Since compact/portable/snapshot photo printers seem to be growing in popularity, people are probably beginning to wonder what the best model is. Up until recently, there wasn’t a huge selection of models and out of those, there really wasn’t any model that was declared the best by the public. The reviews and reactions to the models out there mostly fell in line with what you’d expect based on the manufacturer: Epson made good stuff, HP made pretty good stuff, Canon made good stuff in limited quantities and Lexmark basically made junk.

We haven’t really received a lot of feedback from our customers/readers as to what they think about certain compact photo printers, so I’ll just take a look at what’s availble out the Net.

- the top three compact photo printers according to CNET are the HP Photosmart 475, the Epson PictureMate Flash 280 and the Epson PictureMate Snap

- the top three selling compact photo printers on Amazon are the Canon iP90, the Canon SELPHY DS810 Photo Printer and the Epson PictureMate Deluxe

- this thing on about.com says that the top three are Canon i70/i80/i90, the HP Photosmart 375 and the Epson PictureMate Personal

Overall, it seems like the Epson PictureMate series has been rated pretty well by both professional reviewers and customers (all but the PictureMate Pal, which is an entry-level model that isn’t worth the small savings). Like most of their inkjet printers, HP compact photo printers perform pretty well but are never the best available. It seems like it’s a good idea to stay away from Kodak printers, just because I’ve only seen one get a good review and then most others get only decent reviews. It’s really not worth it to get a Kodak because you have so many other reliable options like Canon and Epson available. Plus, since some of these printers use their own ink/paper and not standard ink cartridges, you don’t want to be hunting around for some weird Kodak products that aren’t sold anywhere.