In the market for a new photo printer? or perhaps you’re looking for the perfect gift for a photo enthusiast? You’re in luck! In this blog post, Selin Tagmat walks us through some of the more popular photo printers on the market; ones you can use to print great photos at home, use for scrapbooking, or give as a gift! Take it away, Selin!
Want to Print Photos at Home?
Nowadays, we can easily order print photos online in a wide range of formats and at affordable prices. However, for some of us, it’s still useful to have the opportunity to print photos at home. Printing photos at home allows us to control the whole editing and printing process. This way, we can have our photos printed instantly, without waiting. It’s great for scrapbookers and those of us with kids to entertain. What’s more, printing photos at home ensures the privacy of our photo collection without the need of handing our memories off to a third party.
So if you’re among the people who appreciate having a photo printer at hand, here are some tips about how to select the best printer for your needs. From mini and compact printers that you can carry with you to high quality desktop inkjets, below are the bullet points that you need to keep in your mind in order to make a good choice.
Mini Photo Printers -> Use Anywhere!
Mini photo printers are fantastic portable devices that allow you to print your photos basically anywhere. You can easily carry them with you as they are more or less the size of a smartphone. And you can instantly print the photo of the moment to share with others on the spot. Fun, isn’t it? These kinds of mini printers make great gifts for your loved ones.
Choose this kind of mobile printer if what you need is portability and instant use. Be aware that the sizes of your photos will be about 2 x 3 inches (around 5 x 7 cm), or possibly slightly bigger. They’re generally printed on sticky-back paper instead of photo paper, so they’re great for creative purposes: sticking them on the fridge, enclosing in a gift, handing some to your friends, and using in a scrapbook, for example. It’s not the size nor quality that you would want to place in a photo frame or make photo books from though…
Mini photo printers are ideal for creating smaller photo stickers!
HP Sprocket
The HP Sprocket is one of the most positively reviewed portable photo printers in terms of the photo quality and ease of use. It’s more or less the size of a smartphone, it works with a rechargeable battery, and uses a Bluetooth connection. It allows users to edit, design, share, and print their photos by using the HP Sprocket app on iOS and Android. It’s also possible to pick and print photos from your social media accounts and connect multiple smartphones for printing at the same time.
The HP Sprocket is compact, ideal for on-the-go printing.
The HP Sprocket uses ZINK (zero ink) photo paper. This is a thermal photo paper for full color printing that doesn’t need ink and cartridges. ZINK photo paper is water & tear resistant and has a peel-and-stick backing, like stickers. The photo paper size (and the print size) is 2 x 3 inches.
The printing time per photo is about 40 seconds, and you get about 35 prints per charged battery. About 10 photo papers fit into the printer at one time, and it takes about 90 minutes to charge it fully.
The price is around $129.99 for the second edition of HP Sprockets. You can order it from the HP online store or from Amazon. The cost per photo depends on the size of the pack of ZINK photo paper you buy, but will land somewhere between 45-50 cents. The price of 20-pack is $9.99; a 50-pack is $24.99, and the 100-pack is $44.99. You can also check out the HP Sprocket Plus, which offers a larger print size (2,3 x 3,4 inches), but comes with a higher cost for the printer and paper.
Kodak Mini
If you’re looking into mini printer options, it’s very likely that you’ll pause somewhere between the HP Sprocket and the Kodak Mini as both currently offer the best quality prints on the market in this category. Your decision will most likely come down to printer price versus operational cost, and whether you’ll want to stick with cartridges for the Kodak Mini, or use ZINK paper (without ink) with the HP Sprocket.
With the Kodak Mini, you’ll print photos with its dedicated app on iOS and Android. It offers Wi-Fi and a Bluetooth connection.
The Kodak Mini costs $89.99 on Amazon. It works with a cartridge that integrates paper and ink, which today costs $14.90 for a 20-pack, $21.99 for 30 pack, and $34.99 for 50 pack, so your cost per photo will be around 70 cents.
The size of the photo is 2,1 x 3,4 inches, so a bit larger than the HP Sprocket. The printing technology with the cartridge produces slightly better quality prints than ZINK paper technology, and it includes a laminating process that makes the photos finger print and humidity proof. On the other hand this comes with a compromise in printing time and battery use: 50 seconds printing time per photo, 20 prints per charged battery, and a charging time of up to 90 minutes.
Not in love with either the HP Sprocket or Kodak Mini? You can also check out the Polaroid Zip, the Polaroid Mint, the Fujifilm Instax, the LG and the Canon Ivy for different pricing options and features.
Compact Printers – Portability vs. Photo Quality
Compact printers are very useful if you want to print standard size photos. They offer a good balance between quality and portability. This type of printers are frequently used by photographers who need to print photos during events, so they’re a good idea if you frequently throw parties and would like to create a photo booth for your guests.
