Top 5 Printers
Photograph by Rick Rizner
A year ago, outstanding print quality was rare; at that time, only relatively expensive printers produced such attractive photographs. Though
Though the current crop doesn't print on paper wider than 8.5 inches, you'll like the glossy prints, any of which we'd hang beside the lab-printed photos on our walls, without a twinge of embarrassment. We noticed small differences in skin tones among the prints, but all of them accurately rendered subtle details in shadowed areas and had vivid, realistic colors.
Our Best Buy, the Canon i960 Photo Printer, edged the competition with its all-around print quality--not just for glossy photos. While other models faltered with less impressive prints of line art or photos on plain paper, the i960 delivered consistently good results. A plus for the impatient: The i960 was quick at generating color glossies--more than twice as speedy as the other new models tested this month. If your digital camera doesn't support Canon's PictBridge direct-print standard, however, you may want to look elsewhere, as the i960 has neither memory card slots nor an LCD for previewing your images.
The other new models on the chart have memory card slots and at least one LCD; and the Epson Stylus Photo R300M has two LCDs, so you can preview photos on one display while looking at control panel menus on the other. The R300M is also the only unit here that can print directly onto specially coated CDs and DVDs.
Except for its slightly less attractive line art, the $200 HP Photosmart 7760 equaled the print quality of the $300 HP Photosmart 7960. So what do you get for the extra $100? The Photosmart 7960 has a slightly larger LCD, and it simultaneously holds three, instead of two, ink cartridges. And if you purchase the optional black and photo gray cartridges for the 7760--the cartridges come standard with the 7960--you'll have already spent almost half the amount you originally saved.