Amazon has the Canon PIXMA MP600 All-in-One Photo Printer on sale for $155. This is a regular sale so there is no mail-in rebate. The list price is $200 and the lowest the price usually gets is around $170, so this seems like a pretty good deal. Since it’s Amazon, though, the price could go back up at any moment.

The PIXMA MP600 came out about six months and it has been pretty popular since then. Right now at Amazon, it is sporting a perfect feedback rating from 37 customers. Canon rates it at up to 30 ppm for black and 24 ppm for color. It has a resolution of 9600 x 4800, which is basically as high as standard inkjets go these days. It has dual paper trays for double sided printing, the ability to print wirelessly from an infrared camera and it can print a 4 x 6 picture in less than 30 seconds. The thing that Canon touts most on this print is the Easy Scroll Wheel which you use with the 2.5″ LCD. Supposedly it’s an improvement over other displays, but that remains to be seen.

Buy this printer Buy Canon PIXMA MP600 cartridges

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.

At this week’s Consumer Electronics Show, Epson released two new “hi-definition” inkjet printers: the Stylus CX7000F and the Stylus Photo 1400.

The Stylus CX7000F looks to be a pretty standard all-in-one inkjet printer. It is rated at 27 ppm for black and color printing and it has a bunch of connectivity options. Other than that, the only unique feature seems to be that if the black cartridge runs out, it uses the color cartridges to make black so you can keep printing. Epson says that “the Epson Stylus CX7000F delivers all the versatility consumers demand, in addition to the superior output quality they have come to expect from Epson.” We don’t really see that. This printer should be available later this month and it will retail for $150.

The Stylus Photo 1400 is a wide-format printer that prints at up to 13 x 19. It uses a six-ink system and Epson’s MicroPiezo print head, which sounds fancy. It can print directly to CDs or DVDs and it can supposedly produce a high-quality 8 x 10 photo in one minute and 48 seconds. Epson makes a point of saying this is the time for a normal print and not a draft won, so they get points for that. The 1400 is replacing the Stylus Photo 1280, which in terms of printer technology is ancient. The 1280 has been on the market since at least 2003 and printers have changed a lot since then. But when it came out, the 1280 was pretty cutting edge due to the fact that it was a wide-format printer and because it used six different inks. Back in those days, they put the five colors all in one cartridge, something that probably seems a little ridiculous now. The Stylus Photo 1400 probably won’t be as popular as the 1280 due to increased competition, but it will probably be pretty popular with professionals. It’s going to cost $400 when it hits the streets, although Epson failed to mention when that will happen.

Shocking news!!! Well, it’s shocking for us…probably not so much for everyone else. Last month, Staples removed compatible cartridges for Epsons and HPs from their catalog. Supposedly they will remove all the product from their stores in the next few months.

Staples never pushed their brand of cartridges too hard, but their cartridges were pretty common. You could usually find a big supply of them in their stores, although the majority of the ink they carried was for the more popular models. A lot of times their compatible/remanufactured cartridges weren’t much cheaper than the OEMs, so there was always a feeling that maybe they weren’t trying as hard as they could. They were in a strange position, since they were one of the biggest distributors in the country for HP and Epson brand ink, yet at the same time they were also trying to sell Staples ink. The Lyra Research press release that dishes the dirt on this stories mentions that HP “cut a deal” with Staples last year to stop selling a competing product. The press release also mentions that the decision to stop selling Epson compatibles may have been due to recent lawsuits by Epson, including one that shut down a company that supplied Staples.

While we won’t be sad to see a competitor of Staples’ size gone, it is a bit sad from the conservation side of things. Having Staples behind a recycled and remanufactured product was good because it meant that a heavyweight was backing the product. It meant you could go into any one of hundreds of stores and buy a product that was helping the environment. Oh well….

Lyra Webcast Probes Staples’ Retreat from Epson- and HP-Compatible Ink Jet and Toner Cartridges [Press Release]

I saw this question asked somewhere and I think it’s a pretty legitimate one. Yes, photo printers can print text fine. The only exception would be compact photo printers, which can only print 4 x 6 photos. The question is whether or not it’s a good idea to print text with dedicated photo printers.

As mentioned before, these days manufacturers like Canon and Epson market every printer they make as a photo printer. Basically HP is the only company left these days that just makes true inkjet printers. Everything else on the market is either a multifunction printer, a real photo printer or an inkjet labeled as a photo printer. If you go to the store and buy a $100 HP inkjet that’s called a photo printer, then it will be fine printing text. It will print text like the HP Deskjets of yesteryear. Same thing goes for any mid-level Epson printer out there.

