Photo Printers

Canon is a famous Japanese manufacturer of consumer electronics. They made their own fan base around the world to welcome their products with a lot of expectations. The Japanese multinational always strive to fulfill all the customer needs with their high quality products. Canon photo printers are the best selling in this brand next to world famous Canon range of digital cameras. Selphy CP710 Thermal-Dye based photo printer is one of the latest releases to make the home photo printing easier.

Design and looks

Canon Selphy CP710 portable photo printer looks normal like any other printers in its class. But the portability is something which we must admire about this photo printer. It is easy to carry wherever you go and print photos directly from your digital camera or memory card even without any help of a computer. It looks very stylish and sleek when we compare with any other Canon photo printers. The 1.5 inch colour LCD display is very clear enough to see the progress of printing and other details about the photo print being printed in the printer.

Portability and Print Quality

Printing your beautiful memories with your loved ones has never been so easy before. It is even affordable than any other printers and traditional photo lab printing. The printer can work even with an optional battery, which takes the portability to the next level. Even though the battery backup will not come for long, it is pretty helpful while travelling. You can even take the photo printer to a party or any other family functions to take the photos with a compatible digital camera and print them on the spot. To place this photo printer in your desktop there should be few inches gap in the front and back to give allow the print paper to cycle. Even the power cords and other connection wires should be checked carefully to ensure they don’t interfere the photo printing.

The maximum colour resolution of 300 dpi x 300 dpi is great to have in a thermal dye compact photo printer to produce high quality photo prints. The print quality of Canon Selphy CP710 compact photo printer is simply awesome when we compare the print quality of its rivals in the market. The blacks are not up to our expectation as they are formed by combination of some colours just like any other thermal dye printer and there is no separate panel for black in the dye transfer ribbon. The colours are very vivid and the shadows are printed out very detailed.

Print Durability

High quality post card size 4 x 6 prints can be made using the bundled paper cassette. Canon has variety of paper cassettes to purchase to print in this compact photo printer as per the required print size. Even though the ink jet technology can deliver better photos than standard thermal dye photo printers, it is not preferred by most of the people due to the lack of photo durability. The photo prints from ink jet printers are not durable as they don’t have any protective coating as the thermal dye printers which prints out with protective coat. The standard inkjet prints will not have any protective coat to protect the photo prints as the photo prints can lose its colour textures very easily by repeated finger touch and basic handling. Canon promises that the photo prints from Selphy CP710 Inkjet photo printer can last up to 100 years when stored in a dark place and the print will last up to 7 years when it is kept in a photo frame.

Operation and Controls

Images from mobile phones and other Bluetooth devices can be printed out by using an additional Bluetooth adapter plugged into one of the given USB ports. The other feature to note down is the borderless printing, where the printer doesn’t make a default border and reduce the size of the image printed out as it just prints out everything vivid in throughout the print paper. Photos which are being printed out in the printer can be previewed clearly with the help of the 1.5 inch LCD display which is built at the top surface of the printer.

There is a hand full of control buttons are given below the 1.5 inch LCD colour display. There are buttons to define whether the print is a bordered print or a borderless print, to define the printing mode so it can print out the desired images from a digital camera or any other inputs. A print start and stop button is given to start and stop the print when needed. With the help of the control pad you can even define the print quality of each image before printing.

Verdict

Above all we have seen the wide range of features to enjoy with Canon Selphy CP710 compact photo printer. The major disappointment in this printer is that it doesn’t have a provision to do image corping, editing, colour correction and image rotation which is very basic to have with a compact photo printer. So if you wish to do some editing in the images which are being printed, you just have to find a PC to do it with an image editing software. There are few other Selphy models which are less expensive than CP710 but the only difference is that this compact photo printer has a very bright 1.5 inch LCD display which makes the operating mode easier. We would recommend this printer only if you are going to use this photo printer always with a computer.

Canon SELPHY CP710 Colour Inkjet Photo Printer – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	Canon
Printer Name	Selphy CP710
Technology	Thermal Dye Sublimation
Form Factor	Portable
Weight	980 grams
Dimensions (W x H x D)	7 x 2.5 x 5.2 (inches)
Resolution	300 dpi x 300 dpi
Print Size	Post card size, credit card size, credit card size stickers, wide size and mini stickers
Supported printing methods	Printing directly from digital camera, using memory card, from bluetooth devices and PC
LCD preview screen	Yes
LCD preview screen size	1.5 inch (colour LCD screen)
Borderless prints	Yes
Image editing without PC	No
Print preview on display	Yes
Number of cartridges	1
Maximum paper size	4 inch x 6 inch
Photo printer type	Printer only
Used with batteries	Yes
Batteries included	No
Standard print speed	Post card size – 58 seconds and Wide size – 74
PicBridge	Yes
AC Power supply	Yes, supplied
Power consumption	Approx – 4w(standby), Approx – 60w (printing)
Warranty	1 year limited warranty from canon

An out-and-out Snapshot photo printer could well be a tricky buy given that it is a balance between cost and convenience. We haven’t reviewed any snapshot printer that flaunts of cost per print lower than you can buy at the local drugstore kiosk. Nonetheless, these are generally portable printers and that apparently is a certain advantage. In most cases, all it takes is a few minutes to go from taking a photo to making a print. But convenience vs. cost factor means that every snapshot photo printer has to have something out of the ordinary to persuade buyers into paying for the product.

