Last week Canon released the PIXMA iP90v portable photo printer. It is an updated version of the iP90, which, since its release two years ago has been a very popular and well-reviewed printer. Canon advertises the iP90v as a truly portable printer that you can carry around in your laptop bag or one that you can use at home. Based on its performance, I would say that the iP90 is more meant for being used as a portable printer, since there are plently of other photo printers you can buy for home use that cost less and print faster/better.

The iP90v is rated at 16 ppm in black and 12 in color and it will print a 4 x 6 picture in about 81 seconds. The resolution for it is 4800 x 1200 dpi. When you compare that with the speeds of standard photo printers, you can see that this one is built more for portability than performance. The iP90v has the usually connectivity options like PictBridge and Bluetooth capabilities, which are a must for a portable printer like this. It’s built for people who want to take pictures of something and then print them out right away wherever they are, so they need to be able to use this printer without a computer.

The iP90v will retail for $250, which is about $40 more than the iP90 is currently selling for. Other than some new software, there doesn’t seem to be anything different about the iP90v so the price tag doesn’t seem justified. The iP90 was already pretty expensive to begin with, so $250 for this one seems really expensive. Since this model is coming out, they might be phasing out the regular iP90, so if you are interested in a portable printer, you might want to look at the iP90 while you have a chance.

Canon Introduces the PIXMA iP90v Photo Printer for a Growing Base of on-the-go Professionals [Press Release]

Yay! Time for the annual press release from Epson about how their printers are being used to print ID badges for the Academy Awards. Epson says that they chose the Stylus C88 because of how quickly the DURABrite inks dry and all these other wonderful things. In reality, Epson probably just gives a bunch of free printers and paper and ink to the Academy so they can put out these press releases. I doubt there is guy who works for the Academy who carefully studies how quickly different inks dry before deciding every year that Epson is the best.

The C88 came out in the Summer of 2005, so it is a bit of an older printer. It has not received very good reviews either from CNET or from the customers at Amazon, usually the two most reliable places for feedback. Right now the C88 is basically all that’s left from Epson’s Stylus C Series. All their other printers are photo printers or all-in-ones. Maybe it’s time for the Academy to upgrade to a different Epson.

Academy Awards(R) Ceremony Credentials Printed on Epson for Eighth Year in a Row [Press Release]

Canon announced yesterday that they were releasing two new PIXMA inkjet models, the iP300 and the iP1800. Unlike most of their other PIXMA models, these two are just standard inkjets and not all-in-one printers. At $80 for the iP3300 and $50 for the iP1800, these will be some of the cheapest Canon models available. This could mean that Canon is moving into the entry-level inkjet market, an area that they have shied away from mostly, or it could just be that they felt like releasing two cheap inkjets.

Both these printers have a resolution of 4800 x 1200, which is what you would expect for a sub-$100 printer. That’s not to say the print quality will be bad, it’s just that you shouldn’t expect these printers to produce high-quality photos or anything like that. The iP1800 is rated at 20 ppm in black and 16 ppm in color. We can probably assume that since the iP3300 is more expensive it will be faster, but Canon failed to include the iP3300’s speed in their press release so it’s a big mystery. Perhaps it only prints a 1 ppm and they don’t want to reveal that. The iP3300 is “certified for Windows Vista” so for the .000000001% of people that are running Vista, you are in luck.

Canon is releasing some new inkjet cartridges for use in the PIXMA iP1800. The new cartridges are the PG-30 black and the CL-31 color and they will cost $16 and $20, respectively. Canon says they are introducing these new cartridges as a “low cost alternative”. The cost may be low (relatively speaking) but it remains to be seen how small these cartridges are. If they contain half the ink that regular Canon cartridges have, then they won’t be too much of a bargain. But, if they are comparable to existing cartridges, then Canon may have an answer to Kodak’s new line of cartridges.

Two New Canon PIXMA Inkjet Photo Printers Offer Style and Quality at a Value Price Point [Press Release]

Canon has released some new extremely expensive imageRUNNER laser printers. So for you those of you out there looking for a $20,000 laser printer, this post is for you.

The new models that they announced are the imageRUNNER 5075, 5065 and the 5055. These things are pretty dang fast - they print up to 75 ppm, 65 ppm and 55 ppm, respectively. All three models have 1 gig of RAM and a 40GB hard drive, which is some pretty serious hardware. By comparison, a standard HP LaserJet printer has 16 megs of memory. These printers also have a bunch of paper options, including an add-on tray that can increase the capacity to over 7600 sheets. In case you hadn’t guessed by now, these printers are exactly made for the home user. They are designed for big business where a ton of people do a ton of printing. Lately, Canon has basically given up on the personal laser printer market and has decided to focus on their business products, since they can make a lot more money off them. Not only do they have higher price tags, but there are the inevitable fees Canon will make off of sending out their techs to repair these printers.

Now for the price: $28,000 for the 5075, $21,500 for the 5065 and $17,000 for the 5055.

Canon U.S.A. Unveils the ImageRUNNER 5075/5065/5055 for High-Volume Offices and Light Production Environments [Press Release]

Amazon has the all-in-one HP Officejet 4315 on sale for $82 with no mail-in rebate required. This printer has been out a while, which is why the price has come down so much, but it is still useful for those who need a fax machine for their home office. There are a lot of all-in-one printers out there that look nice and have flatbed scanners and all that, but a lot of them don’t have fax capabilities. For people who need a fax for business, a printer like this one is useful.

