Photo Printers: Big and Small

Photo printers have greatly improved their print quality over the past several years, as most of the printers we've seen attest. They also cost less today than when they first appeared: The models in this roundup range in price from $150 to $399. But the ink and paper they use still tend to cost an arm and a leg. Most people purchase a photo printer in order to avoid the effort of going to an old-fashioned photo mart. However, in our tests of 11 printers--7 full-size desktop models and 4 smaller snapshot units--most made the photo mart and online photo printing services look like good deals.

The three major chains we surveyed (Ritz, Walgreen's, and Target) charge an average of 28 cents per print, with in-store pickup. To make 20 prints, the four online outlets we looked at (Ofoto, Snapfish, Shutterfly, and Yahoo Photos) charge an average of 35 cents each print, including shipping. In contrast, full-size photo printers averaged 66 cents per print and snapshot printers averaged 55 cents each, though costs varied widely, as detailed in the chart.

The Imaging Products Lab at the Rochester Institute of Technology tested ink and paper consumption for each inkjet printer on behalf of PC World. In IPL's tests, the Epson PictureMate was by far the cheapest at 23 cents per 4-by-6-inch print. The next cheapest option, the Dell Photo Printer 540, costs 39 cents per print--but to reach that cost, you must buy a $47 bundle of three print packs. Of the full-size printers, the most reasonable was the Canon Pixma IP4000R, at 46 cents per print. The Lexmark P915, on the other hand, will put a serious hole in your wallet: It used up 97 cents' worth of ink and paper per snapshot--and that was with its high-yield cartridges installed.

Print speeds also run the gamut from perky to poky. In speed tests conducted by the PC World Test Center, Canon's Pixma IP8500 printed 4-by-6-inch snapshots faster than any other printer--averaging just 39 seconds--but its text speed lagged. The Epson models were particularly slow at printing text documents, while the Lexmark P915 turned in a blistering 7.4 pages per minute.

Read "Photo Printers: The Price of Great Pictures" to learn more.