For some, it is portability all through and for others it is a flashy LCD that doubles up as a nice digital photo frame. As for the Canon Selphy CP800, the advantage is obvious and is two-fold. It is one of the least pricey snapshot photo printers that we had reviewed of late and it gives you some of the best photo prints we have seen. In the Canon CP800, you will be able to find some striking features that are necessarily a ‘must have’ on every printer, including a brilliant tilt-up LCD to preview images and a fine array of memory-card readers. Watch out, though, that because of its budget price, you may have to shell out extra bucks for some add-on features and is rife with most snapshot printers available online, you need to pay a premium for your photo prints. But if you are an amateur photographer who cannot wait sitting around for those snapshot photos to come out, you will need to seriously consider the Canon CP800. Before we move further into the review, a quick look at some of the points that faired well in our tests:

• Small printer & compact in size
• Easy to set up & use
• Deep black details indicate high contrast prints
• Reasonable print costs
• Simple to use printer controls
• Speed print speed of 58 seconds for a 4 x 6 print
• Reasonable colour performance

And the following things had to be put down as negatives:

• Eats up more space with the paper tray installed
• No editing software, leave alone minimal software package
• Few details tend to get lost a bit in the overall softness of photo prints
• Makes use of     Canon paper only with limited sizes available
• On-printer editing features is not applicable to individual photos
• Issues with red and greens
• Limited colour range

Design:

Physically, the Canon SELPHY CP800 Compact Photo Printer is a plain matte-black or white box which is 177 mm (W) x 134.6 mm (D) x 68.8 (H) mm in size (without any protrusions). Weighing 940g (excluding Paper Cassette & Ink Cartridge), it feels reassuringly solid without being a hulking great box. Remove the paper cassette, the display could lay flat and then there is the paper ‘door’ that folds up and you have a real compact machine in the making. The left side of the front face sports memory card readers. The format support is sufficiently wide: Memory Stick/Memory Stick Duo, CompactFlash and SD/MultiMediaCard. A USB 2.0 port is provided on the left side of the photo printer if you need to plug in flash drives and other forms of USB storage. You will also be able to find a second USB interface to connect to the host computer. There is a paper cassette of clear plastic which inserts into the front of the photo printer through which the paper goes in. Completed prints come out of the rear. The CP800 will be able to print photos of 2 different sizes including 4” x 6” and 2” x 3.5”.

Controls & Connectivity:

On-printer Controls: The Canon SELPHY CP800 Dye-Sub Photo Printer features a number of controls on the machine’s body that are made use of when you are printing from a flash card. You can find from the third left, buttons for menu, power, print button, directional & select buttons and a back button. The menu button is meant for the on-screen menu of the machine, which you can navigate without any trouble using directional and select buttons.

Display: A 2.5″ LCD screen adorns the top of the CP800 and this can tilt up to 30 degrees. The screen seems rather petite comparing with the printer body and the screen is a disappointment as it is not very high in resolution; therefore the images tend to look a bit grainy.

Menus: On inserting a memory card, the Canon CP800 scans the card in a flash and then displays the images it can find on the card, letting you to scroll through the list and choose the ones intended for printing. The menu button can also be pressed for accessing the on-screen menu and this allows you to choose all the images for printing or employ different image editing tools including correct red-eye, auto image enhancement, smooth skin or several image editing tools. The colour modes will let you apply models like neutral, vivid, sepia, black & white and positive film to the photos. You can only apply these to all of the images tagged for printing and not for any individual images. Also available are options to create print layouts of multi-images on one page, add any borders to the photo print or include a date stamp to the photos. We found the menu system simple to use, though the text is slightly difficult to read on the rather petite grainy screen, particularly from a distance.

Media: The CP800 can toil only with Canon’s own paper that comes with three sizes and types: postcard (4” x 6” with tear-ends for handling), labels (eight mini labels on a 4” x 6” sheet) and card (2.13” x 3.39”). The card and postcard sizes are only offered in a glossy finish and there isn’t any matte or any other paper option. The machine cannot work with any other paper sizes or types (including A4 or letter) than the ones mentioned above.

Setup:

Setting up the SELPHY CP80 printer was a breeze and we were able to insert the ink cartridge without the slightest of trouble. There is a plastic flap on the right hand side of the device, open it up and just push it in and then close it. It takes a few moments of examination to load the paper into the cassette into the unit; we had to sort out that the paper’s holders top clear flap needs to be open whilst printing. We tried inserting a USB flash drive and an SD card separately, the printer was smart enough to find the image in no time. The left and right arrows on the control interface should be used to scroll the required image. By poking the Up/Down arrows you can select the desired number of copies and press the Print button.

As the Selphy makes use of dye-sublimation technology to print (in stark contrast to more common inkjet printing), it comes with 256 levels of colour and 300 x 300dpi resolution that most today’s snapshot printers come with. In dye-sublimation printing, the ink is transferred onto the paper by the printer from a continuous sheet of film which is impregnated with ink in the cassette. Inkjets, in comparison spray microjets of liquid ink from a reservoir onto the required page. The biggest advantage of the dye-sublimation printer is that the cartridge also applies a sort of protective coating to the photo prints and this means the prints are reasonably water and scratch resistant.

The dye-transfer transfer roll arrived encased in a two-barrel cartridge which easily inserts through a pull-down door found on the device’s right side. You can find that the barrels are attached about 2-inch apart. On the inside, there is a fresh, ink-packed film that feeds from one roll onto a takeup roll as you use it. When it is in operation, the Selphy can print a picture in passes and pushes the paper out of the back and again pulls it back in with every colour it lays on, thus giving ample clearance behind the machine isn’t optional when it is printing.

