printer has cheaper ink. Actually, the causation runs the other way. The Canon TR4722 uses individual ink tanks—you replace only the color that runs out. The Canon 2900 uses a toner cartridge. Which is better? Depends on your usage pattern.
For the Canon TR4722 printer ink, you're looking at around $15-20 per color tank. Black is a bit more, maybe $25. Here's something vendors won't tell you: if you print mostly black text, the color tanks sit there and dry up. I've seen a set of color cartridges expire before they're even half used. That's a hidden cost.
Meanwhile, the Canon 2900 printer ink—which is actually toner—costs about $80-100 per cartridge but prints 2,500 pages. If I remember correctly, the TR4722's black tank prints about 600 pages for $25. Do the math:
- Canon 2900: ~$0.04 per page
- Canon TR4722 (black only): ~$0.04 per page
- Canon TR4722 (with color): ~$0.12 per page (if you factor in color ink waste)
It's a wash for black-and-white printing. The Canon 2900 wins if you need speed and volume. The Canon TR4722 wins if you occasionally need color—but only if you actually use that color regularly. Why does this matter? Because I've seen departments order color cartridges for a TR4722 that nobody uses for color. They're literally throwing money away.
Dimension 2: Paper Handling and the Cubic Yard Calculator
This is where things get interesting—and a bit meta. Both printers handle standard copy paper (20 lb bond, 8.5 x 11 inches). But the Canon 2900 has a 250-sheet tray standard. The Canon TR4722 has a 100-sheet rear tray plus a 100-sheet cassette. For a small team, that's fine. For a busy office? You're refilling the TR4722 constantly.
Here's a practical example: I recently had to figure out how much copy paper to order for two floors of our office. We use about 10 reams per week across both locations. But one ream is 500 sheets. One case is 10 reams. How much space does that take up? I pulled up a cubic yard calculator to check: a standard case of paper is about 1.5 cubic feet. For 12 weeks of supply, that's 180 reams—18 cases. That's 27 cubic feet. That's exactly one cubic yard.
The Canon 2900 is more efficient for high-volume printing. If you're printing that much copy paper, you don't want a printer that needs paper refills three times a day. The Canon TR4722 is fine for low-volume admin tasks, but it's not built for the kind of output a busy department generates.
Dimension 3: Hidden Costs and Transparency
I still kick myself for not asking about setup and support costs when we bought our first batch of TR4722s. The price looked great—under $100 per unit. But we didn't factor in:
- Wi-Fi setup time (about 20 minutes per printer for our IT team)
- Driver compatibility issues with our older Windows machines
- The fact that the Canon 2900 didn't need any of that—it uses a standard USB and PCL drivers that just work
Speaking of hidden costs, here's something most people don't realize: the 'standard turnaround' on Canon support includes buffer time. When our TR4722 stopped feeding paper correctly, the quoted support time was 48 hours. But that doesn't mean they'd fix it in 48 hours—that's their standard SLA window. The actual resolution took 5 business days. For a Canon 2900, we had a local tech swap the pickup roller in 30 minutes.
The vendor who lists all fees upfront—even if the total looks higher—usually costs less in the end. I've learned to ask 'what's NOT included' before 'what's the price.' That's how I found out that the Canon TR4722's warranty doesn't cover paper jams caused by non-Canon paper. The Canon 2900's warranty doesn't have that exclusion.
The Verdict: Which One Should You Choose?
At least, that's been my experience with these two models. Here's my simple guide based on real-world use:
- Choose the Canon 2900 if: Your team prints mostly black-and-white, high volume (500+ pages per week per printer), and you need reliability over features. The toner is cheaper per page at scale, and the printer is nearly indestructible.
- Choose the Canon TR4722 if: You need color occasionally, your volume is low (under 200 pages per week per printer), and you value compact size and wireless printing. But buy it only if you plan to actually use the color cartridges.
The best part of finally getting our printer strategy sorted: no more 3am worry sessions about whether the order will arrive. We standardized: Canon 2900s for the high-volume areas, TR4722s for the admin pod where people occasionally need to print a photo or scan a document. It's not glamorous, but for an office administrator, that's a win.