Photo Printer Review

Photo Printers range from $125 bucks up to more than $500, which printer is right for you? We performed a photo printer review on three of Americas leading Digital Photo Printers to help consumers make a smart decision and buy the printer that best suits their needs. 

We put the Canon PIXMA iP5000, the HP 8150, and the Epson Stylus Photo R320 to the test and found that despite the manufacturer’s claims that their printer produced the “best photo prints” over any model in its price range, there were distinct differences between the top three best photo printers.

For plain paper printing such as Word documents, spreadsheets and PowerPoint slides, the output from all three was excellent. However, under magnification, the HP text images were just slightly sharper and blacker. The Canon printed the fastest, followed by the HP and the Epson. A Word page took 9, 16 and 24 seconds, respectively; a spreadsheet took 15, 25 and 30 seconds; and a PowerPoint slide with colored graphics took 25, 25 and 35 seconds.

For photo printing, the print quality of the Epson Photo Printer and Canon Photo Printer were equally superb and hard to tell apart, while the HP Photo Printer was excellent but not as good. The HP images had a subtle "engraved" look between the transitions of colors and the colors were slightly cooler. HP uses two cartridges, a black and a tri-color, compared to the Canon and Epson's six. With the HP you need to replace the tri-color when one of the three colors runs out, which can be more costly. Prints made with Epson's and Canon's high gloss photo papers looked most like photographic prints.

Printing time for 4" x 6" color photos was 70 seconds for HP, 90 seconds for Canon and 105 seconds for Epson. For 8 x 10 prints, Canon and HP took about two minutes and Epson took nearly three minutes. HP recommends using two different pairs of cartridges, one for plain paper printing and the other for photos. You need to store the unused cartridges in an airtight container to prevent them from drying out and remember to switch back and forth. Also, HP's 4" x 6" photo paper has extensions at each end of the paper which need to be trimmed after printing.

All three companies say they've made progress in improving their prints' resistance to fading under bright lighting, claiming 70 to 100 years' life in a bright room. (I didn't have time to test their claims!) Although rarely mentioned, moisture can also be an enemy of print stability, so I gently wiped each image with a moistened tissue after the images had fully dried. The results were surprising and unexpected.

While the Epson and Canon prints were not affected, the ink on the HP prints simply wiped off, destroying the print. That's a major deficiency in HP's printing process.

Since photo print quality is key, my recommendations are for the Canon PIXMA iP5000 or the Epson Stylus Photo R320. Choose the Epson if you want the capability to print directly from the printer or onto CDs, and the Canon if the duplex printing feature and higher print speeds are more important. Both photo printers produce some of the highest quality prints I've ever seen, significantly better than their predecessors just a few years ago, and at a reasonable price.