Canon features a CD-ROM that has a lot of photo software and this means you can print straight from your computer and lay your hands on some image management. In case your digital camera supports PictBridge, you may also connect it to the printer straightaway without any trouble. You can also go for a Bluetooth BU-30 adapter from Canon that allows you to print directly from a mobile phone which is Blue-tooth enabled and not to mention the rechargeable battery pack (optional) which does a good job for up to around 54 postcard-size prints as claimed by the manufacturer. As for the battery performance, we didn’t get to test out its longevity, but we feel that it should be okay for limited printing when you are away from the power plug.

Though the machine itself does not cost a fortune, going for the extra can actually add to the overall cost. Besides, the price of consumables for this printer is on the higher side. You can get both high capacity as well as standard-capacity photo packs supplied by Canon, but anyway the output is costly! A 4” x 6” photo (ink cartridge and paper) can cost you more than the local drugstore/photo service charge or average photo kiosk and again that depends upon the refill-pack capacity you purchase. (That assumes you are not messing up the Selphy’s consumables by producing prints you do not like – and not all stores will charge for duds). It is a tad higher than some of the other rival snapshot photo printers, including the Epson PictureMate Charm and Sony DPP-F770. Do remember that with the included dye-sub consumables, the photo paper should be sufficient for the ink rolls that you get alongside the package. Therefore the cost per print in the case of this printer model, figures in the paper too. The cost involved in printing is a touchy sort of trade-off. And that you have pretty good photo-inkjet printers to avail of, the likes of all-in-one printers are witnessing an all-time low in terms of price. You always get a better bang (in terms of the capability of the printer) for your bucks by heading in that direction. Nonetheless, in that case, you need to let go of the amazing portability of what a snapshot photo printer like the CP800 can offer. Another available option is obviously ordering your photo prints locally, however you need to collect them at your local drugstore and also you are always at the whim of their work hours.

Performance:

Print Quality: Though the CP800 had a tough time with a few colours, it had no issues whatsoever in giving a deep, strong black in some of  our test prints. The black levels proved deeper than other printers and this means the photo prints will have a fairly deeper blacks and a much wider contrast between the whites and blacks, providing them with more visual impact. The CP800 faired pretty well in creating gradients of the 4 primary colours which looked smooth and clean.  There is only minor apprehension pertaining shading on the black (not much though), where it seems like it is making use of other colours to generate deeper black and this in turn produces bit of red tint nearly three quarters of the way up. But this is just a trivial issue that isn’t visible in most photographs.

When it comes to the edges, the CP800 came up trumps, though the results are a bit soft. A bit of testing revealed that it could be slightly better as it seemed to be a lot less sharp than other photo printers on test.  The edges that are highly magnified looked pretty clear with a reasonable level of detail.

Colour Accuracy: The CP800 seems to struggle with the blues and greens on testing and both of them looked a lot darker than we anticipated. Perhaps, the machine is doing some processing in order to try and make the colours seem more vivid and this process of course is out of our control. A bit of comparison of the colour accuracy of CP800 to that of other printers will throw more light on some issues, but apparently the colours would tend to vary a lot from one printer to another.
Print speeds: Operating the CP800 is a breeze and it takes roughly 15 sec to set up and get ready for printing. For printing a 4” x 6” image, it took about 45 sec when we printed from a memory card and just over a minute when you are printing from a PC. You will be able to find a single quality mode and understandably nothing happens during the first half of the time taken for printing, at least mechanically. Then the print paper goes backwards and forwards all the way through the machine‘s front and rear, till it comes out of the front, all set to please the user.

The time taken for printing is speedy compared to some of the snapshot printers like the Canon Selphy ES40 (that took only 80 sec each for printing the test images from the memory card). It came a bit close to the PictureMate Charm from Epson (50 sec from a flash memory card). It is also a quite performer, though the printer does make some buzzing noise of the volume and grade of an electrically run can opener. You can make use of it all day long (given sufficient paper and ink cartridges) without annoying your ears.

Comparison details:

Compare the Selphy CP800 to the much hyped Sony DPP-F700 and you will see a brighter, bigger and more appealing Sony display. Nevertheless, the performance is on the same scale as that of the Sony, though the Canon is less pricey. The Epson PM 300 on comparison with the CP800 seemed to handle DVDs and slightly bigger paper. This said Canon is the cheaper of the two, though HP has media card slots and a touch screen, things that Canon is built short of.  Weigh the CP800 against Canon iP2702, you will find that the later gives better quality prints and prints a gamut of paper sizes and types. The iP2702 fancies being much cheaper, given that it comes with memory card slots and works well as a stand-alone machine.

Verdict:

The Canon Selphy is a doddle to use for families, individuals, organizations and businesses that require occasional top quality output that is of snapshot print sizes. The portable printer is great for bringing to business events, parties, contests and sporting events featuring a booth or table. Indeed, it is pretty handy in numerous scenarios where the user would have made use of a Polaroid instant camera. (And this depends, obviously, on purchasing that additional battery pack). Mobile professionals including first responders, real-estate excecutives, artists, fishing enthusiasts (and the list goes on and on) can reap the many advantages of the printer. It is pretty simple to conjure up several situations and jobs where you may find this premium mobile printing highly useful. We suggest that you try out in a local store to get a feel of the speed, weight and size and get a first look at the prints. Then you will know if it is actually worth thinking about going for one.

The cost of consumable is a point of concern and the most off-putting. And also options are plenty when it comes to going for snapshot printers that give you lesser cost per print, but you will need to shell out more up front for them due to the low initial cost of the Selphy. In addition, you need to pay more for its battery, Bluetooth facility and features that come with some rather high-priced models. However if you are searching online for a reasonably priced, less than a minute printing machine which you can carry about in a petite bag, the Selphy CP800 could just be the one!

