Technology: Ink-jet Max Resolution: Black & White 4800 x 2400 dpi; Color 4800 x 2400 dpi Compatibility: Apple MacOS 9.x, Apple MacOS X 10.2.1 or later, Microsoft Windows 98/ME/2000/XP Max document size: 8.5 in (Legal) 14 in (Legal) Media type: Envelopes, Photo paper, Plain paper, Compact Disc, Photo stickers, Transparencies, Matte photo paper, Glossy photo paper, High resolution paper, Semi-gloss photo paper Ports & Connector Required: 1 Hi-Speed USB 4 pin USB Type B, 1 Direct print port 4 pin USB Type A Min operating system: Apple MacOS 9.x Software type: Canon PhotoRecord, Canon Easy-WebPrint, Drivers & Utilities, Canon Easy-PhotoPrint Printer Speed: 16 ppm Black, 12 ppm Color
Canon have new 8-ink flagship professional photo printer: the 4800 x 2400 dpi PIXMA iP8500. Canon’s ChromaPLUS technology adds additional red and green inks for vibrant, highly saturated colours. With a FINE (Full-photolithography Inkjet Nozzle Engineering) technology print head, which generates permanent 2-picolitre ink droplets, this new PIXMA printer produces the ultimate professional photo prints. It also does so in record time - an A4 photo prints in just 34 seconds. The iP8500 features advanced media handling and Canon’s transparent single ink system, as well as direct photo printing from most contemporary digital cameras and digital video cameras supporting the PictBridge standard. In a process called FINE produce print heads with a tolerance and precision similar to that of integrated circuits. FINE print heads now feature in all PIXMA printers and deliver microscopic droplets with unrivalled speed, reliability, consistency and accuracy that cannot be achieved with traditional inkjet print heads that are assembled from multiple parts. Canon’s ChromaPLUS technology utilises eight colour inks: Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Light Cyan, Light Magenta, Black, Red and Green. Canon’s dye inks produce more vivid colours, reduced graininess and better contrast photo quality when compared with the flat and lack-lustre pigment-based inks used in some photo printers. PIXMA’s ultimate personal photo lab delivers professional-quality borderless photo printing at blistering speeds with convenient connectivity. An A4 photo print takes only 34 seconds, a 4” x 6” borderless photo will print in just 21 seconds and borderless photo print formats also include credit card, 5” x 7” and A4. Even conventional document printing is fast at 17 ppm (mono) and 15 ppm (colour). Independent PictBridge standard is supported for direct cable connection photo printing with compatible digital cameras and digital video cameras, without the need for a PC. The iP8500 is the only A4 inkjet printer on the market to feature a USB 2.0 Hi-Speed connection, necessary for transferring large high-resolution colour image files at a rate fast enough to keep up with the printer’s engine speed. Powerful software completes the iP8500’s photo lab capabilities – EasyPhotoPrint and PhotoRecord give the user a fast route to creating individual prints, albums and more.
The new PIXMA printer range is defined by radical, futuristic looking design, reflecting Canon’s recognition of the increasing importance amongst consumers of products that excel in both aesthetics and functionality. The iP8500’s lustrous finish completes the new, clean look - a clear departure from the traditional ‘beige box’ design of conventional printers. One of the key design objectives of PIXMA is to maximise flexibility of location. As well as being furnished with a style and finish appropriate for the home environment, PIXMA printers are the only devices on the market to include both the traditional ‘J’ pass paper path and a ‘U’ turn path. This allows the printer to be stored and operated on a shelf or in other areas where space is at a premium. Dual paper trays, auto duplex printing and CD-R/DVD printing functions are now completely integrated without compromising the printer’s clean lines – a first in printer design.
The printer features Canon’s transparent single ink system, whereby each ink is stored in an individually replaceable tank. To minimize waste, only the ink that is exhausted needs to be replaced. A pop up window on the user’s computer warns them when a particular colour is running low and the printer will not start to print a page if there is insufficient ink to finish.
