TCPglobal - news, views and issues on total cost of printing

Issue #0637/1 - Seven manufacturers are active with portable printers that can be bought for less than £85 but as low as £45. Here we compare the lowest cost machine from each manufacturer.

To aid in the search for Christmas presents, this issue of TCPglobal builds on last week, taking a look at the least expensive portable photo printing options available and comparing features and costs.

Next week we take a look at five advanced models available, finding out what additional features and functionality is provided for the extra money spent on buying the machine and how this affects the long-term cost of printing.

Seven manufacturers produce portable photo printers that can be found in retail stores for less than £85, inclusive of tax. However, it is possible to find these printers for as little as £45 – a big difference – so buyers need to consider the features of the machine and the Cost of Printing before committing to the expenditure.

Our comparison in this article includes the cheapest model from each manufacturer found in online stores in the UK.

Also, the breadth of the ranges from the different manufacturers varies very considerably. For instance, Lexmark has just one model on the market, while Hewlett-Packard (well known for its broad range of products) has eight models in its current range.

Although a wide product range makes it difficult for manufacturers to differentiate between the machines adequately, meaning that prospective buyers may find it difficult to arrive at a final decision, it does allow the buyer to feel that there is no restriction of choice.

Speaking for me personally, I am less likely to buy any product where there is no choice, simply because it makes me wonder about the commitment of the manufacturer to that product. Therefore, I would never buy the P350 from Lexmark when I could choose between eight models from Hewlett-Packard, unless the Lexmark model happened to offer me exactly the features I was looking for at a better price.

Canon

Canon’s portable photo range consists of eight models. Six of them are dye-sublimation and two are inkjet.
Whereas all of Canon’s portable photo printers used to be branded as ‘Selphy’, all of the Selphy range is now dye-sublimation only. All former Selphy inkjet printers are now discontinued and the inkjet range, currently two models, is re-branded as Pixma mini.

Latest in the line of portable photo printers from Canon are the Selphy ES1 and the Pixma mini220 and mini260. The ES1 is apparently due to be launched in the middle of December but is listing in web stores already and there is limited availability of the Pixma mini printers.

Lowest cost of Canon’s portable photo printers is the Pixma mini220 with its tri-colour, 2 picolitre, thermal inkjet cartridge. Canon says that it is capable of producing a 10×15 print in 67 seconds when printing direct from a camera and will accept heavyweight photo media up to 270gsm.

Standard interfaces are USB 2.0 for PC printing, PictBridge interface for direct camera printing and an IrDA 1.2 infrared interface for JPEG printing from a mobile phone or PDA. In addition, the Pixma mini220 is also capable of accepting a Bluetooth unit for wireless printing.

Memory card slots are provided for standalone printing. An unusually high level of direct printing features include the production of photo index cards and image enhancement capabilities include the choice between borderless or bordered printing, red-eye correction, face brightener, photo optimiser and vivid image modes, image noise reduction, illustration simulation and brightness, contrast, hue and sepia adjustments.

Of particular importance, especially when printing from memory card, is the presence of a large 6.3cm (2.5inch) LCD preview display, which allows formatting and photo adjustments to be made to images before printing. It also allows viewing of a slideshow without PC or camera.

In terms of bundled software, the Pixma mini220 comes with Canon’s Easy-PhotoPrint for image manipulation and printing.

Epson

Epson’s PictureMate range consists of five models, all based on its Micro Piezo inkjet technology.

At the entry level, the PictureMate 100 operates with a four-ink cartridge feeding a variable droplet printhead capable of producing ink droplets down to 3 picolitres. Epson says that this will drive a 10×15 print in 91 seconds.

This device has a rather small 1.5inch LCD preview display – but then, it is not so long since Epson did not build an LCD preview display into any of its printers. What should be remembered is that this size of screen is not large enough to make image quality judgements when printing from memory card or direct from a camera.

Photographs may be printed from a PC using the USB 2.0 interface; directly from camera using the PictBridge interface; from a USB memory drive; and from a wide variety of memory cards. There is also an optional Bluetooth interface for wireless printing.

Indeed, provision of printing interfaces is one area in which Epson really excels. In addition to the more traditional interfaces, Epson includes support for MicroDrives and an almost unique capability, in the form of a USB interface for attachment of CD-R and ZIP drives. This allows photographs to be saved from a camera’s memory card directly to CD or ZIP drive without the necessity of a owning a PC.

This is a great feature for users who either have no desire to own a PC but still want the flexibility of digital photography or for extensive travellers who need to be able to backup and free-up their camera’s memory while away from home – and with the ability to print photos while travelling.

Image adjustment capabilities appear to be limited to de-saturating the image for black and white or sepia printing.

A battery pack is available as an option for truly mobile printing.

Hewlett-Packard

Comprising compact, portable photo printers and portable photo studios (camera and printer bundle), the Hewlett-Packard range is the broadest of all. There are a total of eight models of portable photo printer listed and there are four portable photo studio bundles.