Check other Latest Photo Printers and best selling Canon Photo Printer reviews in this website.

Canon SELPHY CP800 Inkjet Photo Printer – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	Canon
Model Name	SELPHY CP800 Compact Photo Printer
Type	Compact photo – Dye sublimation – Colour
Available colours	White & Black
Form Factor	Portable
Technology	Thermal dye sublimation
Weight	940g (minus Paper Cassette & Ink Cartridge)
Dimensions	177mm (W) x 134.6mm (D) x 68.8 (H) mm
Maximum Resolution (colour)	300 x 300 dpi
Interface	Camera: USB type A port LCD Monitor: 6.2cm (2.5″) Colour TFT viewer (plus tilt mechanism & multi-language user interface) Computer: USB type B port
Supported Flash Memory Cards	SD, SDXC, SDHC, MMCplus, MultiMediaCard, CF, HC MMCplus, Memory Stick, Microdrive, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO, microSD, miniSDHC, microSDXC, microSDHC, miniSD, xD-Picture Card, MMCmicro, MMCmobile, Memory Stick Micro, RS-MM
Media Input	Auto feed through paper cassette
Media Support	Postcard size: 148mm x 100mm Credit Card: 86mm x 54mm L Size: 119mm x 89mm Mini Stickers:22mm x 17.3mm Credit Card Size Stickers:86mm x 54mm
Print Speed	L Size: approx. 39 sec (approx.) Credit Card Size Stickers: 24 sec (approx.) Postcard Size: 47 sec (approx.) Credit Card Size: 24 sec (approx.) Mini Sticker: 24 sec (approx.)
Printing Software	EOS Utility User’s Guide CD-ROM & Setup Software Canon Utilities Compact Photo Printer Solution Disk SELPHY CP800 Printer Driver SELPHY Photo Print
Compatible OS	Vista  XP SP3/SP1-2/Windows 7/ Mac OS X v10.4 – 10.6
Power Source	CA-CP200W Power adapter
Fade Resistance	Up to 100 years (manufacturer’s claim)
Power Consumption	Approx. 60W (printing), approx. 4W (standby)
Direct Print Capable	PictBridge
PostScript Support	No
Network Capable	No
Warranty	3 years

It is gratifying to see that many printer manufacturers these days are focussed on user ergonomics and ease of use when it comes to the design of the touch control panel. Epson will pride itself as the first major brand to adopt them, and now then, even the not so pricey Stylus Photo PX660 adorns one of its complete, angled face panels. The Epson Stylus Photo PX660 Photo Printer is a mid-range printer from its gamut of ink-jet multi-function peripherals (MFPs), which has about 25 models. The PX660 is a photo-oriented machine with a memory card which supports all standard formats of memory cards, six-ink and direct printing support provided by the PictBridge USB.  Let us get into the details of the machine, but first a look at the positives and negatives of the printer.

Positives:

• Reasonably good print quality and is excellent, particularly when making use of the Epson inks & paper
• Good photo quality
• Easy set up
• Stylish looks

Negatives:

• Takes some time to find USB port
• Higher ink costs
• Low print speeds
• Takes a while to come to terms with all settings & functions
• Printing without a border leads to slight discolouration at the end side of the image
• Scanner has no OCR facilities

Features:

There is an omission from the product spec which deserves a mention. Whilst most of the competitors of the PX660 would either have a wireless network interface or wired Ethernet port, the PX660 comes with an old, basic USB port. While you can still make use of the Windows’ printer sharing for sharing it with your PCs, you would have to leave the host PC ‘ON’

When you look at the present range of ‘Stylus’ machines from Epson, it is not easy to spot out the difference as they all are jet black in colour and its size is pretty compact and rectangular and so is the Epson Stylus Photo PX660 All-in-One Printer, thereby giving you great value for your bucks. More often than not, it is the availability of the automatic printer document feeder that separates the machine from the rest. Like two peas in a pod, it is not easy to differentiate it from the Stylus Photo PX650, its immediate predecessor in both features as well as looks. Its dimension 451 (W) x 386 (D) x195 (H) mm and weight of 8.5kg differ only marginally, while the layout looks more or less the same.

Control panel: Though the control panel of Epson PX650 and PX660 might look more or less the same, there has been for sure a shift in emphasis. First, you cannot miss the touch panel symbols that easily with the big question mark to the left of its LCD screen of size 63mm, large Home icon and 4 navigation arrows in addition to the ‘Stop’ and ‘Start’ symbols and related additional functions to the right. There is now a few huge brilliantly backlit controls located on both sides as piece of brilliant navigation touch control panel instead of the physical buttons that enable you to scan easily through the control menus and select your options fast and more efficiently, although it is disappointing that one needs to look into control menus before one accesses images of memory card instead of having the customary dedicated button.
Overall, the printer is built with only few controls. This said, the PX660 still manages to give you a wide range of the important all-in-one functions for printing, scanning, copying and handling photos.

Contact Image Centre (CIS) scanner: This scanner is designed with a pretty thin, fragile cover on extending hinges, therefore you will have no trouble scanning from both single sheets as well as books, though it is hard for you to keep the top cover open because it does not hinge past the vertical and would want to fall short, if it is not held in place, while you are loading an original.

