It is considered that the direct thermaland thermal transfer methods are the best ways to print bar codes. The reason for this belief is that the two methods offer more accurate and high-quality pictures, the main features that are essential for bar codes printing. The thermal printers are equipped with special capabilities to accurately print the exact bar widths that have been programmed. The both methods can print one- and two-dimensional symbologies of bar codes, or other prints that require the identical speeds and resolutions.

The direct thermal printing method requires heat-sensitive and special chemically prepared surfaces, that get blacker when they undergo the thermal printing. The advantage for direct thermal printers is that they don’t require a heated ribbon, ink, or toner, and are faster than the thermal transfer printers. Thus, they are easier to work with, and require no extra costs for maintenance or acquisition. Their price is comparably lower than that of inkjets, lasers, thermal transfer printers, or impacts. This is why the direct printing method is used by many mobile printers. They also have a more simple design, and are easier to handle.

If you were to choose between a thermal transfer printer and a direct thermal printer, the later can be considered less reliable, because the printed images would fade over time.

There are many label types that can be printed with the thermal printing technology, such as shipping labels, receipts, compliance labels, pick tickets, coupons, event tickets, name tags, citations and parking tickets, visitor passes, or others.

The thermal transfer printers are useful to print more categories of labels than a direct printer can normally print, using the paper, polyester and polypropylene surfaces. The products printed by thermal transfer printing are more durable than those printed by direct printers. It can print resistant wristbands, certification labels, asset tags, common labels, tickets and tags. There must be chosen the proper material for the matching ribbon in order to make sure that the created labels are resistant in time.

This matching is vital for establishing the durability of the printed labels, as well as for enriching these labels with resistance at high temperatures or damaging environmental factors, such as ultraviolet exposure, chemicals, and more. The usual thermal printing processes include the circuit board tracking, product identification, sample and file tracking, inventory identification, asset tagging, certification labels (UL/ CSA), laboratory specimens, outdoor applications and cold storage or freezers.

These specifications are meant to help you decide what type of printer you need. The differences between the direct thermal printer and the thermal transfer printer will show you how to make your choice.

The digital camera and digital photography was born and now we have nearly unlimited options when shooting a photo. Still, there’s that odd appeal of a printer photograph, that makes it tangible and makes you want to print out things that you could easily store and see on your PC. This is where photo printers become useful. They blend the modernism of digital cameras with the old fashioned print on paper that you can easily store in a photo album and pass on to the future generations.

After a couple of seconds of disbelief one can only draw the conclusion that Canon has a team of very inteligent people who realized how many things you could actually hide in the bucket, right under the printer; like the power plugs and supplies when you’re taking it along outside the house.

The printer supports SD, miniSD, MMC, Memory Stick, Compact Flash and a couple of others. At $180 roughly, this printer may seem a bit more expensive than other options on the market. But good quality prints combined with an awesome design your kids will love makes this printer perfect for any family.

This is a pretty good rule for netbooks, the small notebooks that are flooding the market as well as for portable printers. Although mobile printers often mean slower printing speeds and not such good photo quality, Canon’s printers often managed to be an exception to this rule.

These Canon photo printers were among the first mobile printers released with a 9600 dpi resolution. It continues a long linage of popular inkjet printers, and the direct ‘successor’ to the IP90v. The Pixma IP100 has a silver matte finish outer shell, complimented by glossy black panels on the side. Its design was borrowed almost completely from its predecessor, the IP90v.

Both the paper tray and the front lid fold up conveniently and the printer becomes easily portable in a matter of seconds. Since it weighs 4.4 pounds, it can be considered a bit heavier than most of the devices of this type; but it makes this up by a slightly more compact form factor and measures 12.7 x 7.2 x 2.4 inches. The input tray can hold 50 sheets of paper, and sizes supported include 2 by 3, 4 by 6, 5 by 7 and 8 by 10 inch.

Aside from printing straight from a PC, the IP100 also offers a PictBridge port that will allow direct printing from any compatible digital camera. Sadly there is no memory card slot or Wifi. A Bluetooth adapter can be bought separately, however, which will let you print sans wires from either a mobile phone or laptop. For these Canon photo printers an enhanced 5 ink system was used.