Software packages with iP8500 are: Easy-PhotoPrint provides three easy steps to printing photos. In addition, Easy-PhotoPrint works seamlessly with Canon’s new software for EOS-1D series cameras – Digital Photo Professional. Images saved using the camera’s highest quality RAW format can be passed directly from Digital Photo Professional to Easy-PhotoPrint, which uses the camera’s original wide colour space to ensure highest quality output. Easy-WebPrint sits on the Explorer toolbar and takes the frustration out of web page printing, saving time, ink and paper by correctly scaling output to print one-page-per-sheet. This prevents the common problem of having the right-hand side of web pages cut off. Canon PhotoRecord guides users through printing a personalised photo album, including assistance with printing on Canon’s new double-sided media. CD-LabelPrint for easy creation and printing on print ready CD or DVD media. PC connection is via USB interface. The A406 is compatible with Win98/Me/2000/XP and Macintosh OS 9.x and OSX v10.2.1 or later.
Epson Stylus Photo R800
- Epson Stylus Photo R800 screenshot -
Technology: Ink jet Max resolution: Black & White 5760 dpi x 1440 dpi; Colour 5760 dpi x 1440 dpi; Compatibility: PC, Mac Max document size: 8.5 in (Legal) 44 in Media type: Bond paper, Matte paper, Photo paper, Plain paper, Compact Disc, Transparencies, Glossy photo paper, Luster photo paper, Semi-gloss photo paper, Heavy-weight matte paper Ports & Connectors Required: 1 Hi-Speed USB 4 pin USB Type B, 1 IEEE 1394 (FireWire) Min operating system: Microsoft Windows 98 Second Edition / Windows ME 2000 / XP, Apple MacOS X 10.1.3 or later Software type: EPSON Print CD, Epson Film Factory, Drivers & Utilities Print speed: Up to 17 ppm black text, 5-by-7-inch photo as fast as 45 seconds
This printer is easy for use thanks to a swap-free cartridge lineup and a driver that has dual Advanced and Basic personalities. He have ability to print on CDs and DVDs and have extremely flexible driver and roll-paper feeder. The R800 comes with drivers for most recent flavors of Windows, as well as Mac OS 8.6 through 9.2.xand OS X 10.1.3 or later. However, the R800 doesn't support PictBridge for printing directly from a digital camera. The R800 expands on the 2200's color gamut, the range of hues it can print. Epson's latest version of its UltraChrome pigmented ink set supplements the traditional cyan, magenta, yellow, and Photo Black or Matte Black selection with red and blue inks, plus a gloss optimizer, which keeps blacks looking shiny on glossy paper. This brings the total to eight cartridges. The R800 has a nominal resolution of 5,760x1,440dpi, and the printheads have 180 nozzles each. Printer can be connect via USB or FireWire (good solution if you already have many devices plugged into your USB hub) and one important thing, don't send a print job until the previous one is finished (there's no built-in spooler).
The Basic and Advanced modes of the driver provide identical page layout and maintenance tasks but different in the complexity of their selectable color and quality settings. You have a planty of options, from almost fully configurable to fully automatic. At the most granular level, the printer lets you manually set brightness, contrast, and saturation; the density of the cyan, yellow, and magenta inks; how to apply the relevant color profile using Saturation, Perceptual, Absolute Colorimetric, and Relative Colorimetric mapping; and choose an output gamma of 1.5, 1.8, or 2.2. You can also turn off printer color management entirely and use software profiles.
For intermediate users, PhotoEnhance mode lets you apply several effects, but usually there`s no difference using this setting. For minimalists, the driver lets you choose from quality options such as Text And Image, Photo, and Best Photo, as well as pick paper type and select borderless printing for 4x5, 5x7, 8x10, and panoramic photos. R800 has options for reducing or enlarging the source item; printing multiple pages on a single piece of paper, booklets or double-sided documents; and adding a watermark. And not only does this printer tell you when your ink is low, then gone, it has a Buy Ink button that takes you to Epson's Web store.
Driver doesn't reveal any resolution information, nor does it let you set output resolution manually. The only applicable item that Epson shares in the manual is that Photo RPM mode prints at the maximum resolution. The Epson Stylus Photo R800 takes only 2.7 minutes to print out a high-quality photo fit to a letter-size page. This is a big improvement for Epson, which has been known to sacrifice speed for quality. Don't plan on using the R800 for more than the occasional text document, however; its throughput of about 2ppm (pages per minute) can't compare to that of more multipurpose-oriented inkjets.