Paper input capacity: You can find a 120-sheet A4 input tray, a single paper path that is feeding sheets from an angled paper tray located at the rear through directly to a telescopic one that pulls out from the front, when you pull down the front cover. At the base of the printer is a drop-down output tray having a socket meant for the DVD/CD tray that you can insert to print labels directly on to the disc. You need to lower the front tray to the horizontal for printing on disk, making use of an internal lever, by sliding in the CD carrier directly from the front.  Like the PX650, the PX660 is built short of Wi-Fi capability, so you can only connect the PC via the regular USB cable. Under the control panel, which opens out to any of the seven angles are 2 slots that are meant for memory cards which do their intended job of handling xD, SD, CompactFlash and MemoryStick. The integration of a PictBridge socket also does well as a front panel for the USB drives.

Print engine: Whilst the Epson Stylus Photo PX660 is relatively new, it is built on a print engine that has been in use for quite a few years. This said, it is no bad thing. The print engine makes use of ‘Claria dye-based inks’ and is built with a minimum ink droplet size of simply about 1.5 picolitres, which also features in few of our much-loved photo printers. Disappointingly, the Epson PX660 is not a brilliant printer for printing text documents like some of the previous Epson printers that we had tested. With less sharper and dark characters than created by, for instance Canon PIXMA MG6150 photo printer and the draft text which is faint and off-black, the performance overall seems to be satisfactory.

Software Installation: Installation of software does not get fast and easy than this one. You will be able to find OSX and Windows on the CD and on choosing Linux from the set up menu, there is a direct link to the Linux support page of Epson. Giving OCR support is a copy of ABBYY FineReader, on top of a choice of Epson’s utilities that cover most other aspects of the printer. The machine is a 6-colour printer with light magenta inks and light cyan that are added to the standard CMYK. You can find that each of the cartridges will neatly clip into the head carrier and this is a permanent fixture which should last the printer’s life.

Performance:

Print speeds: The Epson Stylus PX660 Printer claims excellent print speeds of up to 38ppm in colour and 37ppm in mono. This said, it was no where close to the speeds it claims in our tests. Draft printing speed was decent at 15.8ppmm but at standard quality, we found the speed at a mere 4.8ppm, which is pretty short of its quickest competitors. At 3.3ppm, we found that on plain paper, the mixed colour prints were competitive; however photo prints are pretty slow and almost took 12.5 minutes to print 6 postcard-sized prints. Furthermore, on testing with a five page black text, the results are as follows: 20 seconds giving 15ppm in draft mode and 1:08 time producing 4.4ppm in normal mode and for printing 20 pages it took 4:18 (4.7ppm) in normal mode. At no point of time, did it leaped to 20ppm, let alone the print speeds of 38ppm. We tried printing 5 pages of colour print and the machine was able to do it in 1:27, giving you a speed of 3.5ppm.

Epson’s continual hype of poor print speeds prompted us to carry out more testing of its print speeds. A special document was created comprising simply one line of text (quite uncharacteristic). Five of these were printed in draft mode, not including the processing time. It consumed 6 seconds, from when the first sheet started to move to the final one spilling on the output tray. That is 550pmm which is far more than the 38ppm that the manufacturer claims. Nonetheless, if you take into account the time before the print starts, whilst the machine inspects things like ink levels, it gives you a speed at 12.5ppm in 24 seconds, which is roughly less than half the claim.
The need to wait for both printing and processing before you can make use of the document gives you not much option than to exclude the processing time in printing speed specifications. This is a common practise to several printer brands and manufacturers, however both Brother’s as well as Epson’s claims are miles away from what is reality.

The biggest advantage is that you could print off your photos without the need to feed through a Mac or PC, and still you are provided with the Easy Photo Print software that simply lets you to layout and print digital images without any trouble on different types of paper.

Print quality: When we expected a lot out of the photo quality from this inkjet printer, the results seems to be pretty far ordinary and disappointing. Whilst most subjects seemed to be brilliant, black and white prints, that are generally its strong suit, appeared to be terribly washed out. We looked further into it and observed (what was part of a minor update to the print interface) the default colour mode of Espon had been changed to Photo Enhance. You need to set it to colour control with the vivid profile for the machine to produce the expected results you might expect. The Photo Enhance facility helps colour correct to a much closer assimilation. Black text in normal mode is realistically well produced, but just that it could be a little fuzzy in cross heads and emboldened headlines. You will happen to see a different draft mode text that looks faint and jaggy. Not to mention that it comes through in dark brownish tone instead of black and it does not give one the best of impressions. Colour graphics are usually decent, although we happened to see some sort of banding in certain filled areas of business graphs. The colour copy appeared to lose a bit of the colour depth of the original, although it is still usable. We liked the photo quality of the printer with smooth, good levels of details and natural colours.

The Epson Stylus Photo PX660 is a six-colour printer and therefore, you can expect the running cost to be a tad higher than with 4 colour printers. You will also be able to find an ISO black page that costs 3.1p and an equivalent one that costs 10.3p at the best prices. When it comes to black cost, it is above average for this class of printers, although the cost of colour is a penny or so more than competition.

Scanners: We had to admit that Epson scanners in general are above average and the PX660 comes as no exception. It is swift and the images that it was able to capture seemed sharper and colours were splendid and accurate. No doubt, we were impressed with its knack of preserving subtle details in the very darkest and lightest of source material. Equally good were the photocopies with pretty reasonable accuracy in colour and preservation of darker details, courtesy its well-judged brightness.
There are several things we love about the Epson Stylus Photo PX660 Multi-function Printer, including low inkjet operating cost (in fact the lowest) available, if you stick to the ‘Owl’ series cartridges which is of pretty high capacity. But there is no way you can run away from the purchase price initially, which is just too high.

Manufacturer warranty:

The Epson Stylus Photo PX660 is covered under a standard manufacturer’s warranty of 1 year and there is also an optional warranty of 3 years (which is extendable).

