Regardless of what you need a printer for (home, small office or maybe even photo printing) the most convenient type at this moment would be the all in one color printers. On top of its obvious printer capabilities the user will also be getting, in the same price tag, copying, scanning and in most cases faxing capabilities too. The benefits to this are obvious.

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.

It's decided, portable photo printers and digital cameras are now buddies. Some users would rather just get home with their digi cams, upload photos to their computer, share them on the Internet and store them on Cds/DVDs/USB sticks. But there's just something about photos printed on paper that makes them special, in a way more valuable. It's probably that you can touch them, see them, add them to albums and share them with special people.

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.

The HP Photosmart A620 fortunately doesn't limit you to just one size of media, like many other portable printers on the market. Its user will be able to print photos in 4 by 6, 4 by 8, 4 by 12 (panorama) or 5 by 7 inch paper. You may find better models on the market at the current time, but the HP photo printers A620 remain a good choice for the photo enthusiast.

Lexmark is known for its affordable and convenient printers. The type of device Lexmark seems to specialize in would be the 4-in-1 multifunction with low maintenance cost and a low initial price tag. In the case of the X6650 you'll be getting a copier, scanner, faxing machine, printer and WiFi all for around $130. This particular printer is a part of the Home and Student Series. of Lexmark color printers. It also has a twin brother, the X6675 that belongs to the Small Office Pro Series and comes with a longer warranty period.

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.

Epson's Stylus line was developed to deliver the best print quality possible. The company is well known on the market and perhaps provides some of the best printers for any type of user and environment, from office printers to compact photo printers that serve as great buddies for your digital camera and allow you to print wherever your feet manage to take you. An older Stylus model, the Epson 1290 also offered high quality printing. But it had several issues including ink leakage. Before moving up to a new model, Epson managed to improve the 1290 and solve most of its problems. It's follow up model, the Stylus Photo 1400 is a printer that has very little problems and provides high quality printing for a very affordable price.



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.



The sleek and shiny black design with silver accents of the Stylus Photo 1400 makes it blend well in modern homes. However it's not one of the small printers out there as it measures 24.2 x 12.4 x 8.8 inches and gets even bigger when you open it up for use. It's inks are loaded from the top and the 1400 includes six ink cartridges (magenta, light magenta, cyan, light cyan, yellow and black). The media you can use ranges from 4 by 6 to 13 by 44 inches and can be as thick as 0.11 mm. Your only printing options are somewhat limited in the case of these epson stylus photo printers. PictBridge is supported thanks to a USB port on the front of the printer and you'll be able to print directly from any compatible digital camera. There's no memory card slot however and the only other option for printing is through the old but reliable USB. Epson also includes the ability to print on CD's and DVD's and you'll find a slot for that right on the front of the printer.

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.

HP’s first full pigment –based printer was the Photosmart Pro B9180, released back in 2006. It offered good quality prints for both monochrome and color and had a series of very useful features that were pretty new on devices found on the market at the time. The B8550 has a similar purpose, except this printer is HP’s attempt to keep the price a bit lower (it was released with a price tag of $550). There are many similarities between the B8850 and the B9180 as both printers come with the same ink set (Vivera) and both the cartridges and print heads are interchangeable.

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.