What's THEE Best Digital Camera Printer?

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Rustynuts

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Just wondering if I should look into getting one of those dedicated digicamera printers. What's the best one going now, HP, Canon? Saw a couple of the higher end ones with LCD screen for under $200. Or should I just continue using my old HP 3-in-1 printer, scanner, fax? I noticed some of the new ones use 6 ink color and my HP is only 3 ink. I'm assuming the 6 would be way better for photos.

What's the overal cost per print? Does it make sense to own a dedicated printer, or just load up a thumbdrive and go down to the Kodak store?
 
The best one in my opinion is the HP P375B.

It will print 4x6 and nothing more, but it does have some really nice key features in a small camera dedicated printer. It will take any type of media, even a USB thumb drive with pictures on it. It has a 2.5 inch flip-up LCD screen, and if you charge it up, it will run on a big rechargeable battery for a couple hours so you can bring it in the car, or a freinds house, etc etc. It's very compact and folds up to be very small and portable.

It's really nice, but if you want your pictures to last a lifetime I would go with a printer that takes advantage of dye-sublimation, which essentially uses heat to put the ink on the paper and in return the picture will last forever, with the HP I estimate life of picture to be 2 or 3 years before it starts to fade, maybe less, I'm not really sure.

A nice dye-sublimation printer would be the Kodak EasyShare Dock Plus model, it will only dock a Kodak camera, but it has an 8-in-1 card reader built in so it will take any type of media you can throw at it.

oh btw there is two types of 6 ink print methods, Canon and Espon use a 6 thak color system, while higher end HP printers take the tri-color the black and a pastel color photo cartridge. I've noticed pictures come out very nice with the 6 tank design, but it's rather expensive to replenish all 6 when they run out, at around 15 per.

I have an Epson R300 and it costs me about 100 each time i replace all 6, kind of a hasle..
 
By a dedicated printer, I'm assuming you mean a portable-type 4x6" printer since those are the most common...I'd highly recommend the Epson PictureMate. It's $200 and you get a $50 Visa shopping card if you buy it by the end of the year. Extremely easy to use, just select the picture number and print. It accepts all media cards. No LCD screen like the HP 375B, but you can print a proof sheet to see what you're getting. Also no red-eye reduction like the HP, however you can still crop and zoom. It uses a six-color pigment-based ink cartridge; the prints are water-resistant and can last 100 years behind a frame without fading. The photo quality is unbelievable - it completely blows away my year-old Canon dye-sub (however if you want to buy one check out ebay, that's where mine will be soon :)). The prints are indistinguishable (to a reasonable extent) from a lab print and are borderless, no more perforated edges (I'm not sure if the HP is borderless, my Canon isn't). The cost per print is about $0.29, comparable to the price of a film print. I don't work in their marketing department - it really is that good.

I can't think of a reason not to go with the Epson unless you need larger prints...

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/PictureMate/pmHome.jsp?cookies=no&oid=0
 
I don't have much experience with the Epson, but I have heard good things about it.

What is nice about the HP is you can do ALL on screen editing, also zoom, and select how you want the 4x6 to print, full borderless, cut in half, 2 and 2, and 3x3 for 9 pictures on one 4x6 photo.

It takes one numver 97 tri-color cart, or you can use the 98 or 96 I beleive which is a photo cart pastel colors, or they have a number 100 which is grey photo cart for B&W prints.

It all depends on you, I personally like the big flip-up LCD and ability to charge it up and take it with you no wires attached. :D
 
Do you already own a camera? Certain brands are meant to sync up together (such as Canon and Canon).
 
Get the Dell for a 4x6" printer, it rocks

Uses Dye Sublimation.

If you want a cheap, but good full size printer, look at the Epson r200. You can get a CIS system on ebay for them for fairly cheap, and that way ink just got alot cheaper.
 
I've got a Canon right now, but it's only a 2.1 model. Not sure what my next will be, so I guess the printer should be universal. Are the HP 6-tank models the sublimation type?
 
"6 tanks" means its an inkjet.


For the best printing tho, you want to send it out to a place that has a lightjet for printing. They expose regular chemical photo paper with light from your digital image and develop the paper the same way they would for a regular photo. Many of the online shops also produce much larger print sizes than any home printer can do.

I've been using Shutterfly.com for 11"x14" and 16"x20" prints and they have come out fantastic (16x20's from a digital rebel, the 11x14's from a canon s40 or something).
ofoto.com is another.

I think Costco also has lightjets at many places.
 
You might also want to look at the Hi-Ti 640PS. It's a dye-sub that prints both 4x6 and 5x7. Excellent reviews from everyone who owns one.
 
phixt said:
By a dedicated printer, I'm assuming you mean a portable-type 4x6" printer since those are the most common...I'd highly recommend the Epson PictureMate. It's $200 and you get a $50 Visa shopping card if you buy it by the end of the year. Extremely easy to use, just select the picture number and print. It accepts all media cards. No LCD screen like the HP 375B, but you can print a proof sheet to see what you're getting. Also no red-eye reduction like the HP, however you can still crop and zoom. It uses a six-color pigment-based ink cartridge; the prints are water-resistant and can last 100 years behind a frame without fading. The photo quality is unbelievable - it completely blows away my year-old Canon dye-sub (however if you want to buy one check out ebay, that's where mine will be soon :)). The prints are indistinguishable (to a reasonable extent) from a lab print and are borderless, no more perforated edges (I'm not sure if the HP is borderless, my Canon isn't). The cost per print is about $0.29, comparable to the price of a film print. I don't work in their marketing department - it really is that good.

I can't think of a reason not to go with the Epson unless you need larger prints...

http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/PictureMate/pmHome.jsp?cookies=no&oid=0
Click to expand...

I can vouch for this, I have one and it prints out excellent pictures. Everything he said is exact =]

Chris
 
Best is such a vague word.

I really am happy with the Canon Pixma i4000R (NOT the i4000). Far and away the best feature of this printer is the wired AND wireless networking built in. For $220 you can't beat it.

I was able to setup my wife's latop, my computer, and our home server all to be able to print across the network. Also, since the printer has wireless G built-in (as well as a dedicated 10/100 port) you can simply unplug the printer, take it anywhere in the house, and print away. This has been great for my wife as she has been putting together albums from our wedding and for our baby (one full year apart, thank you very much) so she can take her laptop and the printer and put both anywhere and work with the only wire involved being the power cable to the printer.

IQ is excellent IMO, but I'm sure that there are other printers of equal or better IQ as well.
 
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