Verdict:

The Epson PX660 is a middleweight, decent all-in-one that every photo enthusiast would love to have and not something that is meant for the small business customer. Easy and simple to use, it gives you remarkable extras including touch control panels and direct CD/DVD print. There is not much of a difference with other Epson machines when it comes to the print quality and the print speed which is reasonable is a far cry from what the manufacturer claims. If you are prepared to shell out £25 more, the PIXMA MG6150 should do no harm as it is brilliant in printing which looks pretty better on plain paper and comes with two paper trays, duplexer, and not to mention both wireless as well as wired network interfaces. And alternatively, there is the Canon MG5150 which rivals on the specs and features at just about £73.

Check other Photo Printer Reviews in this website.

Epson Stylus Photo PX660 Inkjet Printer – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	Epson
Model Name	Epson Stylus Photo PX660 Photo Printer
Colour/Monochrome	Colour
Body Colour	Black
Printing technology	Epson Micro Piezo print head, (6-colour inkjet printer)
Dimensions (W x D x H)	451x386x195 mm
Ink System	Epson Claria Photographic Ink
Print Resolution	Up to 5760 x 1440
Print Speed	Up to 37 ppm (black text A4); 12 secs (photo 10×15); up to 38 ppm (colour text A4)
Scanner features	Speed – Black A4: 600 dpi 3.1 msec/line, 300 dpi 1.6 msec/line; Colour A4: 600 dpi 9.1 msec/line, 300 dpi 4.6 msec/line Technology: A4 flatbed colour image scanner Resolution: 1200 x 2400 dpi
Paper Capacity	A4 (120 sheets) plain paper
Paper Trays	1
Media Size	A4, Legal, Letter, 13×20 cm, 20×25 cm, 10×15 cm, 9×13 cm, 13×18 cm, A5, B5, A6, Envelopes: DL, No.10,C6
Printer Interface	USB, PictBridge USB
Max. number of ink cartridges/ ink colours	6
Operating Systems	Windows XP/ Vista, Win 7, XP-x64, Mac OS 10.4.11 or later
Weight	8.5 kg
Noise Level	37dB(A)- normal use
Supported memory cards	CF, SDHC, SD,  Memory Stick Pro, MMC,  xD
Power consumption	Approx. 1.5W (sleep mode), 18W ( ISO10561 Letter Pattern, Standalone copying)
ENERGY STAR qualified	Yes
Manufacturer warranty	1 year (optional warranty: 3 years)

Canon’s tradition of releasing exciting and new Selphy products continues year after year. Just a quick reminder that we had seen a review earlier on the Canon Selphy CP790; what is different about the Canon SELPHY ES40 is that the manufacturer has done a lot of things in terms of technology than just adding up pretty colours to it, making the  ES40 pretty easy to use. If you already own the earlier model Canon Selphy and decided to upgrade as all you can do was simply print from pic-bridge camera, then it is time you upgrade to the ES40 that gives you a lot of infinite possibilities. The following review will deal with the salient features and technical specifications of the Canon SELPHY ES40.  But before we get into the details, let us have a quick look at the pros and cons of the printer.

What is hot?

• Lab quality photos on the move
• Gold & Silver ink options
• Voice guidance
• Simple to use menus & carry handle
• Ink & paper in one cartridge
• Availability of wide range of creative features

What is not?

• Is capable of only 4×6 photo printing
• Cost per print can be higher
• No additional battery pack

Design features:

Not a Fisher-Price toy:

The new, latest Canon SELPHY ES40 Compact Photo Printer is built with a few things that are very common with most of its peers and this of course is that it is an extremely cute printer Though it might look like a sort of Fisher-Price toy for a 2 or 3 year old in a nursery class with its nice round edges, big simple control panel with a blend of white and tan colours and is pretty easy to read. We felt that Canon should perhaps give it a more professional and serious look than it actually appears. However, thanks to the latest voice guided aspect, even a kindergartner will have no problem working on the Canon ES40 with the minimum of efforts as such is the ease of operation and therefore, the results are quite excellent.

You will find a tiny switch that helps open a door or an access into the machine, where you will be able to load the Easy Photo Pack offered by Canon. On the Canon ES40, you can roll the paper and ink into one photo pack which is simple to install. You may get the pack in the sizes of card (roughly 2 x 3) or postcard (4 x 6). The manufacturer also gives you exclusive Silver & Gold photo packs so that you can jazz up traditional photographs. To the left area of the Canon ES40 is a provision to the USB port for connecting to the PC and there of course is the PictBridge slot to print from digital camera and several other permissible media. There is an AC adaptor that you can find at the other side of the machine.

As always with mobile printers, more compact the size, the better and therefore the integration of both the paper and ink into one customer cartridge can save some space whilst taking the speculation out of actually how much one may require.

Control panel:

The Canon SELPHY ES40 Dye sublimation Printer has its control panel well cut out consisting of a big 3.5” LCD, 4 big buttons (print, creative print, on, back) and 8 smaller buttons (menu, voice, edit, display, zoom out, zoom in, minus copies, plus copies). Just under the control panel, you will find a thin slot which runs the distance across the ES40 printer and this is a part of the paper path of the ES40.  There is a built-in memory card reader built on the top of the printer. You will be able to find the photo path’s other end on the top of the ES40 that also functions as an output tray.