All of Hewlett-Packard’s photo printers are inkjet-based and the portable range is no exception. They use the well-proven No.110 or No.34x series of tri-colour cartridges, producing 5 picolitre ink droplets, and some models can accept the No.100 tri-grey photo cartridge for true black and white photo printing.

Hewlett-Packard’s entry-level product is the Photosmart A516. As the cheapest portable photo printer available (by 14%), the A516 is described as being “designed for people wanting a quick, fun and convenient way to view, select, enhance, print and share high quality photos when out visiting friends or family, without the need for a PC”.

What this means is that it is very much a basic machine. However, being basic in Hewlett-Packard’s vocabulary doesn’t in any way mean that it is not fully capable – this device is more capable than any of the dye-sublimation machines! The A516 still has a 3.8cm LCD preview display, which, although small, allows selection, formatting and adjustment of images before printing.

Adjustment facilities include red-eye removal, image sharpening, together with colour and brightness manipulation with Hewlett-Packard’s built-in Photo Fix button.

Memory card slots are provided for printing from the major memory card formats and direct printing from digital camera is via a PictBridge interface in addition to the standard USB 2.0 interface for PC printing.

Borderless photo printing is quoted as being 92 seconds per print.

Photo paper weight capability is up to 280gsm and the printer is capable of printing panoramas up to 30cm in length (maximum width 10cm).

An optional battery and Bluetooth wireless printing adapter offer true mobile printing capabilities.

Lexmark

Offering one model only, Lexmark’s P350 utilises a new print cartridge, #43, which Lexmark claims offers better image permanence than its predecessors.

This is achieved by the use of pigment inks, instead of the dye-based inks used in previous photo printers, which provide better permanence both in terms of longevity and water/smudge resistance.

Lexmark’s previous model (P315) was unique in that it was a PC-free printer – in other words, it was actually impossible to use it to print from a computer.

If a user wanted to print an image that had been enhanced, edited or otherwise modified on a PC, in Photoshop or other editing application, the image needed to be copied to a memory card before it could be printed. It really was a ‘mobile printer’ in the most detached way possible.

This new model has rectified that restriction, being fitted with a USB 2.0 interface in addition to PictBridge interface and memory card slots. A USB memory device can also be used with the P350 both as the source of images for printing and as hard memory onto which images can be saved

Preview functionality is provided via the large 2.4inch LCD display.

Good use is made of this screen for functions like one-touch auto colour adjustment and red-eye removal in addition to simple image selection and also for cropping, rotating, and resizing images.

Like the Hewlett-Packard models, the P350 can print panorama photos but only up to 20cm in length, whereas the Hewlett-Packard machines will extend to 30cm.

Kodak

Portable photo printers from Kodak use dye-sublimation technology, of which Kodak is a very experienced manufacturer, having been involved with the technology at a business printing level for many years.

Five models are available from Kodak, with a very strong focus on camera/printer interaction through a camera dock – as the product name suggests – on the top of the printer. Functionality includes charging of the camera battery along with image tagging and sharing functions like those found on Hewlett-Packard digital cameras.

The low-end model, EasyShare Printer Dock Plus Series 3 is PictBridge compatible, will accept a USB drive for printing and storage and can be used with or without a computer. Like many photo printers, the Printer Dock Plus Series 3 can be used to transfer images from a camera docked with the printer to a PC.

What the Printer Dock lacks, however, is card slots for direct printing from memory cards. This means that owners must either own a Kodak digital camera, PictBridge compatible camera or be content with printing only from PC. The only way to print from memory card is by attaching an optional Kodak branded memory card reader to the printer – note that other makes of memory card reader are not supported by Kodak.

Also missing is a preview screen. But, if users must print either from camera or PC, the printer itself does not need a preview screen.

Advanced features provided on this printer are Bluetooth and infrared interfaces for printing directly from mobile phones and other Bluetooth devices.

Print speed from Kodak’s EasyShare Printer Docks is around 60 seconds for a 10×15 print.

Olympus

Like Kodak, Olympus is primarily known for other business activities, including camera manufacturing, and not for printing. The photo printers are very much in the line-up as a support act for the camera range rather than being of primary interest to Olympus. This may be viewed as a handicap to high quality hardware and support.

However, the company now has three models of photo printer, all built on dye-sublimation technology. Two are portable 10×15 devices and one is an A4 format printer.

Available in-store at the lowest price is the P-S100, a printer with two USB interfaces to handle connection of PictBridge camera and PC but no preview screen.

Advanced features here mainly involve an optional hard disk unit that can be used for storage and printing of images without PC attachment. This feature makes the P-S100 a handy device for the frequent and long-distance traveller.

Unusually, this printer is shipped with a full 50-page consumables pack, meaning the buyer can make productive prints (as opposed to a few test and experimental prints) without any further immediate purchase.

Sony

Sony is the other non-mainstream IT company to have introduced dye-sublimation photo printers to its range of consumer products. Now that the company is in possession of Konica Minolta’s digital SLR camera division, the photo printer line makes rather more sense than previously.

