Canon Selphy CP900 Photo Printer

My 6-year-old Sony FP70 dye-sublimation photo printer has hinted on its demise many months back, with increased occurrences of print defects and hardware errors. The final straw came yesterday when it  failed to complete a print 4 times out of 6. With only 1 piece of photo paper left before I needed to purchase costly refills, I decided to do a snap research on a replacement photo printer. There wasn't a lot of choices: I could buy back a Sony-brand printer, but Canon has always been a strong contender and leader in consumer printing segment, and its latest model, Selphy CP900, offers an excellent balance of features and price.

• 2.7" tilt screen
• Wi-Fi enabled (2.4GHz, Channels 1-11)
• Prints from your desktop, laptop or mobile device wirelessly
• Prints from USB flash device or SD card
• Various consumnables like stickers and smaller card-size papers
• Choice of colours: black, white, pink

Retailing at S$199, I was pleasantly delighted that Courts Megastore was having an in-store promotion of  the exact model at a S$30 discount. I mean, what are the odds? It saves me a trip to Sim Lim or Funan where the retailers typically offer more competitive prices. I forked out another $37 for a pack of 108 print refills (the printer package does not include any paper) and I'm ready to roll.

Comparing to my old Sony printer, the Dye Sub printing technology and product design remains largely unchanged. In fact, my older printer has more features, like multi-card readers, global colour fine-tune settings, saving of edited images, and prints faster. The 2 plus points on the CP900, that I feel are really practical features, are the built-in Wi-Fi and tilt screen. The built-in Wi-Fi allows printing from any device within the home network, from desktop to mobile phones. You can even purchase a portable battery pack for printing on-the-go.

I didn't know how bad the Sony was until I produced some prints from the new Canon unit. The photos' colour tones are completely off, probably due to old age. The new Canon Selphy, on the other hand, produces sharper images and the colour tones are closer to the original. I felt the skin tone was not warm enough, and would prefer to notch the warm tone a little and then the print quality would be good.

Do note that the CP900 does not come with cleaner unit and dust cover, although it is stated in the manual as accessories that are bundled only for certain regions. My previous Sony comes with it, but looking at the life span of it, I suppose the photo printer should last me for years without maintenance.


Why Should You Buy Dye Sub Printer
There was a time when print labs were aplenty and cheap, costing as low as 20-cents a piece. Then came the digital revolution where people shared images online or stored the images without printing, and the print market took a tumble. I bought my old Sony DPP-FP70 weeks before my daughter's birth so that I can print photos for my parents and relatives. I was surprised how many prints I have made over the years, and I believe I will continue to print more to share my child's growth with my loved ones. That is why I decided to purchase another Dye Sub printer, which is absolutely useful for printing ad-hoc photos in low volumes.

Epson LabelWorks: Portable Label Printer Review

EPSON has launched a new range of portable label printers for home and office.


Key Features of the Epson LabelWorks LW-300/400/900P

· Handheld stationery label printers
Ideal for homes, small offices home offices (SOHO) and small and media businesses (SMB), the Epson LabelWorks LW-300 and Epson LabelWorks LW-400 print labels ranging from 9mm – 18mm. This means precise labeling of smaller household items, schooling and stationery items to files and documents!

· PC connected stationery label printer
The higher-end Epson LabelWorks LW-900P prints labels ranging from 9mm – 36mm, making it ideal for vertical industries like logistics, manufacturing, building management. Equipped with the ability to connect to a PC or Mac, consumers can now personalize and create larger labels for branding purposes.

· Additional Features for all three label printers
With over 30 different types of media to choose from, the LabelWorks printers allow consumers to express their creativity with attractive patterns, vibrant colours and varied applications like iron-on, glow-in-the-dark and cable wrap. Additionally, equipped with up to 14 font types, 457 symbols and 89 frames, the LabelWorks printers are designed for high customisability and unique labels prints. Reduced tape margins also means dramatically smaller leader margins for more savings; giving users a perfectly sized label for any application. Barcode printing, using the Epson LabelWorks LW-400 and Epson LabelWorks LW-900P, is also made possible for tracking inventories for business settings.


Thanks to Epson's PR who passed me all 3 units, I am able to share with you how each of them differs to meet your needs.

LW-300

Photo Credits: EPSON

This affordable label printer is powered by 6 AAA batteries. The LCD screen only shows one line of text and does not have any backlight. The thickest cartridge tape width it supports is 12mm.

LW-400

This label printer is about S$20 more expensive than the basic unit, but you get a 2-line LCD display with backlight, great for indoor use. You can use tape width up to 18mm, and supports a little more print options, like barcode printing, 4-line printing. I definitely prefer this over the LW-300, unless you are really on a tight budget.

Instead of using batteries, you may choose to power with AC adapter which is included in the package.


