Canon Launches Budget Portable Photo Printers
August 26, 2008 – 9:54 pmCanon on Tuesday announced its PIXMA iP4600 and PIXMA iP3600 printers, built around the guiding principles of “easy, efficient, and economical,” according to the company. Canon also announced two additions to its Selphy compact photo printer line: the Selphy ES3 and the Selphy ES30.
Both the iP4600 and iP3600 feature a maximum color resolution of 9,600-by-2,400 dpi, according to Canon. The company claims print speeds up to 26 pages per minute (ppm) in black and 17 ppm in color for the iP3600, while the iP4600 prints up to 26 ppm for black and 21 ppm for color. Canon credits its printers’ speeds and photo quality to the Canon FINE print head technology, which is said to deliver consistent droplets as small as one picoliter accurately onto the paper. For photo printing, Canon says that the PIXMA iP4600 and PIXMA iP3600 printers will produce a 4-by-6 photo in approximately 20 and 41 seconds, respectively.
The iP4600 features two paper trays that can hold a total of 300 pages and a built-in automatic duplexer for printing double-sided documents. The iP3600 printer offers Smart LED-equipped individual ink tanks and the Canon exclusive FINE print head. The iP3600 is also equipped with dual paper paths to add convenience when switching between paper types or sizes.
In terms of included software, the Easy-PhotoPrint EX software comes with the Canon Auto Photo Fix, which detects the type of photo being printed—portrait or scenery—and when activated will help correct red eye, enhance facial tones, optimize brightness and contrast, and improve color saturation to provide better-looking photo output without manual photo editing. The iP4600 will sell at an estimated street price of $100; the iP3600 for $80.
Canon’s new compact photo printers are the Selphy ES3 and the Selphy ES30. In a first for a Canon compact photo printer, the Selphy ES3 includes 1GB of internal flash memory for photo storage. Consumers will be able to choose from a variety of ways to customize and optimize their photos with significant advancements to the frame, clip art, and calendar functions. A total of 47 frame templates are now included on the Selphy ES3 and 18 on the Selphy ES30 Compact Photo Printers. For parents who like to add clip art to their photos, there are 28 different types of colorful illustrations on the ES3 and 10 on the ES30, ranging from “Happy Birthday” cakes to musical notes. The number of layouts for the “Calendar” functionality has been increased to 12, and there are six different types of background colors as well. With the use of the Easy Scroll Wheel, setting changes can be made with the Creative Print option, making it possible to preview the image with creative touches prior to printing.
A new wide-angle viewing 3.5-inch LCD monitor can be found on the Canon Selphy ES3, while the Selphy ES30 Compact Photo Printer comes with a 3-inch high-resolution LCD monitor to facilitate checking images in horizontal and vertical directions. The Image Optimizer functionality helps to automatically correct exposure and adjust the brightness, contrast, and sharpness of the images.
Both the Canon Selphy ES3 and the Selphy ES30 Compact Photo Printers are designed with portability in mind, with a newly designed carrying handle and the power adapter now built into the printer’s body. In addition to the integrated ink and paper cartridges found on previous Selphy models, two new “Easy Photo Packs” are now available that can add a gold and/or silver effect on all your photographs. A variety of 15 types of memory cards are supported from Compact Flash to microSD cards, which can be inserted without the use of an adapter. PictBridge-enabled digital cameras can also be connected to these compact photo printers.
The estimated street prices of the Selphy ES3 and the Selphy ES30 Compact Photo Printers is $200 and $150, respectively.
Source:pcmag.com