LCD screen:

The SELPHY ES40 is designed with a convenient scroll wheel bright 3.5” 230K dot LCD screen and big tactile buttons to give you easy and swift controls when you need to review and navigate through image prior to printing. The scroll wheels help navigate through the menus for selecting the choice of editing features and learning on how to use them should be child’s play.  A carry handle is built on the unit and this makes portability a lot easier and safer.
Compatibility with Memory Cards:

The Canon ES40 Photo Printer could support up to 15 different types of flash memory cards of digital camera with suitable slots built on the top of the photo printer so that you have easy access and comes with a PictBridge port for connecting directly to compatible cameras. The printer is also compatible with most microSD cards generally made use of in mobile phones so that you can easily print out snaps taken with the mobile digital camera. On the other hand, the ES40 can be used with a Bluetooth adaptor (optional) so that you can print images wirelessly from your mobile phone. In general, the ES40 printer is pretty compatible with miniSD Card, microSD Card, microSDHC Card, MMCplus Card, MultiMedia Card, CF Card, RS-MMC Card, xD-Picture Card, MMCmobile Card, Microdrive, Memory Stick, miniSDHC Card, HC MMCplus Card, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick Micro, SD Memory Card, Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo, SDHC Memory Card and the MMCmicro Card.

Performance features:

Set-up:

The Canon SELPHY ES40 is made use of as a PC-free device by most users, an indication that the ES40 is very easy and simple to set up. You simply need to plug the machine, remove the cleaning unit, fit in the ink/paper combo cartridge, switch on the printer and presto; here you are ready to print. The ES40 is available with a starter ink/paper pack as you will come to know when you do through the Beginner’s guide and as a user, you will have to go for an ES Easy Photo Pack paper/ ink combo cartridge at the time when you first buy the product.

If you decide to use the Canon ES40 with your computer, you also have to buy a USB cable and the drivers & software have to be downloaded on the CD-ROM supplied by the manufacturer. One could also receive the latest software and drivers on the official website of Canon namely the Canon.com.  The download process either way is a breeze and does not take much of your time. The machine has to be attached through USB when you download the driver.

Ease of use:

Having reviewed both the Selphy products viz the Selphy CP790 & ES40, it is only fair to say that they are relatively easy even for a child to make use of and this point can well prove to be one of its selling points. The Selphy range of printers is aimed at families on the move who like to print instant memories. However, the ES40 has taken all its convenient features to the next dimension, courtesy the voice guided prompts that one may find on both the printer as well as the Selphy Photo Print software.  You can turn them off if you need to, though kids will actually go gaga over the pleasing voice that is instructing them. A quick start-up helps you begin the process of printing in about 8 seconds after the printer is turned on. There are two high-speed image processors which help the SELPHY ES40 to create ‘P’ size in approximately 55 seconds and you may have the ‘L’ size printed in simply about 47 seconds and this means no frustrating waiting times.

Voice Guidance feature:

Voice Guidance feature defined by a dedicated button on this ES40 SELPHY printer helps users of all the ages and can take you through the innovative printing process. Instructions including ‘select the area for printing’ or ‘select the colour’ can help get rid of the frequently occurring problems in printing like letting the user know when either the paper or ink cartridge needs replacement.

Fast print processing & Quick start up:

The Canon SELPHY ES40 is integrated with DIGIC II processing, one of Canon’s innovative technologies that can be made use in the digital cameras for superior image quality with a quick printing of not more than 55 seconds per print and quicker start up time of approximately 8 seconds.

Creative Print mode:

The SELPHY ES40 lets you to be playful with the prints, be it personalising photographs or when you are designing creative gifts for your friends. In Creative mode, you can make use of 12 templates to produce bright and vivid calendars using your own images, add speech bubbles, stamps or clip art to photographs of your family & friends or frame the prints with arty borders. Besides, you can combine the images within a selection of six images, so that you can offer an artistic touch to your photo prints or give as a caring gift to others.

Available just at the touch of a single button, Creative Print options including ‘MyColours let you add special effects including Vivid, Sepia, Black & White and Positive Film to the prints.  The ‘Mix & Match’ effects help you personalised cards, photos and calendars. Creative Print could also help apply several numbers of stylish Image effects to all your prints which you can review before you print something. You can even-out skin tones using the Smooth Skin feature so that your photographs of relatives and friends look their best. There are filters including soft focus, faded edges and star light that subtly provide your image a high quality, unique look and feel.

Easy Photo Pack:

The ES40 Colour Photo Printer from Canon employs Easy Photo Pack feature, an all-in-one paper and ink cartridge consisting of  everything that you require to create excellent prints, whilst all reducing mess and fuss. Each top-class print can last for up to hundred years when you store in an album, the ES40 is the perfect way to creatively print and preserve your much treasured family memories for several generations to come.  When you connect the ES40 to a PC, you may get more creative content, courtesy the ‘SELPHY Photo Print’ Software that comes in conjunction with an interface that is pretty easy and simple to use.

CANON iMAGE GATEWAY:

Users of the Canon ES40 have access to the CANON iMAGE GATEWAY absolutely free. This is an online photo sharing solution and you can enjoy fabulous, new features including increased storage capacity of 2GB and this means you can upload and share hundreds of top quality images. Your friends and family can enjoy the benefits of viewing the photo albums from the mobile phones online using the latest feature of mobile browsing. Besides, users of PIXMA inkjet printers could now make, share, in addition to printing images from the photo album making use of the latest PIXMA Album Printing feature. The ideal website for sharing memorable and high-quality videos and photos with friends and family is the CANON iMAGE GATEWAY.

Free automatic correction software:

An integrated Auto Image Optimise technology is ideal to use in the home photo lab because it can automatically correct photos and images making use of red-eye removal, noise reduction, colour correction and face brightness for naturally stunning images.