LW-900P

This top-of-the-line printer requires connection to the computer to use, and prints up to 36mm tape width. Using the included Label Editor software, you can create all kinds of label layouts, even importing your own images. The printable fonts are limited only by your computer, so with this model, I am able to print non-Latin characters like Chinese. It also comes with a trimmer to round the label corners. Retailing at S$299, the LW-900P is only for the adventurous who needs the versatility of label printing through the computer. There is no battery option, so you have to plug to AC power. There is also no on/off switch: the printer turns on automatically when the computer is on.

User Friendliness
For the LW-300/400, it takes a while to understand how the product works without manual. There are several dedicated buttons to change the settings, like font, size, frames. To commit the change, you have to press the "Enter" button. When selecting font, the display does not show the actual font design. You have to refer to the manual for font samples.

For the LW-900P, the Label Editor is not the most user friendly. I find it easier to pick a preset template and edit to my requirements, rather than create from scratch. I recommend you spend a bit of time to familiarise with the software in order to maximise the printing versatility of the LW-900P.


Label Varieties
Each cartridge comes with the label and thermal ink, so there is no need to buy separately. There are dozens of designs for various needs. The review unit comes with a white label with grey ink, white on black ink, silver on black ink. There are even iron-ons, glow-in-the-dark, other pastel colour backgrounds. The best part is that you can easily swap the cartridges around.

Durability
EPSON claims they are chemical, scratch, temperature and water resistant. I personally tried tearing the labels with my hands, scratching the printouts, and even stuck the label to a water bottle, and the labels withstood the abuses.


My Favourite...
is the LW-400. Portable and great value, with large LCD screen and backlight that lets you use in any lighting situation. And my family agrees with me.

EPSON ME Office Printer 960FWD

As I returned the EPSON Stylus Photo TX720WD printer review unit, I received another one. The EPSON ME (stands for Max Economy) Office Printer 960FWD. As you can see from the photos, the printer easily fits in any office environment.

Print, Scan, Copy and Fax. This printer is all you need for the small office. The high capacity DURABrite Ultra 4-colour pigment-based ink cartridge lets you print more pages at lower cost. You can print on both sides of the paper with the duplex function. Plus, the automatic document feeder (ADF) allows you to scan, copy and fax 2-sided documents with ease. There are many dedicated buttons on the printer that leaves little room for guessing, even for the technologically-challeged.

You can connect this printer to your computer by USB, Ethernet, or Wi-Fi. Driver installation is fuss-free when you download the EPSON web installer app, which detects the printer model and further download the appropriate software and drivers. The printer comes with multi-card readers and a USB port for PictBridge printing. You can even manage the memory card as a drive from your computer.

While the printer is equally capable of printing photos, quality does not turn out as impressive as the EPSON Photo TX720WD because the latter uses Clara Photographic dye-based ink which works best with special photo paper, while the 960FWD's DURABrite ink works best on plain paper. Printed images on the 960FWD lack the glossiness and the vibrancy, despite churning identical dots-per-inch.

EPSON iPrint. This free smartphone app for iPhone and Android lets you connect to supported EPSON printers within the network. With this app, printing photos taken from iPhones is so convenient, especially for users who rarely transfer their photos out to their computers.

The app practically lets you do everything that the printer supports: printing photos, documents stored on the phone and online (e.g. Dropbox, Google Docs), web pages, as well as initiating the scanner function and receiving the scanned copy on your phone in JPG or PDF.

An All-Rounder. I love the convenience of the ADF for your faxing and scanning needs. I love the ability to do duplex printing and save paper. There are multiple connectivity options that will meet your office set-up needs, be it using the conventional Ethernet cable or the Wi-Fi method. Corporate road warriors can conveniently print documents from their smartphones, or even scan documents for sending out over their mobile devices - no computers required. The EPSON 960FWD is your modern office printing solution.

Epson Stylus Photo TX720WD Printer Review

Would you believe that I only owned 3 printers in my entire lifetime? The first printer was an OKI dot-matrix printer in the 1990s. The second printer was an EPSON Photo inkjet printer for my university days - the printhead got clogged. The third printer was a Canon inkjet printer which lasted me almost a decade before I disposed of it when I moved house - not because it broke down, but because it could not run on Windows 7 OS.

For an entire year, I lived without a printer (save the Sony Photo Printer DPP-FP70). Granted, at times it was inconvenient, but we probably saved a few trees along the way. All-In-One (AIO) printers have been the new de-facto format and prices went down year by year. Still, there was no desire to upgrade, because of one critical factor: AIO are just too big.

Then comes along EPSON Stylus Photo TX720WD (PDF brochure link). This printer has so many features built into this surprisingly compact footprint. Could this be the only printer I ever need?