It’s rated at 20 ppm for black and 14 ppm for color. The print resolution is 4800 x 1200 and the scanning resolution is 1200 dpi. The fold-up paper feeder means that you save space, but it also means that your scanning/copying options will be limited. You will be able to scan normal size paper fine, but for other things like pictures or clippings, you will have to stick with a flatbed scanner.

Check out this review of the MFC-845CW on MSNBC’s site. This isn’t a brand new brand, as it’s been on the market for about four months now, but it’s still relatively new. It’s an all-in-one printer that also includes a fax machine and a 5.8 GHZ cordless phone, so it is truly an all-in-one that you can use for business. It is rated at 27 ppm for black and 22 for color, which is pretty fast considering how many features it has. One of the features it has is wireless support, which is nice but it’s not to be confused with actually having wireless networking installed when you buy the machine. It just means it’s capable of being wireless.

The rest of the stuff you can read about in the review. This review is slightly different because it’s not really technical like some of the other reviews we post here - it’s written more from a regular customer’s perspective. So while you might not get a full list of the specs and a bunch of statistics about the printer, you get a pretty decent perspective on what a regular customer thinks about this printer.

Buy this printer

Police in Arapahoe County, Colorado are searching for some “bandits” that supposedly stole hundreds of dollars worth of ink cartridges (are you really a bandit if you just steal ink? It is catchy though). Apparently they just walked into stores, took the cartridges and left. So far they’ve stolen about $800 worth. I wonder how much you can get on the black market for $800 worth of ink cartridges? Seems like they should focus on some more desirable items.

Police looking for ‘ink cartridge bandits’ [9NEWS.com]

Amazon has a bunch of Canon printers on sale right now. You can save up to $50, although of course they don’t specifically say which one is $50 off the usual price. All the participating printers are on this page.

They have some popular printers on there, like the all-in-one PIXMA MP830 and the PIXMA MP460. Both those printers have been well-reviewed and this might be a good chance to get the MP830 on the cheap. Lately Canon has been releasing new printers pretty frequently, which means that their older models are getting replaced more quickly. Once they decide they want to release an upgraded version of a current model, that usually means the current model is discontinued and stores just sell whatever inventory they have left.

Anyways, since it’s Amazon you have to add all the printers to your cart to see how much they cost. Most of the printers that are included in this deal are fairly common, so it doesn’t seem like they threw any junky printers in there.

Way back in the late 1990’s, Kodak and Lexmark used to be buddies. Lexmark made photo printers that had Kodak’s name on them and all was fine and dandy. Well, it turns out that partnership amounted to a whole lot of nothing and they stopped making printers together.

Now, with Kodak’s announcement that they will be selling really cheap ink cartridges, they have become Lexmark’s arch enemy. Lexmark’s spokesman said “there is nothing revolutionary in the Kodak announcement.” That sounds kind of petty considering Kodak announced they would be selling something at half the price that everyone sells it at. If that doesn’t qualify as a least a little revolutionary, then I don’t know what does. It’s not like Lexmark’s been blowing our socks off lately with their announcements.

Lexmark is mad because they have the most to lose. Kodak is focused on selling all-in-one machines, which is the area that Lexmark has decided to focus on lately. Lexmark hasn’t been doing too hot lately and they will always be behind HP, Canon and Epson in terms of market share and quality. So they are afraid that if someone goes into a store and has to chose between a Lexmark and a Kodak, they will chose a Kodak, even if it is a little more expensive. Lexmark claims that Kodak is just ripping you off with a “prepaid” model where customers “pay a substantial premium and put more money in their pocket more quickly whether you use more ink or not.” It’s true that the Kodak printers will cost a little bit more, but not substantially more. Unless you plan on junking the printer after one set of ink cartridges (which, by the way, some people do with Lexmark printers because the ink is so expensive) you will definitely save with a Kodak printer in the long run. Of course, all this is assuming that the discounted Kodak cartridges will be equal in size and quality to cartridges from the other main printer manufacturers. We shall see.

Lexmark, Kodak aren’t so cozy now [Kentucky.com]

PC Mag has posted a review of the Dell Photo All-in-One 926 and they aren’t too impressed by it. They gave it a rating of 3/5 due to its sub par text and photo printing quality.

The Dell 926 is a multifunction printer that can print, scan, and copy and it also has limited faxing capabilities. Dell rates it at 20 ppm for black and 15 for color, but PC Mag says the actual printing speed is slower than the 926’s predecessor, the 924. But, the 926 is fast enough and isn’t any slower than printers from Dell’s competitors. The print resolution is 4800 x 1200, which is pretty standard and might explain why the print quality for photos isn’t so great. The 926 comes with a standard black and color cartridge, but you can also buy a photo cartridge to get the benefits of printing with six inks.

The poor photo and text quality led PC Mag to not recommend upgrading to this printer if you already own a Dell. On Dell’s own site, customers gave the 926 a 3.4/5, so obviously they weren’t too impressed either. Most of the customer reviews there mentioned the print quality as a “con” and they also complained about how hard it was to get Dell ink cartridges. Print quality aside, the number one reason to probably avoid Dell printers is the availability/price of Dell ink cartridges. Dell ink is consistently the most expensive on the market, and because you can only buy the cartridges online, there can be issues if you run out unexpectedly or if you have limited internet access.

You can check out the Dell customer reviews here.