Built around a very different printer technology to the other devices in this group test is the small, portable Selphy CP720 from Canon.

The unit uses dye sublimation rather than ink and therefore requires special paper and cartridges. In the past, these types of printers and their respective media have often worked out more expensive than inkjets, but the Selphy is priced at less than £100 and Canon claims that per-print costs are on a par with its inkjet models.

Although there are two other small-form printers in our test (the Epson Picturemate PM240 and the Lexmark 350), the CP720 is definitely the most portable of the lot, with a footprint not much bigger than the postcard-sized prints it produces.

One thing we would point out is that the printer needs to do three passes on each photo it produces.

This doesn’t make it particularly slower than other printers (in fact, it was one of the fastest in our tests), but the combination of the front-loading paper tray and the space you need around the unit’s rear so that it can spit out the print and suck it back in again means it takes up a lot more room when in use.

Prints from the CP720 were of excellent quality; very detailed and colourful, although slightly darker and less glossy than those produced by inkjets.

This article is part of a group test of photo printers.

See also:
Canon Pixma MP510
Epson Picturemate PM240
Epson Stylus Photo R265
HP Photosmart D7160
Lexmark P350

A table of features can be found via the attached pdf above.