A typical all-in-one printer allows you to scan, copy and print. The TX720WD gives you a lot more. Here's a breakdown:

Printer Features

• Wi-Fi, Ethernet, and USB connections. You can connect to this printer using any of the connections. I simply adore the Wi-Fi option. This means I can put this printer anywhere in the house, without any constraints. The Ethernet option is also great so that you can use it over network. You can also print via Bluetooth with an optional USB Bluetooth adapter. And if you install EPSON iPrint app on your iPhone or iPad, you can also manage your print/scan jobs directly with the TX720WD!
• PictBridge. Plug a digital camera with PictBridge and you can easily select, adjust and print photos from your camera to the printer.
• Multi-media tray. The media tray supports all sorts of paper sizes. The 2-tier tray holds papers in 2 sizes. There is also a separate CD tray to print CDs.
• Duplex printing. The printer comes with the adapter to let you print on 2 sides of the paper. But you should get thicker paper lest the ink partially bleeds to the reverse side of the paper.
• Multi card slot. You can insert a CF card, Microdrive, SD card, XD card, Memory Stick card, and even a USB drive. I'm glad the USB "hole" is large enough to slot in large USB flash drives, so you need not require a short USB adapter, a familiar situation for many laptops.
• 2.5" TFT LCD screen. After plugging in a card, you can preview the images over the small screen. Scrolling is fast, though not exactly high resolution.
• Articulated control panel. One of my favourites, I can tilt the panel so that I can comfortably control the printer, whether it's placed at eye-level or at a lower-level.
• Sensitive touch controls. Instead of buttons, you navigate the printer using touch. The buttons are big and there are light indicators to tell you whether the buttons are operable based on the menu options.
• Multiple print style options. Besides the normal scan, copy and print, the TX720WD allows you to print your photos or scans into "colouring book" looking images. You can also print ruled papers with background images (like!). The built-in menu also allows you to print in various layouts like CD jewel case, passport-size, saving you the hassle of resizing manually.

Software Features

• EPSON Scan: allows you to initiate a scan from your PC. The software has a few modes: setting auto will let the scanner detect the scanned image and adjust accordingly. 
• Useful software: edit/enhance before print. Hmm but cannot save the edited settings?
• EPSON Easy Photo Print: this software installs a toolbar on Windows Explorer and makes printing so easy. Just select the image and click "Photo Print" to open the application and do the necessary adjustments before printing.
• Enhance image before printing: you can adjust the images, you can tweak the images, like cropping, face retouching, digital camera enhancement (a.k.a. smoothening to remove grains).

EPSON Easy Photo Print toolbar on Windows Explorer

Easy Photo Print interface.

Click "Image Enhance" brings you to another pop-up window.

Click "Portrait Enhance" opens another pop-up window. See the before-and-after preview.

Print Quality
Printing a photo-quality borderless image on the A4-sized Premium Glossy Photo Paper takes about 3 minutes. I am extremely impressed with the output of the images. They are extremely photo-like under the naked eye, and the colours are very accurate, with no visible exaggeration of any colour tones.

Stacks of photos printed from the TX720WD Photo Printer

Check out the gloss!

To probe further, I shot with a macro lens to inspect the actual ink dots.

You can only tell that the images are printed by an inkjet printer when you scrutinize at the microscopic level.

Professional users should not enable "PhotoEnhance" during printing, as the software will auto-adjust colour tones and apply softening which may ruin the image details that you painstakingly edit. The EPSON Easy Photo Print software is convenient for novices but does not give you the adjustment accuracy. Therefore, if you have an external image editor, do use that to process your images and send it unaltered to the printer. You will not be disappointed.

The TX720WD can also print other fun stuffs, like ruled paper, even graph paper in authentic green grids. I like the ruled paper with background option: the output looks really nice and appears to look like the special art paper you buy from stationery stores. The colouring book mode, however, fails to impress. What it does was to convert a full-colour photo into a black-white outlined image for colouring. But it only works if the printer can pick up the outlines. In my casual test, none of the images give me a decent output.

Ruled paper with image. Very nice resolution, almost like commercial-printed paper!

Colouring book mode fails to give a complete trace.

Scan Quality
Nothing to shout about, but scans of documents appear sharp and faithful to the original. I like how the scanner auto-detects the scanned image, auto-crops and applies optimal adjustments, though sometimes I'd wish for a semi-auto mode, so that I can fine-tune some settings rather than opting for the full-manual scan option.


Weaknesses
Here are a list of issues that I do not favour.

• Noisy start-up and moving parts during print operations.
• Printer can't operate if one of the ink cartridges is used up. There is no option to force print.
• Ink cartridge is costly. Each cartridge (82N) costs S$21 and there are 6 cartridges to handle.
• Ink uses up fast when printing photos. One of the cartridges that was replaced before I started my review has used up half after about 30 photo prints.
• The adjustments you make on the Easy Print software before printing cannot be saved. So you need to re-adjust if you want to print the same photo again in future.

6 ink-dividual cartridges, each retailing at S$21 for the normal-capacity 82N type.

Final Words
The EPSON Stylus Photo TX720WD stands out with its comprehensive printing solution supporting many media types including CD-tray. Photo print quality is outstanding, and normal paper printing is also great. Customise your own ruled writing or graph paper and impress your peers. Be prepared to spend on ink cartridges if you print a lot of photos, and the printer noise can be disturbing in a tranquil evening. With a built-in Wi-Fi, this printer can be placed anywhere in the house as an able companion for all your printing needs.