Photo Printers Reviews

The best reviews for portable inkjet and thermal-dye (also called dye sublimation) photo printers directly compare and show reproductions of actual size and enlarged prints from multiple printers. PC Magazine no longer does that, but new review website PrinterInfo.com comes close in that regard and provides far more comprehensive photo-printer reviews. The website of Malaysian newspaper The Star publishes a comprehensive comparison of four portable photo printers from four brands. Descriptions of relative photo quality are exceptional and all buying considerations are evaluated. PrinterSpot.com, a newer enthusiast website, uses photo reproductions from reviewed personal photo printers and their competitors as a centerpiece of its comparative reviews. Reviews by Steve's Digicams sometimes include print reproductions, but the reviews are otherwise inconclusive. PC World and Consumer Reports both evaluate a lot of photo printers, but primarily limit reports to charted data and opinion.

Dedicated personal photo printers print 4 x 6-inch snapshots directly from your digital camera without needing a computer. We've seen them reviewed as portable photo printers, compact photo printers, mini and snapshot printers. If you want a photo printer that can print snapshots as well as 8 x 10-inch photos and text pages, you need a regular inkjet printer, which can do all those jobs. See our separate report on inkjet printers. Photo-print quality between the small-format portable photo printers discussed here and the full-sized models in our other report is comparable, according to some reviews, but others say the full-size printers produce better photo quality. However, the printer manufacturers aren't expecting you to choose between the two types of printers. The mini models are marketed as specialty printers for portable use.

For the most part, experts say you can expect good photo quality from snapshot printers. We found mixed reviews for many photo printers, but only TrustedReviews.com gives the Lexmark P350 (*est. $140) a high rating. Most reviewers are unimpressed with image quality. In the British magazine Computeract!ve, Jonathan Parkyn summarizes, "The P350 produced some of the worst-looking prints in our test, with washed-out colours and some kind of weird graininess present in the image." PC World describes the issue as banding. IT Reviews, PC World, Macworld, CNet.com and PC Magazine all complain that the printer is slow.

Our Consensus Report shows how many times products are top-ranked by reviewers included in our
All The Reviews Reviewed chart.

Experts and photographers have preferred the photo quality from Epson printers for many years and the newest generation of Epson portable photo printers is no exception. We also found many reviews that give top ratings to Epson photo printers that were discontinued during 2007. When reviewers prefer models from other brands, the reasoning is usually based on features. For example, the HP Photosmart A826 is marketed as a photo kiosk. It has a 7-inch touch screen and is simple to use.

If you prefer a dye-sublimation printer, reviewers like the Canon Selphy ES1. It’s slow, but the print quality is very good.

In general, HP printers fare best in features-oriented reviews. Kodak and Sony printers receive mixed reviews, but the Kodak models have some issues and are often recommended only for mating with Kodak cameras. Reviewers find polite ways of saying that all other brands produce better quality than Lexmark photo printers do.