This system is meant to maximize print quality for both photos and documents. The 5 inks include a photo black ink for rich contrast and good photo printing. A separate Pigment black can be used for sharp text and office documents. Documents are printed at good quality. But it’s the photo quality that really impresses. Photos look vivid and detailed even on larger paper.

Now it’s commonly known that portable photo printers have embarrassing print speeds. It’s not the case here. The IP100 can print out a 4 by 6 inch photo in about 50 seconds and a 8 by 10 inch in a bit over two minutes and a half. While it’s not mind-blowing and you’ll still find it slow as wait time, it’s considerably better than most other portable photo printers. Finally, the IP100 retails for about $250. It’s greatest disadvantage is the lack of a memory card slot. Other than that it offers great quality, portability and speed.

What makes dye-sublimation different (and in some ways better) than inkjet is that it features a roll of transparent film with solid dyes embedded in it, corresponding to the four colors generally used in printing, cyan, magenta and black. As the print head passes over this film, it heats up and causes the ink to vaporize. The ink is then transferred onto the glossy surface of the paper and turns into solid.

With dye-sublimation the prints are long-lasting and look professional. Most printers also apply an extra transparent coat at the finish to serve as a protective layer. A significant difference between inkjet and dye-sublimation is that the latter does not lay down ink in small separate dots and makes photographs look much more realistic.

The UP-CX1 makes use of roll printing which also allows higher volume printing. It can produce photos of 3.5 by 5 inch, 4 by 6 inch, 5 by 7 inch or 4 by 8 inch. These Sony UP CX1 photo printers also offer very high printing speeds. A 4 by 8 inch print for example will take just about 21 seconds to produce which is significantly faster than most competing devices.

As soon as you receive the printer you’ll also find in the box a manual, paper holder, the paper tray, an AC Power Cord, Cleaning Cartridge, a CD-ROM with drivers and instructions in pdf format and the warranty which is 1 year for the actual printer and 90 days for the thermal head. Sony’s UP CX1 photo printers are compatible with both PC and Macintosh and as previously mentioned come with the printer driver software.

The drivers can also be found online on Sony’s website. Because Sony managed to keep the size relatively small, this printer will fit just about anywhere. Maintaining the UP CX1 is very simple. The paper is even rolled with the printing surface inside so when you decide to replace it or adjust it you won’t leave finger prints or dust on the printing area.

In case you’re worried about theft, this photo printer comes with a security slot built in. You’ll simply have to purchase a security cable that you can easily find on the market to make sure your printer is safe. If you have a small business and are looking for a fast and efficient printer to produce good quality photographs, you could consider the Sony UP CX1 photo printers that now retail for somewhere under $800.

For a long time color laser printers were the best for office use because they offered high capacity, crisp text printing and had a good price per print. Nowadays inkjets are starting to be more competitive, and offer lower printing costs. The speed of inkjet has also improved and the technology is extremely good when it comes to printing imagery and photographs. The same can’t be said about lasers.

The quality of the K8600dn is very competitive. It manages to produce crisp text that’s very similar to the one produced by a laser printer while the photos printed by it look natural and good quality. This HP printers uses four-color printing and is equipped with tanks that load behind the door you’ll find on the front of the printer.

There are two print heads, one for black and yellow and the other for magenta and cyan. The tanks are high capacity and will last somewhere in between 830 and 1070 prints (for standard capacity) or 1510 to 2500 pages (high-yield). Speeds are satisfying for a small office and the HP K8600dn can produce up to 35 pages per minute in draft (both color and mono) or 13 pages per minute in quality that can be compared to the one of laser printers.

Office printers need to also offer good paper capacity. In the case of the K8600dn you’ll be getting a 250 input tray. The lid of the input tray serves as an output tray and has a capacity of 150 sheets. Also featured is an automatic duplexer that allows cost and time saving by printing on both sides of paper. The K8600dn can handle a wide variety of media types and sizes. The list includes envelopes, transparencies, photo paper, cards and others. Connecting this printer can be done through high speed USB 2.0. Standard connectivity also includes HP Jetdirect Fast Ethernet embedded Print server and you can optionally make use of HP Jetdirect external print servers.

