First off, that isn’t a typo - it’s supposed to be SELPHY and not Selphy. Just like with Canon’s other line, the PIXMA, even though the name is capatilized, it’s not an acronym. So SELPHY is not short for Super Elegant Lightweight Personal Home Yunit. Glad we got that cleared up.

Canon announced that they were releasing the SELPHY ES1, which has a pretty innovative design. Here’s what it looks like:

As you can see, this printer is very small and slim. It’s completely upright, so it takes up a fraction of the space that other printers do. The other unique thing about it is that the paper and the ink cartridge are combined into one cassette. Now there isn’t a picture of that, so what this paper/cartridge thing actually looks like is a mystery. Canon says that this makes it easier because you won’t have to worry about the paper or the ink running out separately. That sounds sort of convenient, but it also sounds like a nice way for them to sell you more consumables. Who’s to say that the paper and the ink are always going to run out at the exact same time?

Other than that, the SELPHY ES1 has a 2.5″ LCD, a built-in retractable USB cable, memory card slots and the ability to produce a 4 x 6 photo in about 60 seconds. It will retail for $250 when it hits stores next month.

Canon’s Compact Photo Printer SELPHY ES1 Features New Vertical Design, Easy Paper Handling and Fun Printing Options [Press Release]

Canon is recalling 1.87 million copiers because of a risk of overheating and fire. The models that they are recalling were built from 1987 to 1997. Now, it’s nice that they are recalling all these printers, but if they have been around since 1987 and haven’t caught on fire yet, then they are probably going to be ok. This is all because like three printers caught on fire years ago too, so it’s not like they’ve had a recent wave of exploding machines. Anyways, the recall is expect to cost Canon $1.7 million and infinity lost dollars from bad publicity.

Canon says to recall copiers that can catch fire [Reuters]

Staples has the Samsung CLP-510 color laser printer on sale for $200 after a $50 instant savings and a $50 rebate. The instant savings are from a coupon code, which they provide you on the page. The rebate (which, by the way, isn’t a mail-in rebate since Staples allows you to do everything online) is good until 9/30.

Samsung rates this printer at 25 ppm for black and 6 for color. Six ppm might not sound like much, but that’s just the way it is with color laser printers. The CLP-510 has built-in auto duplexing and a 250-sheet paper tray. The resolution is 1200 x 1200 and it will produce the first page in about 13 seconds.

If you own this printer, you can leave a review of it in the comments section. If you need Samsung CLP-510 toner cartridges, you can find them on our main site.

Printer manufacturers not including USB cables is a recent trend, but one that most people have caught on to. When they started making the switch from parallel cables (the ones with a bunch of pins) to USB cables, they just decided to not include cables anymore. A lot of people didn’t notice at first, either because they were still using parallel cables or else they just weren’t upgrading. Then we started to hear a lot of complaints from people who got their printers home, got ready to set them up and then found that they couldn’t use them because there were no cables.

These days, printer manufacturers sometimes make a point of noting that USB cables do not come with the printer. Sometimes the same goes for the store that sells you the printer. So why exactly do they make you buy your own cable? Well, there are two basic explanations:

1) Printer companies make no money selling you the printer, so they will cut any expense that they can

or

2) Printer companies have some sort of deal with cable manufacturers

We know that printer companies make no money on printers, so that explanation isn’t too farfetched. The second reason might seem a little farfetched, but the world of cables is a seedy business. We’ve all seen ridiculously overpriced diamond-plated cables that sell for 3x times the price of normal cables. Well, those cables cost almost exactly the same to make as regular ones - there is virtually no difference. Back when printers only used parallel cables, there wasn’t much money in it because the use of those cables was limited. But now that USB is used for everything, it’s a big business and a lot of companies want a piece. Printer manufacturers aren’t interested in giving you anything for free, so is it too crazy to think they would have some sort of “understanding” with USB cable manufacturers?

Hmm….maybe it is.

Another day, another article about people using alternatives to the manufacturer’s ink. The article notes that customers who buy refilled or remanufactured cartridges currently only make up 25% of the market, but that obviously that number is growing. As usual, they mention how lots of new stores like Office Depot and Walgreens are offering refill services. They also mention the fact that buying a couple new sets of printer cartridges will cost you more than a new printer (for most moderately-priced inkjets, it’s between 2-3 sets of cartridges).

Then they get into how much money HP makes from ink and toner:

Take Hewlett-Packard Co. In its most recent fiscal year, HP earned more than half of its $6 billion operating profit from its imaging and printing group. And some analysts believe that number understates the importance of ink and toner to HP because the imaging group includes printers, which HP sells at little or no profit.