With four dye-sublimation printers in the range, the low-end DPP-FP35 is a pretty basic machine with basic functionality. It is equipped with PictBridge and PC USB interfaces but, like the Kodak and Olympus offerings, it does not have memory card slots or preview screen.

Cost of Printing

From the Cost of Printing perspective, the pricing and costs for this class of printer do not work in quite the same way as they do in the office/desktop class of printer.

Quite simply, we find that the products with the lowest purchase prices do not have the highest consumables prices or highest overall running costs in the way that they tend to in the lower end of the office printer sectors.

On the contrary, the machine that can be bought for least money, Hewlett-Packard’s Photosmart A516, is also the least expensive when it comes to purchasing consumables and is very clearly the least expensive overall when used for three years.

At just over 31 pence per photo, on a 300-photo life cycle, the A516 can cost half that of the Olympus P-S100 and the nominal cost per print of the ink and paper is close to the cost of printing in retail.

Completely bucking the trend is Lexmark! Now, we’re used to Lexmark standing out from the crowd on pricing but this one is the wrong way round with the P350 being the most expensive machine to buy in the group.

Of course, being the only portable printer available from Lexmark, we can’t treat it quite the same as those from manufacturers with several models to choose from and it is even more important to compare features before making the choice. However, even a cursory glance at the specifications reveals that the Hewlett-Packard is not handicapped against the P350 but rather has the advantage of a 47% lower price tag.

What we do see, that is very unusual for Lexmark, is a price on the supplies that is second lowest in the group and not very much more costly than the supplies from Hewlett-Packard.

Please remember here that the pricing in this comparison is the LOWEST street price found in the UK (including tax) and NOT the manufacturers’ suggested list price that we usually use for business oriented printers. It therefore represents what users could achieve by hunting around when buying rather than the intention of the manufacturer.

Most Advanced - UK	Engine	Purchase Price (inc VAT)	Supplies	Supplies CPP	Long-term CPP (3 yrs - 300 prints)	Long-term CPP (3 yrs - 1000 prints)
Canon Pixma Mini 220	Inkjet	£60.47	75 photos £18.51	24.68 pence	51.01 pence	31.96 pence
Epson PictureMate 100	Inkjet	£51.69	100 photos £20.85	20.85 pence	45.03 pence	28.10 pence
Hewlett-Packard Photosmart A516	Inkjet	£44.50	120 photos £16.34	13.62 pence	31.17 pence	19.16 pence
Kodak Easyshare Printer Dock Plus Series 3	Dye-sub	£57.82	160 photos £32.99	17.44 pence	51.06 pence	27.53 pence
Lexmark P350	Inkjet	£83.41	100 photos £17.44	20.62 pence	41.27 pence	28.88 pence
Olympus P-S100	Dye-sub	£74.87	100 photos £27.52	27.52 pence	61.65 pence	37.76 pence
Sony DDP-FP35	Dye-sub	£64.95	80 photos £18.76	23.45 pence	46.66 pence	30.88 pence

Note: The examples of overall long-term Cost of Printing are based on low print volume, 300 photos over three years (i.e. two per week), and also a higher volume, 1,000 prints over three years, representing the approximate number of prints produced by shooting 10x 36-exposure silver halide films per year, and include cost of purchase.

What we can perhaps deduce from this is that Hewlett-Packard intends retailers to be able to make a higher margin, if they want to, but also to be able to offer deep discounts if they want to.

To be absolutely clear, Lexmark’s suggested price (including tax) for the P350 photo pack is £19.86 whereas Hewlett-Packard’s price for the A516 photo pack is £24.99. This means that the retailer is discounting the Lexmark pack by just 12% whereas the Hewlett-Packard pack is being discounted by 45%.

This particular pack sells in other online stores for as much as £22.87.

With its low purchase price into the bargain, the A516 is a very attractive option. Although the overall cost per print is still three times the cost of printing in some retail outlets, one has to consider that a portable photo printer isn’t really intended to compete against retail printing. The whole philosophy behind a portable photo printer is convenience – the ability to print an image instantaneously. It is the fast food option, largely targeted at impulse printing, particularly while away from home base, as opposed to planned printing of large photo batches.

Note: Prices are the lowest found for each model in retail stores in the UK, inclusive of tax. Prices in other stores may be up to 50% higher than these prices.

Looking at the most expensive machine available (other than the Lexmark), the P-S100 from Olympus also has the most expensive supplies – meaning that it is expensive all round.

We cannot necessarily say that it is the dye-sublimation machines that are expensive while inkjets are cheaper though. Although we find that there are two inkjet machines in the top three for low cost, we also find that two out of the three most expensive are also inkjet! The dye-sublimation machines are evenly spread through the group.

So, when it comes to making the choice, it is the technical characteristics of the two technologies that need to be considered rather than just the cost.

~End~

This entry was posted on Friday, December 1st, 2006 at 12:02 am and is filed under Hardware, New Products, Pricing, News, Total Cost of Printing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.