THE NEWS IN PRINT

Here is yet another photo printer for professionals which could be deemed as a potential competitor to the Canon Pixma Pro9000.

Epson Stylus Photo R1800 printer uses 8 ink cartridges and the head is built of MicroPiezo technology. The R1800 can print in different sizes ranging from post card size to A3. The printing speed is average as it takes approximately 66 seconds to print a 8 X 10"� photograph.

Here are some user reviews:

- Set up was easy! It took me about 10 minutes to get it out of the box, set it up, load the software, and begin printing.
- The speed is great. 11×14 inch prints in under 3 minutes - Awesome!
- It is a very large printer, but worth the desk space it takes up.
- The glossy prints look like actual photos thanks to the gloss optimizer cartridge.
- I've had nothing but trouble with it, and have had the hardest time printing proof sheets.
- Prints beautifully, but the inks are expensive.
- Very quiet. Very quick.
- It prints on CD's, DVD's, and even rolls of banner paper.

The R1800 has a price tag in the range of £330-£400 and seems like a great additional for professionals.

HP Deskjet 2360 is one of UK's leading home printers. It produces excellent photo prints and it's also good with text prints. One unique feature of 2360 is the print cancel button which stops printing right in its tracks. I have faltered many times with my browser when the print button was pressed instead of the stop loading. I could have saved a lot of ink if I had this printer.

Here are the major features of HP DJ 2360:
- Get true-to-life color photos in optional six-ink color1 or via the up to 4800 optimized dpi2
- Print fast and efficiently, at up to 20 pages per minute in black and 14 in color
- Squeeze it into a small area on your desk or in your home office, thanks to the compact design and 100-sheet fold-up tray
- Share, print, and save photos; start HP Photosmart Express via a one-touch button
- Automatically remove red eye and enhance the detail in dark areas of photos with HPs Real Life technologies
- Select the best print quality and speed for each task from five performance modes: Fast Draft, Fast Normal, Normal, Best, and Maximum

Many users have many positives about this printer. Here are some user reviews which should help you decide on purchasing it:

- It's faster and produces better output quality than my old Epson printer.
- The quality is great.
- The HP ink cartridges are too small.
- Although value for money is good, ink cartridges are expensive
- It takes up very little surface space but still prints quickly.
- Be aware of the option that, while printing, the pages go backward (i.e. page 10, page 9,etc) so that page 1 is on top.
- Easy to install and prints quietly.
- Works well with both XP and Win 2000.
- Very good quality color prints.
- This is a nice, inexpensive, fairly quiet, easy to load printer that does what it says.

HP DJ2360 is priced between £30 and £45.

Canon Pixma IP4300 has been receiving a lot of attention since its debut few months back. I have written and reviewed some photo printers in the past month but have never read a review that rates a printer so high hands down; especially from PC World. CNET has many good things to say as well. Many users at Amazon feel that this is a great printer to possess for general and photo printing.

Here are some highlights from the PC World review:

- Printing speed is exceptional with 12ppm which includes photos and graphics
- Print quality is good. The five ink cartridge system (cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and pigment-black) do the trick quite well.
- Photos look bright and natural on glossy paper but the quality deteriorates on ordinary paper
- Automatic duplexing is a great feature in a photo printer
- The controls on the printer are not clear making them hard to read
- The setup instructions poster isn't exhaustive
- The bundled software, Easy-PhotoPrint and PhotoRecord are useful

This printer is priced at £100 which is not too expensive nor as cheap as Kodak.

Although I haven't had hands-on experience with this printer, it seems like Canon Pixma IP4300 edges past all other photo printers with respect to quality and features. None of the reviews have touched the pricing part. This may be a good lesson to other printers - "If the quality and features are good, pricing takes care of itself"�. That's my conclusion but here is Melissa Riofrio's conclusion - The Pixma iP4300 has it all: speed, impressive output quality, and a good price.

There was a time when the printer industry was a two horse race (maybe three) and everything about printers seemed boring and mundane. Enter Kodak as a rookie and things hot up a bit for all other competitors. Prices slashed, offers revamped but most importantly there's a sense of competition hotting up. Every tech writer wants to throw in his bit into this new-found race.

Edward Baig feels that there isn't much to choose from between HP and Kodak printers. Here are some observations from his experience:

• Both printers are white and have similar physical dimensions


• Neither printers come with a USB cable


• Only the Kodak has a "PictBridge" port that lets users print directly from a digital camera


• Kodak has a 3-inch display for reviewing and doing light editing of photos before you print them, larger than HP's display for the same purpose


• HP has a built-in networking feature which is not present in Kodak


• HP's photo print quality is much better than that of Kodak


• Printing speeds cannot be compared as both printers print at different speeds with different paper


• Paper jams were observed in the Kodak printer with mid-grade paper


• The photo tray in Kodak is hidden under the printer which hinders fluent operation


• Special Kodak feature: You can load three pictures on the glass and the printer will automatically detect and place each into separate files on your computer

Here's my favourite part, the conclusion: I welcome Kodak's return to the inkjet market. Whenever industry rivals try to one-up each other, the winner is inevitably the consumer.

Last month I had written about Kodak's business strategy of cheap prints. Robin Raskin, a Yahoo! Tech advisor has reviewed the Kodak line of printers in terms of quality, efficiency and cost per print(cpp).

Just to refresh your memory, here's Kodak claim: £0.07 for a colour 4 X 6 photo which is 50% cheaper than other popular printers. The technology behind the cheap prints is attributed to efficient print heads and a new ink technology which consumes less ink.

Robin used a Kodak 5300 for a few days and here are her initial thoughts: I'm convinced that it's a nice printer that will save the average consumer money over the long haul. The Kodak All-in-One series handles plain text, color graphics, and lab quality photo prints all with nice results. It's also a scanner and a color copier.

The Kodak 5300 was easy to install using the CDs provided. It works better with a total Kodak package which includes bar coded Kodak photo paper and a Kodak digital camera along with their software. The process of printing photographs was seamless and the integration of online Easy Share software was great.

Here are her closing thoughts: I like the Kodak system a lot, and think it's especially good for those who need a helping hand while printing. I haven't tried to run hundreds of photos yet, so I can't tell you whether or not the Kodak All-in-One solution saves you as much money on inks as it claims. I can tell you that my prints have been lovely (glossy photo paper), my text sharp and clean. Printing graphics, scanning, and copying work well, too. This is far from a speed demon and the "big" software makes it slow going. But I think you'll love the results.