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Canon Selphy CP790
Printers/Copiers | First Looks
Thu 04 Feb 2010



The Bucket Printer

By Sutlej Soin

Canon's latest photo printer, the CP790 is like a magician's hat - it seems to have a bucketful of tricks. Take out the plastic latches at the sides and out pops the 1.1kg photo printer ready to be plugged into a wall socket.

Before you throw away the bucket casing, know that it can be used to stash all your power plugs, supplies and cables so that you can carry it anywhere you go. Beach-lovers can even tote it along to the beach, where the small 246.9 x 178 x 86.4 mm device can be used as (yes you guessed it) a bucket.

The Slimy Green Monster

Atop the CP790, you will find a 3-inch color LCD accompanied with a host of navigation controls called the Easy Scroll Wheel for you to go through the images and select them for quick printing. Besides that, you can also use it to make further enhancements like image trimming, red eye correction and color effects, all before the images are sent to print.

What’s great is that the buttons are big and easy to press that even a grandmother or kid can navigate them with ease. The key feature that we loved about the Selphy series is the fact that the digital camera does not need to be connected to the printer when we want to print. The options that are made available to us include a host of memory cards formats (SD, miniSD, SDHC, MMC, CompactFlash, Memory Stick Pro just to name a few) or from a PictBridge-connected device like a Canon camera for instance.

A Dye-ing Process

When we conducted a print test, a single 4 x 6-inch photo took us a total time of 56 seconds which is a reasonable amount of time. To the untrained eye, the print quality is good. But if we had to nit-pick, we would have to say that some of the images lacked details and were slightly pixelated. But really, what can you expect from a mid-range portable photo printer?

We were also impressed that we didn't have to wait for the ink to dry on the print. The quality can be attributed to the dye sublimation process which recreates the fine gradation look typical of film-based photographs.

Cheap and Good, We Like.

The Selphy's print pack includes a bunch of paper and an ink cartridge such that once the ink finishes, the paper will too. 108 pieces of 4R photo paper plus the ink cartridge will set you back S$37.90 which means a single 4R will be around S$0.35 which we think is quite reasonable.

At S$249, it sure beats having to go to your neighborhood photo kiosk when you need something printed quickly. The easy-to-use features and navigation system also makes it an idiot-proof, perfect compact photo printer. So go ahead and print up a storm. 

Product Specifications

  • Printing Method: Dye-sublimation thermal print method (with overcoating)
  • Resolution: 300 x 300dpi
  • Gradation: 256 shades per colour
  • LCD Monitor: 3-inch color LCD
  • Weight: 1.1kg
  • Price: S$249
  • Dimensions: 246.9 x 178 x 86.4mm (printer only)
  • Power Consumption: 60W or less
  • Supported memory cards: CompactFlash, MicroDrive, SD, miniSD, Memory Stick and more