Finally, the HP Officejet Pro K8600dn wide format color inkjet printer is not the most affordable of the bunch and most offices will find some of its features a bit too much, as they only need the more basic printing capabilities. The quality is pretty good but unfortunately not as good as a high-end color laser (that you’d most likely be able to get for around the same price). On top of that some users may be inconvenienced by the way you need to load paper with this printer. Raising the tray and struggling with it every time you need to refresh paper is somewhat annoying.

The first of them is space saving. Adding a copier, printer, scanner and fax machine to the same room obviously takes up a lot of space. Furthermore the user is constantly stuck moving around between the devices depending on what features they mean to use. The last argument is obviously cost efficiency. An all-in-one printer will surely be more affordable than purchasing all of the standalone devices and will eat up less money for maintenance too.

So it’s really no surprise that most manufacturers are in a hurry to offer many multifunction models. They come in various prices, with better features and a nicer design. Since the demand for them is also very high, companies like Canon release such devices to the market rather often. Towards the more affordable end of the scale is the Pixma MP490 all-in-one printer. But don’t let its lower price fool you; it still comes with a nice set of features.

The MP490 all-in-one printer is part of a mini-series of printers that share the same design. The case is made up of light gray and black and comes with rounded edges. The MP490 measures 450 x 335 x 155 mm and weighs 5.5 kg so can be considered a reasonably light device with a decent footprint. Keeping the printer rather small obviously means a little bit of compromise. Low paper capacity of 100 sheets and no networking capabilities makes the MP490 best suited for a home office with low printing needs.

It may also work well on the desk of some students for occasional printing of reports, copying of documents and scanning. The MP490 can print directly from memory cards or PictBridge compatible digital cameras. Memory card types it supports include SD, xD Picture Card, Memory Stick Pro Duo and Compact Flash.

So, what’s the catch and why does this printer cost under a hundred dollars? Aside from the extra features that you’re not getting (one could mention a duplexer, wireless support or ADF) because you’ve decided that you don’t need them, the price of ink somehow makes up in the long run for the affordable initial price.

This means that the cost of consumables is rather high and the mother company may be making more money off selling ink than the actual printer. Overall these all in one color printers are a great buy if you don’t print very often or expect high speeds. It’s small, lightweight, easy to set up and produces good quality photo prints so it’s an ideal candidate for a small office environment, assuming, of course the user is prepared to spend slightly more on replacing the ink than some of the competing devices would require.

While you can do that through e-mail or web albums, for the passionate photographer it’s just not the same. This is why, I guess, photo printers have become so popular; especially portable ones that you can take along anywhere. For some photographers nothing is better in the world than sitting under a tree shooting a perfect picture of the sun going down and being able to print it right there and then.

The HP Photosmart A620 includes quite a few nice and interesting features. This portable photo printer does much more than print photos on the go. You’ll be provided with a whole bunch of features to edit them as well. A function called scribble allows the user to draw on a photo by using the included stylus.

You can obviously customize the line thickness as well as the caller and at the simple touch of the erase button you can remove whatever you don’t like from what you drew. Caption will allow you to add a title to the photo (and users can select from 6 colors and 5 possible fonts). The clip art feature turns your photo into exactly what the name suggests, a clip art.

With the help of ‘album’ you can select your favorite photos and transform them into an album page while ‘design gallery’ will allow you to use different effects on a photo including black & white, sepia, antique or other. As usual, you’ll also be getting frames, with a ton of categories to chose from. To work with all this you’ll get a 4.8 inch touch screen that’s great for previewing pictures as well.

Installing the hp a620 photo printers is easy. You’ll just have to run the software installer. If you want to use the printer with your home PC you’ll have to get yourself an USB cable (since it’s not included) and connect the two devices. Since the printer offers compatibility for multiple memory cards (including CompactFlash Type I and II, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo, Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Secure MultiMediaCard, xD-Picture Card, Mini SD ) you can also print directly off a card as well.

Add to that an automatic document feeder with a capacity of 25 sheets that ensures easy copying and faxing of multiple pages without having to manually put the sheets of paper into the scanner, PictBridge that allows printing directly from a compatible digital camera and two memory card slots on the front of the device (supporting SD, xD, Compact Flash, MMC and MemoryStick cards) and you can say you got yourself a deal.