The R800 also has an improved printhead carrier mechanism, which allows it to operate quietly and more efficiently. R800 stops printing if one of its ink cartridges runs out a of ink. It helps keep you from wasting ink, but when you're close to draining several cartridges and want to use each cartridge as long as possible, you'll have to deal with endless pop-up warnings and replacing a different cartridge every few minutes. Black-and-white photos are incredibly sharp and detailed. Color photos look very good as well, and the printer can produce the neutral, color-accurate output .
The quality carries across a variety of paper types, from a 24-pound bright-white plain paper to Epson's best glossy. If you're planning to use plain paper for drafts and the good stuff for final prints, you'll have to create some paper-specific color profiles since plain-paper prints have a stronger cyan cast than those produced on the better paper. Stylus Photo R800 has a serious quirk to which you must cater if you want consistently good prints. If you change from a high-quality setting to a lower one, essentially decreasing print resolution, you're going to get the ugly striations that often indicate a clogged nozzle. This can be solved by printing everything at the highest resolution rather than running endless head-cleaning cycles, but less forgiving users might want to steer clear of Epson altogether.
HP PSC 2510 Photosmart
- HP PSC 2510 screenshot -
Techology: Ink jet Print resolution: Color: 1200 x 1200 dpi (up to 4800 optimized dpi on HP Compatibility: Windows XP, 2000 Professional, Me, 98 SE, 98. Mac® OS X, and S 9.1 Document scan size: 8.5 x 11" Ports & Connectors Required: Ethernet, Wireless 802.11b networking, USB Media type: Paper (plain, inkjet, photo, brochure, banner), Envelopes, Transparencies, Labels, Cards (index, greeting), Iron-On Transfers, Borderless media Display: 2.5-in color graphics display Software type: HP Memories Disc Creator, HP Image Editor, HP Director, HP Creative Photo Projects, I.R.I.S. OCR, HP Scan to Web, HP Photo Gallery Print speed: Up to 15 ppm color, 21 black
HP's PSC 2510 Photosmart all-in-one integrates photo-quality printing, faxing, scanning and copying into one seamless and easy-to-use device. He includes wireless 802.11b capabilities, an Ethernet jack and full standalone fax capabilities right out of the box. The built-in network features and the fax capabilities alone make the PSC 2510 a good value for small businesses. Multifunction printers, which combine various hardware components into one unit often don't look impresive and the HP PSC 2510 is no exception. He have sleek silver accents, pop-up 2.5-inch color LCD screen and classic-HP stacked input/output tray which give him a touch of style.
LCD server have two purposes: to displays digital images from the media cards and to shows menu options for each of the PSC 2510's many functions. Below the LCD are buttons for scan, photo, copy, and fax menus, along with a navigational cluster for menusand four buttons which automatically launch the most often used photo features: Slide Show, E-mail, Rotate and Proof Sheet.
PSC 2510 have numeric keypad on the front panel for use as a standalone fax machine. This is an important distinction, considering that most multifunction printers these days offer only computer-based faxing, while some a keypad but require you to install your own computer fax software.
Photosmart provides several built-in small-office features that cost extra elsewhere, support for Ethernet cable and 802.11b-enabled wireless networks. The PSC 2510 also bundles a 33.6Kbps fax modem and full-function standalone fax software. HP even includes a phone cord for the built-in telephone jack. Easy to perform the most-basic printing functions without a computer, you'll need the included Windows and Mac OS X-compatible software should you require more advanced photo editing or want to scan a text document. HP's Director is an interface that displays icons for common tasks such as Scan Document or Picture, Send Fax, Transfer Images, or Buy Supplies from HP. Also, he will find other installed HP peripherals and let you switch among the various devices. The HP Photo and Imaging Gallery software helps you manage your photos; create special projects such as photo album pages, cards, and flyers; and perform basic editing tasks such as cropping, red-eye removal, and adjusting colors and brightness. You have ability to print a proof sheet from your media card, then use that proof sheet to print only the photos you select. Additional features include the ability to save data from your media card to your PC or Mac and to print frame-by-frame images from a digital video. If you don't mind paying extra, there's an optional automatic, two-sided printing attachment available.