Print Speed:

Canon does boast printing photo of postcard sizes in less than a minute, but we found on average, the Canon ES40 consumes just more than a minute for printing a borderless 4 x 6 colour print. Adding decorations or effects does not tend to slow down the print times of Selphy ES40 from what we can describe and neither did printing of multiple photographs.

Printing Quality:

We found the photo print quality on the Canon ES40 Digital Photo Printer reasonably good. The images are sharp and the colours are bright, though there is some fuzziness when it comes to out of focus and high contrast areas which are common in dye sublimation printers. In general, you may find that this printer gives photo lab quality images nearly all the time. As we mentioned with the users of the CP790, they should ensure that they check the size of the image before printing from your computer. More often than not, if you are not printing the original image or photo captured from a digital camera, somewhere down the way, the size of the image is perhaps reduced. The photo may seem completely normal if you view it on a computer monitor, although it would come out pixilated or fuzzy. When you are using a memory card that you had taken from the PictBridge function or digital camera, users should not find much pixilated images.

Ink tests:

The Canon Selphy ES40 makes use of Easy Photo Pack that blends ink and photo paper in a single easy to insert print cartridge. Every photo pack provides an accurate number of images, therefore there was not a lot to test in this regard. The manufacturer sells two different types of paper sizes namely the 2.1” x 3.4” card size or 4” x 6” postcard size. It does appear to be pricey when you could otherwise get bulk photographs for cheaper rates at many photo labs. Nonetheless, as we pointed out that with the CP790, there is the convenience of capturing a photo, then editing it and immediately printing with the Canon Selphy ES40. You may also add a lot of innovative and creative features for free that will lead to additional costs at photo labs.

Energy consumption:

The ES40 Compact Size Photo Printer makes use of nearly 10 W of energy at the time of its brief warm up and then in the ready mode, it only consumes about 2 W of energy. When we are printing, the Canon Selphy ES40 only consumes a reasonable amount of energy as it makes use of heat for transferring the ink to the special photo while it is reproducing 16.8 million colours. The energy consumed during the heat transfer is 55 W, but generally hovers between 35 W and 45 W during the process of printing. Once you are done with the printing, the ES40 printer’s energy consumption is reduced to 2 W. The Selphy ES40 is automatically turned off when the printer is not in use and this may save you additional power.

Accessories:

Some of the accessories that you get alongside the product include built-in AC adapter and a BU-30 Bluetooth unit that helps you in printing from compatible PDAs & camera phones.

Prices & Availability:

The Selphy ES40 is available on the market online for about £170 and there are several places online where you may get this photo printer with the average price range of £150 to £165. There are Easy Photo Packs available in the form of 50 sheet and 100 sheet postcard size.

Manufacturer warranty:

The Canon SELPHY ES40 is covered under a 3 year warranty in the UK which commences from the original date of purchase.

Verdict:

The Canon SELPHY ES40 is an easy to use, fun and dedicated photo printer which offers users the instant gratification of printing 4×6 size photo only minutes after you have taken the photo, courtesy its new voice guided feature. Using the ES40 is simple enough that even a child can dabble at it. The only downside to the printer is the cost per print which is on the higher side when purchasing the smaller photo pack. We would rather suggest that you go for the larger photo pack so as to bring about the cost per print down to an extent. Apart from this, the Selphy ES40 is a simple and fast way for getting creative or simple prints at any time and a great feature laden family printer.

Canon Selphy ES40 Portable Photo Printer – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	Canon
Model Name	Canon SELPHY ES40 Compact Photo Printer
Type	Compact photo – Dye sublimation – Colour
Technology	Thermal dye sublimation
Form Factor	Portable
Dimensions (W x D x H)	226.3mm x 225.0mm x 138.0mm
Weight	2090g (excluding Paper/Ink Integrated Cartridge)
Maximum Resolution (colour)	300 x 600 dpi
Sheet Feeder	Auto feed (from integrated cartridge)
Interface	Camera: USB type A port LCD Monitor: 3.5″ Colour TFT viewer ( multi-language user interface) Computer USB type B port
Connection Type	Standard USB cable
Print Speed	Postcard Size: approx. 55 sec, Credit Card Size: approx. 33 sec, Credit Card Size Stickers: approx. 33 sec, L Size: approx. 47 sec
Supported Flash Memory Cards	miniSD Card, microSD Card, microSDHC Card, MMCplus Card, MultiMediaCard, CF Card, RS-MMC Card, xD-Picture Card, MMCmobile Card, Microdrive, Memory Stick, miniSDHC Card, HC MMCplus Card, Memory Stick PRO Duo, Memory Stick Micro, SD Memory Card, Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Duo, SDHC Memory Card, MMCmicro Card
Media Input	Auto feed from integrated cartridge
Media Support	Postcard Size: 148 x 100mm L Size 119 x 89mm Credit Card Size Stickers: 86 x 54mm Credit Card Size: 86 x 54mm
Fade Resistance	Up to 100 years (print)
Ink tank types	Three colour ink with over coating
Direct Printing Specifications	PictBridge compliant, Bluetooth Unit BU-30 (optional)
Power Source	Built-in AC adapter
Power Consumption	Approx. 70W (printing), 4W (standby)
Printing Software	SELPHY Photo Print v1.1 (PC/Mac) & PC/Mac Drivers
Accessories	Built-in AC adapter, BU-30 Bluetooth Unit (to print from compatible PDAs & camera phones)
Compatible OS	Mac OS X v10.4 – v10.5, Windows XP SP2-3 / Vista (Including SP1)
Warranty	3 years