In past years, estimates for how much HP makes from their ink were as high as 75%, but in recent years it has gone down a bit. Because HP doesn’t break down exactly where their profits come from, everyone is left to just guess. Here is a nice quote though:

HP doesn’t break out results for individual items, but ink and toner “are both nicely profitable,” says Pradeep Jotwani, the company’s senior vice president of imaging and printing.

Isn’t that nice?

Ink-refill firms aim at printer giants [Boston Globe]

Amazon has the PIXMA MP530 on sale for $194 $160 with no mail-in rebate and free shipping. The MP530 is a new printer, so it’s not a gigantic savings, but you also save some money by not having to pay tax. With this printer, it amounts to about a $15 savings versus purchasing it in a local store.

The PIXMA MP530 is an all-in-one printer that Canon rates at 29 ppm in black and 19 ppm in color. It has a 30-sheet automatic document feeder and a 150-page fax memory. The scanning resolution is 2400 x 1200 and it can print a 4 x 6 in about 51 seconds.

You can find Canon PIXMA MP530 ink cartridges on our site.

Yesterday Epson announced that they were releasing three new PictureMate personal photo printers: the PictureMate Pal, PictureMate Snap and PictureMate Flash. These PictureMates are all compact photo printers that just print 4 x 6 pictures. They are designed to be used with your digital camera to create your own little magical photo studio.

Epson says that the PictureMate Pal produces a 4 x 6 in about 60 seconds, which really isn’t too fast these days. It has a 2″ LCD (or premium photo viewer as Epson calls it), the usual connectivity options including optional Bluetooth, and auto correction features to fix tones and to sharpen pictures. The PictureMate Snap is an upgrade, as it has a 2.5″ LCD and can print a 4 x 6 in 45 seconds. The Snap also has some additional cropping features not found on the Pal model. It also offers decorative Disney frame photo borders. (?) The PictureMate Flash model has all the features that the Snap model has, only it also has a CD burner built in.

The PictureMate Pal will be $149, the Snap will be $199 and the Flash will be $299. They should be available this month.

Epson Builds on Success of PictureMate(R) Personal Photo Lab Family With New Printers [Press Release]

Amazon has the Photosmart 3210 on sale for $154. This is a regular sale so there is no mail-in rebate, but there is also no way of knowing how long it will last. The usual price is over $200, so this is a pretty good deal. It’s one of those deals that’s so crazy that Amazon makes you add the item to your shopping cart to even see the price.

The Photosmart 3210 is rated at 32 ppm for black and 31 ppm for color and it can supposedly print a 4 x 6 in 14 seconds. When it was released, HP dubbed it the world’s fastest all-in-one printer. It has a 2.5″ LCD and all the usual connectivity options for standalone printing. This printer uses a six-ink system, which is pretty rare for HP. The HP 02 ink cartridges used in this machine were the first individual color cartridges HP offered for inkjets when they were released last summer, and even know only a handful of machines use them.

This printer has received so-so reviews on Amazon, so if anyone wants to offer their thoughts about it they can leave a comment. If you are looking for Photosmart 3210 ink, then you know where to go.

Brother announced three printers today, the MFC-5460cn, the MFC-5860c and the MFC-3360c. All three of these printers are all-in-one models which will use Brother’s legendary Innobella™ ink cartridges and photo paper. Innobella inks were recently introduced by Brother as their answer to Vivera, Ultrachrome etc. Basically they aren’t really much different from Brother’s current inks and you would probably only notice the difference if you were a professional using their most expensive paper and you examined all your prints with a 1000x magnifying glass. These printers will all use LC-51 ink cartridges.

The MFC-5460cn and the MFC-5860cn are both rated by Brother at 30 ppm for black and 25 for color. Both machines include a fax machine and can print up to 6000 x 1200, which is a pretty good resolution for a multifunction printer. They have the standard media card slots and PictBridge capability for direct printing. The MFC-5860cn is the fancier model, so it includes a dual paper tray for a 350-sheet capacity.

The MFC-3360c is a more standard all-in-one. It features print speeds up to 25ppm for black and 20ppm for color as well as the same 6000 x 1200 resolution as the other two machines. Brother doesn’t mention how much that printer will be, but the MFC-5460cn will be $150 and the MFC-5860cn will be $180. These printers should be in stores in October.

Brother Announces New Business Inkjet All-in-One Solutions [Press Release]