You carry the Selphy ES1 like a suitcase, the cable retracts like the power cable on your vacuum cleaner, the cartridge slots into the side like a tape going into a VCR (remember them?) and the output pops out the top like toast from your toaster.

And yet it isn't a suitcase, vacuum cleaner, VCR or toaster, it's a compact photo printer. The ES1 is designed to offer maximum convenience in a minimum amount of space, but the household appliances metaphor doesn't quite go far enough: it won't make you a nice cup of tea while you wait for your print to emerge.

The ES1 uses new all-in-one cartridges that contain both ink and photo-size paper. It's a dye-sublimation printer, so ink use can be accurately predicted -- if you buy a 50-sheet pack, you get the right amount of ink for 50 photos. Media comes in four sizes, ranging from credit card size (86x54mm) to postcard size (148x100mm) and prints have a glossy, water-resistant finish.

To achieve the 199x133mm footprint, Canon has had to develop a novel paper-feed mechanism that pushes the paper out the bottom of the printer, pirouettes it through 90 degrees and then sucks it back in. The paper passes up and down through the printer as each layer of colour is applied, then emerges at the top. It's all mildly entertaining, at least for the first two or three prints, but after that you'll want to retreat to the kitchen for the aforementioned cuppa.

Other features include slots for most common memory cards, a retractable USB cable for connecting it to PictBridge-compatible cameras and a 64mm (2.5-inch) LCD for previewing your photos and applying special effects. You can transfer images from compatible camera phones using infrared, or via the optional Bluetooth adaptor, and there's an optional battery pack for printing on the go (hence the suitcase-style handle). The ES1 should cost around £189 when it goes on sale in September.

Read full article here.

After the three printers announced by Epson this week(view our article), today, the Japanese company announced another two new printers, both priced under $150. It's the Epson Stylus CX5000 ($99.99) and CX6000 ($149.99).

The Epson Stylus CX5000 is designed to be the most value-packed more-in-one on the market for less than $100, delivering brilliant photos, professional presentations and high-quality everyday documents. Users can easily print high-quality photos from memory cards, PictBridge-enabled cameras or phones without a computer by using an index sheet to select the images, as well as the number of copies.

The Epson Stylus CX6000 is the step-up model from the Epson Stylus CX5000, featuring a built-in, 2-inch color display to view, enhance and select photos from memory cards, PictBridge-enabled cameras and mobile phones all without a computer. In addition, the Epson Stylus CX6000 even restores the color of old, faded photos back to their original brilliance for beautiful reprints and enlargements without a computer. This versatile performer is an ideal solution for everyday printing, scanning, copying, and more.

The Epson Stylus CX5000 and CX6000 are Windows and Macintosh compatible and will be available in September in major computer, office, mass merchant, and electronic superstores, a variety of retail stores nationwide and can also be purchased through mail order, PC manufacturers, the Internet and Epson's own retail site, www.epsonstore.com.

Epson Press Release [via PacificInk].

With simple multi-function machines available for well under £100, it's legitimate to ask what extra value you get my paying over £200 for the high-end PIXMA MP830 from Canon.

The specifications give some of it away, with things like duplex printing and duplex scanning from the Automatic Document Feeder (ADF), a paper cassette as well as a paper tray and direct printing from memory cards and PictBridge cameras.

There's more to it than just specification, though, as the machine itself has a quality finish in black and silver with inset green indicators. There are neat touches, like the fold-in tray for the ADF, which acts as a dust guard when it's not in use and the fold-down paper-out tray at the front, which automatically pops down when you start printing, if you forget to open it first.

TrustedReviews made a review of this printer and here's what they say: The machine has two different paper sources, either of which can be configured for photo blanks or plain paper up to A4 in size. There's the traditional, near-vertical tray at the rear, which can take up to 150-sheets and has a rather fiddly paper support at the side, but also a 150-sheet cassette at the front.

You can select between the two paper sources through software or via a button on the front panel. There’s also a CD carrier, which slides in from the front of the machine, though it’s well inside and you have to fold down a support, first. It’s not difficult, but it’s awkward to get at.

The control panel is well laid out, with mode buttons in the top left-hand corner, fax quick-dial buttons below and on the right, a four-way wheel, a number pad and start and stop buttons for colour and black jobs. In between the two sets of buttons is a 63mm LCD screen, for previewing photos from memory cards or directly from a camera, and for working through the machine's menu system.

As supplied, the LCD display doesn't look that good, with dowdy colours and poor contrast when previewing images. Fortunately, you can adjust the contrast from deep within the settings menus and things then look much more natural.