The only ones you may have an issue with would be expensive photo printers. It’s not that they can’t print text, it’s just that they aren’t going to print it efficiently. Either it will be slower than a standard inkjet or else it will be more expensive in the long run since you are using more expensive ink cartridges. But this really only applies to photo printers that cost about $300, and most people buying those printers probably won’t use them for text. But if you are just buying a decent photo printer, then you can definitely use it occasionally to print text.

Newegg has the HP LaserJet 1018 on sale for $80 after a $20 coupon code. The regular price is $100 and then you use coupon code EMC102HPLASR to get the $20 off. Right now there is free ship in the Continental U.S.

The LaserJet 1018 hit the market last summer and at the time HP advertised it as the smaller laser printer available. That might have been true, although it seems like HP is always marketing their printers as the ___ in the world. The LaserJet 1018 is rated at up to 12 ppm, which truthfully is pretty slow for a laser printer, but that’s what you get for under $100. It has a 150-sheet paper tray, a print resolution of 1200 dpi, a 234 MHz Processor with 2MB of memory and USB 2.0 connectivity. The LaserJet 1018 uses the HP 12A cartridge.

If you own this printer, you can leave us some feedback. If you are interested in it, you can read a review. If you need LaserJet 1018 toner cartridges, you can visit our site.

Different things cost different amounts depending on what country you are in. Prescription drugs cost way more in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world. Gas is really expensive in Western Europe. 1980’s Levis are very cheap in Russia. Now, Epson ink is really cheap in China.

Epson has begun selling their ink at 1/3rd the price they charge everywhere else. Epson explains that they are doing this in part to fight counterfeit cartridges, which is a big problem in China but not so much in other places. Epson appears to be selling the equal quality ink for a much lower price, which could in turn lead to higher printer prices. So far they haven’t expanded this pricing strategy too much, but if it’s successful then there really wouldn’t be any reason not to. They probably feel like there is just a ton of competition out there so they need to try something to stand out in China’s booming market. Either that or they are only going to do this in China until people are hooked on their products at which point they will bring back their old prices.

Epson ignites printer price war [infomatics]

There’s no such thing.

There are black ink cartridges. There are white ink cartridges (yes, they are out there). You can print a black and white photo. But there are no black and white cartridges. So, what’s the big deal you ask? Well, I’m not really too concerned about it and it’s a pretty honest mistake when someone says this, but if they thought about what they were saying then they would probably stop. A black and white cartridge…..that just doesn’t make sense. If you were to open up that cartridge, you wouldn’t see any white ink in it. So, let’s just all agree to call them black ink cartridges only from now on.

Macworld has a review up of one of Canon’s newer compact photo printers, the mini260. It’s a standalone photo printer that was released last summer and that retails for $200 (although you can get it on Amazon for $130 right now).

Some basic stats on it:

• It has a 9600 x 2400 resolution and 1,536 precision nozzles
• It produces one picoliter sized ink droplets in order to better produce detailed photos
• It has a 2.5″ high definition TFT display for previews of your pictures
• It’s got a bunch of connectivity options, which is a must since it’s a standalone printer
• It can print wirelessly from an infrared camera phone or with an optional Bluetooth device
• Each print costs about 28 cents

In their review, Macworld mentioned how they liked the print quality and the ability to customize your prints. They didn’t like that the mini260 didn’t support xD cards (not a big deal in our opinion) and that it didn’t have red eye removal, which is maybe a big deal if you aren’t using a computer. So far only one person has review it on Amazon, but they did give it five stars. One downside for us is that this is one of those compact printers where Canon makes you buy a package that includes paper and a cartridge. This is bad for two reasons. One, it means that you have to always buy their packs and you can just buy whatever replacement ink cartridges you want. Two, since it’s just one cartridge it means that it will probably run out quickly if you are printing pictures with a lot of black in them since the mini260 has to produce black by combining a bunch of colors.

Buy this printer

Staples has the HP Photosmart 8050 Color Photo Printer on sale for $49.99. The Photosmart 8050 is a 6-ink color printer rated at 21 ppm. It is also a wide format printer that can printer borderless photos up to 8.5 x 24 inches. It has a 1.8″ LCD and buttons to select, size, crop etc. It has the standard connectivity options to print directly from a camera or memory card and it has a resolution of up to 4800 x 1200.

If you need Photosmart 8050 cartridges, you can check out our site.