Picture-Perfect Photo Printers for About $100

If you've been holding off on purchasing a photo printer, now's a good time to relent. Various printers are available for $100 or so, and the consumables cost--the price per page for paper and ink--is about the same as the cost of buying prints at an online photo-printing Web site.

In this guide, we look at four excellent photo printers (two compact 4-by-6-inch models and two multifunction printers that scan, copy, and print), with links to our Shop & Compare pricing tool. (Of course, online prices fluctuate, and printer models come and go.) In the second part of the guide, we offer tips on how to shop for a photo printer and what key features to look for.

Epson PictureMate Dash

• PCW Rating: 89 Very Good
• Rank: #1 on PC World's Top 5 Snapshot Printers (October 2007)
• Recent low price online: $99

What you get for the money: This blocky photo printer is a speed demon, kicking out 4-by-6-inch prints at 1.5 pages per minute. Print speeds for competing models range from 1.4 ppm to 0.5 ppm. The PictureMate Dash is cost-effective, too; Epson's paper-and-ink combination packs run about 26 cents per page.

The PictureMate Dash includes an array of media slots and can read flash memory devices (such as thumb drives) as well. Bluetooth is optional.

The large (3.6-inch), tiltable LCD makes navigation easy, and handy controls help you manage page layout, red-eye reduction, sepia settings, and even decorative frames and word bubbles. Most important, the PictureMate Dash prints great pictures. Overall sharpness was good, except at the edges, and we saw good detail even in dark areas.

Drawbacks: If you're looking for a photo printer that produces bright, vivid prints, keep looking. The output from the PictureMate Dash is always a bit pale.

*See the full test and specs report for the Epson PictureMate Dash.