At the back there are sockets for USB 2.0 and a phone line, as the machine has full fax support and can send and receive colour faxes with suitably equipped machines at the other end of the line.

Lift the scanner section and you can get at the head carriage. The print head is a click-fit and you can then clip each of the five ink cartridges into the head – a red led lights to confirm each cartridge is correctly inserted.

Canon provides a good suite of software with the PIXMA MP830. There’s Presto! PageManager 7 for organising scans and multi-page documents, OmniPage SE2 for Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and MP Navigator and Easy Photo-Print for image manipulation. There’s also CD LabelPrint, to help design labels.

The conclusion is that the extras on offer from this multi-function device are useful, though duplex print is a bit of a let down, because of its poor speed. Even so, the PIXMA MP830 feels like a proper piece of office equipment, rather than a light use, home-office device. A little pricey to print colour on, but overall, a useful all-in-one.

Read full review on TrustedReviews.

The HP C4180 is a compact All-in-one (AIO) device designed to produce fast general document printing but with the addition of an extra photo ink cartridge so you can print photos as well.

It's small size is achieved by using a u-bend paper feed design and this involves paper being loaded print side down, fed into the printer and turned back out and over, delivering the paper on top of the waiting stack of plain sheets.

On paper, claimed print times look great: photos in 25-seconds and up to 30ppm for text/general documents from the printers tricolour and black cartridge or tricolour and photo-cartridge.

That’s fine if you want basic, however use the borderless full A4 setting and the maximum (optimised 4800 x 1200dpi) print setting and then it takes around 17-minutes to print one A4 borderless photo. This does drop to 10-miuntes for a borderless A4 photo at the (lower) "Best" setting however either way its still considerably longer than that suggest 25 seconds.

It wouldn't be so bad if the print quality was worth the wait. In Best mode, we found obvious linear print patterns and even on the printer's top dpi setting, they are still all too visible.

On the upside, colour rendition is excellent making this a printer great for printing graphics over top quality photos.

As with most AIO models, the C4180 offers direct printing from a range of memory cards including CF, SD/MMC, xD, Memory Stick (and Duo) cards and everything can be viewed on the units 6cm colour screen. You can also apply basic edits to prints without a PC, which is a nice touch.

On-screen instructions provide simple steps to getting your photos printed and, if connected to a PC, the HP C4180 acts as a memory card reader so that you can upload your images as well if required.

Users can opt to use the C4180 with or without the PC when it comes to scanning or copying and the unit's A4 flatbed scanner provides an optical resolution up to 1200 x 2400ppi (an optimised 19200ppi resolution is available) while copying resolution is 1200 x 1200ppi.

48-bit colour depth and the top optical resolution can create massive scan files, over 500MB in some cases, and scanning quality is remarkably good overall.

Dust removal and colour correction add some nice tools to the scan options along with descreen (to stop moiré patterns) and invert colour settings. However, the copying quality is really only adequate.

Grumbles for us include the scanner lid not being articulated for vertical movement so anything thicker than a few sheets of paper means the lid angles upwards, leaking light, which can compromise your scans of larger items such as a book.

Another problem we encountered is a the paper feeder holds just 100 sheets while the delivery "tray" simply spits paper out back onto the waiting pile of unprinted paper. It also only holds 20-sheets. So handholding bigger print runs is essential.

Read full review on pocket-lint.co.uk.

Today Epson announced the release of two new photo printers, the Epson Stylus Photo R260 and R380 and one new all-in-one printer, the Epson Stylus Photo RX580. Epson notes that these new models are “ultra hi-definition” and that the new Claria ink and print heads will deliver professional-level results.

Epson says that all three models are rated at 30 pages per minute for black and color and they can produce a 4 x 6 picture in 13 seconds. If those stats are true, both are pretty impressive. Most photo printers today take about 60 seconds to print a 4 x 6, and other than the recently-announced Canon MP810, virtually no models were faster than 45 seconds per print. It is also strange that these printers are equally fast for both black and color prints. Typically, inkjet printers print in black about 20-25% faster than they do in color.

The Stylus Photo R260 and R380 are similar models, the R380 being the more fancy of the two. It features a 3.5″ LCD and the ability to print directly from memory cards. Overall, it is more of a standalone printer than the R260 is. The Stylus Photo RX580 is an all-in-one printer with the ability to scan and copy. It has a 2400 x 1200 scanning resolution and the ability to print directly from media cards or via PictBridge.

The Stylus Photo R260 will be $130 and it will be available in September, and the Stylus Photo R380 and the RX580 will both be $200 and available in October.

Via pacificink.