The design of the printer was kept nice and simple and you won’t have to be a scientist to figure out what every button does, or to set the printer up when you receive it. It will take a user probably under a minute to insert the two ink cartridges in their designated places. As soon as that is done the printer will ask for paper so that it can print an alignment page.

Before someone considers purchasing this device, mostly because of its extremely convenient price, they must be aware of the fact that low prices usually involve some sort of compromise on quality, speed, functionality or sometimes maintenance cost for the future.

There are several such compromises to be made in the case of these Lexmark color printers. One of them is versatility when it comes to wired connectivity. Its user will be limited for using this printer on a single PC with the help of a USB 2.0 connection. There is no Ethernet port on it so through wires it won’t work as a workgroup printer. The list of ‘what you won’t be getting’ also includes the duplexer (so if you want to print on both sides of the paper you’ll have to do it manually). Instead of a color display you’ll be getting a small two-line display that works just for setting things up and not for previewing photos.

The printer makes perfect use of the two ink cartridge system and is equipped with a black and a tri-color cartridge (cyan, magenta, yellow). To get better quality for photo printing you do however have the option of switching the black cartridge for an extra tri-color photo cartridge that switches you to six-color printing. Obviously no user expects to buy exceptional quality and the speed of light from a printer that costs less than $150 and offers several functions, including faxing which is usually expensive. In fact, the Lexmark X6650 should look and act cheap, but it manages to offer average. Which is obviously more than you’re paying for.

Most printers in the 13 inch Stylus Photo series include pigment-based inks. These inks have the advantage of lasting longer than the dye-based type. This is why it appears somewhat odd that Epson decided to used dye-based Hi-Definition Claria inks in the case of the 1400. But the manufacturer also explains this decision and claims that the lifetime of prints produced with this ink is of up to 98 years (behind glass) and possibly even longer if kept in dark storage. The photos 1280 chugged out were guaranteed for much less. They would maintain their qualities for 26 years behind glass.

While you can’t consider it slow, the Stylus Photo 1400 doesn’t really compare to some of the inkjets offered by Canon or HP. It will take you about 2 minutes to print a high-quality letter-size page and a minute for a 4 by 6 photograph. The conclusion is that it’s not the best choice for people who are impatient or constantly in a hurry. Other users will however be completely satisfied.

As a conclusion these epson stylus photo printers are well built, well designed and provides good quality prints. As downside it’s rather slow and lacks a memory card slot as well as any type of networking feature.

The capacity is the same as well and both printers can support 200 sheets in the bottom feed paper tray and also offer a special media slot for different media types. HP claims that the maximum size of printing is 13 by 19 inch but if you plan on using the specialty media tray you’ll discover that you can set a custom page size and print panoramic.

The similarities end at the Ethernet port (which is featured in the B9180 only). The B9180 can also handle thicker media than its brother (up to 1.5mm) and has a status display on the front size.

These features were dropped by HP with the idea of cost efficiency in mind. Users who don’t need networking won’t have to pay a higher price for the device. For a long period of time Epson was the ‘king’ manufacturer and produced some of the best photo printers when it comes to pigment ink. Since HP stepped up to produce such devices as well, and pretty good quality to boot, competition boosted the development of new technology a bit.

Just to keep things clear Hp’s B8850 targets the advanced amateur photographer (or photographers that don’t have networking requirements from a printer). Its price is more affordable than products from the competition or even HP’s line. The B8850 is somewhat dependent of a PC. It can work as a standalone but the front LCD display only shows a limited amount of info.  If you’re planning to keep it hooked to the same PC you’ll find that the software it comes with makes up for this little inconvenience and inform you on how low the ink levels are, among other things.

As mentioned before the B8850 uses the same print head cartridges and Vivera pigment ink, eight as number, as the B9180. Just like its older brother it offers excellent quality color prints. It features a simpler closed loop calibration system that works by printing a page with individual color blocks.

It then automatically pulls the page back into the printer where a sensor will scan each color block and measure things like color density. It will then compare the results with the factory calibration settings and decide if they are the same. In case there is a difference from factory settings, the printer will adjust itself as necessary to make sure it provides consistent color.Overall the HP Photosmart Pro B8850 is one of the best photo printers for advanced amateur photographers and will do well on the desk of a professional as well.