Choose a compact printer if you want better quality photos in larger sizes than what mini printers could offer. You’ll have to sacrifice some of the portability; these are still compact and portable printers, but keep in mind that they are bigger in size and typically need a power supply to function. You’ll have a variety of options for sending your photos to print, for example through a USB connection, SD card, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. Your photos will print up to 4 x 6 inches (so around 10 x 15 cm) – a standard photo size for which you can have a wider use. You can also enjoy a variety of smaller size prints – you can event print ID photos with the help of the apps!
Many compact photo printers use an app for direct social media and smartphone printing!
Canon Selphy
With the Canon Selphy, you’ll stay flexible because it’s possible to print photos from your camera, smartphone, or computer. You’ll enjoy good print quality at the comfort of your home without the hassle of occupying a big space (after all, that’s what compact printers are for). Plus, it’ll be quick.
The Canon Selphy is available on Amazon for $99.99, while its pack of 108 paper sheets (4 x 6 inches) and two color inks is sold for $29.90. The cost per photo drops when compared to the mini printers and is around 27 cents.
Kodak Photo Printer Dock
If you choose a Kodak Photo Printer Dock, the main idea is to directly print your photos from your iOS or Android devices, as well as from SD cards and USB memory sticks (without needing to transfer your photos to a computer). You can also enjoy additional features like charging your phone when placed on the dock.
Kodak Photo Printer Dock is sold for $139.95 on Amazon. The printer dock works with paper-and-ink-integrated cartridges with similar printing technology as the mini printer version. You can choose between a 40-count ($19.99), an 80-count ($34.99) and a 120-count kit ($46.99), which brings the cost per photo to somewhere between 39 cents and 49 cents. I’m always a bit hesitant in using cartridges where you are bound to a specific system. I really want to have a little bit more freedom in my choices and feel more environmental friendly.
While some people use these products seamlessly, there are also reviews from many disappointed users complaining that the ink is over before you run out of paper, so this is a fact to consider as well when buying this type of printer. But if you’re not particularly concerned with that, these printers offer a perfect balance between quality and portability!
Inkjet Photo Printers -> Pro Quality Photos at Home
If you want to print professional quality photos at home, go for a desktop inkjet printer.
Select an inkjet printer that has a reputation as a “photo printer.” Note that this might not ensure that these devices are good enough for text documents and other printing jobs. Typically, photo printers are not the most efficient bulk scanners and copiers.
Inkjets printers offer lots of interesting features compared to a decade ago. Besides having simple cable or Wi-Fi connections, you can now also look for connection to cloud accounts, air print features, SD card slots, and more. Moreover, some inkjet printers now make it easy to print cards, invitations, and DVD covers , for example, so be sure to check out all the features that might be available to decide which printer is best for you.
It’s a bit more difficult to estimate the exact cost per photo for inkjet printers (as it also depends on your preferred photo quality), but with a simple calculation of ink and paper prices, the cost per photo should generally land somewhere around 10-15 cents. It’s true that by ordering from a photo printing service, you will end up with a lower cost. However, if you want to control the whole printing process at home and want to have your print photos immediately, then buying an inkjet photo printer can still be a good investment.
The inkjet printer market offers plenty of options when compared to mini and compared printers. Canon and Epson are the major players. Both of them have inkjet all-in-one devices available, and there are also plenty of other Epson and Canon models that you can check and compare in terms of features and prices. We like the following two…
Epson Expression
The Epson Expression 8500 is an all-in-one inkjet printer that uses six ink cartridges for great quality photo prints. You can print photos from your smartphone, tablets, computers through Wi-Fi, and you can also print photos directly from Facebook when using the printer app. With this printer, you can enjoy a variety of photo print sizes up to 8 x 10 inches. It prints a standard 4 x 6 inch photo in just about 11 seconds.
The Epson Expression 8500 is available on Amazon for $199.99. A set of six cartridges cost around $65 and any of them can be bought separately.
I’m a Perfect Pinnable!
Canon Pixma
The Canon Pixma TS9520 is an all-in-one inkjet printer, with a five-color individual ink system. It allows printing from all types of smartphones, tablets, and computers on a Wi-Fi connection, and it has an SD card slot too. It allows print sizes up to 11 x 17 inches and prints a standard 4 x 6 inch photo in 21 seconds. Canon encourages its users to control the printer operation via services like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and If This, Then That, so you can be a bit more productive if you print in volume.
The Canon Pixma TS9520 is sold for $179.99 on Amazon. A set of five cartridges costs around $60 and any of them can be purchased separately.
See Anything You Like?
We hope this overview about different types of photo printers that you can use at home were helpful in deciding which solution is best for you. Which one do you prefer? The fun of everyday photo printing with mini printer? Instant printing with compact printer? Or more of a pro quality with an inkjet photo printer? If you’d rather just order your prints from a service, then be sure to check out this blog post for some ideas!
What say you, dear readers? Do you like printing at home? If you have a favorite printer we didn’t mention, be sure to let us know in the comments below!
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