None of the printers we tested wowed us with their picture quality on our four test photos, particularly when we judged them alongside prints we ordered from online services. The Canon Mini260 was the only printer of the group to attain a score of Good for our color shots, while only the HP A616 and Sony DPP-FP55 rated a Good mark for black-and-white images. The Canon's colors were generally accurate but too light, giving our shot of a colorful mountain meadow a washed-out appearance. Prints from the HP unit were a little grainy and varied in color quality; in particular, skin tones seemed overly bronzed. Areas of continuous tone, as in skin and sky, looked good in the Sony model's prints, but they exhibited dull colors and some hazy details--the meadow scene appeared as if we were seeing it through dirty glasses.
Narrow banding on the Epson PM240's prints detracted from the otherwise bright, natural colors in our meadow scene. The Kodak EasyShare 500's print quality was inconsistent, with smooth tones and sharp details in our race car print but reddish-pink skin tones and blown-out highlights in portraits. Also, the Kodak is limited to pictures no larger than 3.5MB, which isn't hard to surpass if you use the high-quality setting on many of today's digital cameras.
Your Cost per Print
The costs of printing at home have become more competitive with the prices of prints ordered online. When we calculated per-print costs based on the prices of ink-and-paper bundles from the printer vendors (generally your cheapest option), Epson's bundle proved most economical with 25-cent prints from a $38 pack containing 150 sheets. HP's package runs 29 cents per print with a $35, 120-sheet bundle, while Canon's prints cost 30 cents each from a $30, 100-sheet pack.
You might end up with some leftover ink from the bundles made for inkjet printers, but dye-sublimation printers always use the same amount of ribbon. Both Kodak's $47, 160-sheet ribbon-and-paper bundle and Sony's $35, 120-sheet pack end up costing 29 cents per print.
ack end up costing 29 cents per print.