Epson's PictureMate Dash prints quickly and inexpensively.
For snap-happy families, a snapshot printer can save time and is just plain fun. Of the four new models we reviewed this month, three came in at a tempting price of $100.
But are they good deals or just gadgets? In the case of our Best Buy, the Epson PictureMate Dash, you may be surprised at how much it has to offer: a 3.6-inch LCD, buttons for printing without a PC, and several fun editing features. The Dash may look like a glorified lunch box, complete with handle, but it delivers where it counts. It is faster than the other models we tested, and it prints good-looking photos. Best of all, its consumable costs are moderate, at 26 cents per print (based on the $40 PictureMate Print Pack, which supplies enough paper and ink to produce 150 4-by-6-inch prints).
HP's Photosmart A526 takes the opposite tack, minimizing features but maximizing print quality, making up somewhat for its slowness. This inkjet-based model is fairly compact and, like the Photosmart, sports a handle for toting. If you buy HP's $35 supply pack, which contains sufficient ink and paper for 120 4-by-6-inch prints, the cost per page is a tolerable 29 cents. The A526's 2.4-inch LCD is quite a bit smaller than the Dash's, however.
Two dye-sublimation printers rub shoulders with the inkjets in our rankings. Canon's Selphy CP740 and Sony's DPP-FP70 pair compact base units with somewhat awkward external paper cassettes. They use special paper and film-based ink that are matched precisely to one another, so you can't use third-party supplies; and if you want to change paper size, you have to change the cassette and cartridge, too.
Canon sells a kit containing 108 sheets of 4-by-6-inch paper plus a 108-print cassette for $30--a reasonable 27 cents per print. The postcard-paper cassette that comes with the printer is external; inserting it into the printer's front nearly doubles the machine's footprint. The CP740's LCD is even smaller than the HP A526's, at only 2 inches.
The Sony model offers better speed and print quality than the Selphy does, but it costs more. Like the Canon, the DPP-FP70 has a large paper cassette. The cost per print for both dye-subs is predictable because you use each section of ribbon only once. The Sony's print cost is a bit higher than average at 29 cents (if you buy the $35 pack of 120 sheets plus ink).