Review: Canon Pixma iP90v photo printer

If lugging a laptop isn’t giving your shoulder the workout it needs, then a portable printer will up the burn.

There are plenty about, although some are so blocky in design that they’ll not fit into a laptop bag compartment.

Not so the Canon Pixma iP90v, which is styled like a laptop, albeit twice as thick and about half the depth of a 15in model. Nevertheless, it promises colour prints at 12ppm (pages per minute) and mono at 16ppm.

Photo-quality prints from the four-colour, 4,800 x 1,200dpi  Fine print-head technology take rather longer - 81 seconds for a 10x15cm borderless print. Standard-sounding performance, but Canon says the iP90v is the only portable printer capable of producing borderless A4 photo prints. And with USB, IrDA and optional Bluetooth connectivity, it’s a gregarious device.

At 1.8kg, the iP90v is light enough to tote easily, although the plastic casing feels as though it wouldn’t stand much dropping, so care should be taken while handling.

Set-up is a cinch, the diminutive BCI-15 and BCI-16 ink cartridges taking about two minutes to prep themselves for first use. Mac owners get Canon’s Easy-Photoprint, while Windows users also receive Easywebprint and Photorecord, along with drivers that feature photo-optimisation software.

The printer’s lid flips up to act as a paper support, but there’s no output tray so you need to site the device so that prints don’t end up on the floor. Colour output appears crisp, with solid blacks and muted colour typical of prints on standard, non-glossy paper.

Borderless A4 photo printing is, indeed, possible, although the four-colour ink system doesn’t give the richness of colour that pro photographers demand. However, users needing quick prints of colour brochures, for example, will find the output adequate.

They may, however, baulk at paying an extra £50 for the optional battery pack, which adds to what is already a steep price for an A4 colour printer.