Dedicated "Mini" Photo Printer Chat

[drewprops]

I gave my folks a cheap little HP this past Christmas and they haven't really used it all that much so I've been thinking about hijacking it for awhile to do some prints. Do any of you have firsthand experience using these little basket-sized 4x6 photo printers? They're made by companies like HP, Epson and Kodak.

I've been looking for reviews of some of the Kodak machines because I understand that they're charging less for their inks... as in 1/2 the price as compared to the other manufacturers. Plus, I like the fact that they have docks built in for their own cameras, which might work okay for my folks....

Some of these printers boast of the ability to provide a "lamination" which is strange because there's no extra step in the printing... perhaps the ink penetrates through a plastic laminate on the paper and is "contained" underneath(?) but I'm not sure. Some of the Kodak printers are actually dye-sublimation, which I recall a time back in the 80's when Okidata was selling what you'd all now consider to be super-primitive machines. Interestingly, it seems that some of the commercial printers are actually dye-sublimation as well....

[The Mind]

Hi Drew

the lamination is usually a separate ink tank that provides a clear coating and gives a glossy look / stops contact with the air. Dye sub is far lower physical resolution than inkjet however the advantage is the inks merge so the colours are smoother. basically you loose the finest detail but gain a smoother image with more natural tones. The place they excelled was areas of the photo containing very little colour where inkjets just put a few dots, ie nearly white or black areas.
It really depends what your priorities are. Dye subs were the kings of home photo printing several years ago but now inkjets are printing at stupidly high resolutions and overprinting dots they may be able to compete. It may be worth going to a pc superstore and asking for a demo using the same photo.

[drewprops]

It looks like the Kodak Easyshare G610 (http://kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=9/1441/1159/10768&pq-locale=en_US) applies a lamination to its inkjet photos and if you have certain models of Kodak, Nikon, Olympus or Pentax cameras you can plug them into its Imagelink-compliant cradle.

But, seeing as how I only just bought my folks a Casio Exilim last year I'll have to settle for letting them print straight to the printer via PictBridge....

[drewprops]

Okay, I read a comparison a few days ago that placed the Epson PictureMate Dash (http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=63069797) well ahead of the competition and I assume that the slightly better spec'ed version, the PictureMate Zoom (http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=63070637), is of comparable quality.... however I know that HP has recently stepped into the fray with its A820 Home Photo Center (http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/18972-18972-3328063-15100-3328077-3256930.html), though I have yet to read a review of that all-in-one photo printer.

[Taskiss]

I have a Kodak easy-share printer/camera dock with bluetooth. I can't tell the difference between a print from this and a photo printed from an analog camera. The printing process uses 4 passes - the 3 color passes used to create the dye-sub type effect and the final pass that seems to put a clear gloss cote of some kind of plastic over the whole thing.

The Kodak print drivers don't work with bluetooth at this time, from what I can tell. USB works fine though.

[drewprops]

Ah, I wandered into a local Fry's tonight and found a refurbished Epson Picturemate Snap for $49... too good to pass up. The few prints I've made from it so far have been Very Good so I'm happy about the purchase. I did notice that I was unable to get it to recognize the SD card from my Dad's Casio digital camera, but that wasn't unexpected since I've also had problems with the video format his camera creates.

I should note that the print cartridge is unusual in that it loads into the back of the printer like a video cartridge. I need to go read up on whether it adds any sort of sealant/coating... and see how much replacements cost....