Canon I70

Portable printers tend to be ugly little devices which churn out ghastly mono prints at tortoise speeds but cost a fortune. So it's no mean feat that Canon's I70 manages to look stylish and produce great results quickly, yet easily falls within any mobile professional's budget.

When taken on the road, the I70 packs flat with no loose parts to think about except for the external AC adaptor, which is also flat. To use the printer, the top lid opens clamshell-style and acts as a leanback paper input feeder, holding up to 30 sheets of standard office paper.

When this is opened, a small flap falls open at the front edge to allow printed sheets to emerge, but there is no catch tray: your printouts just slide onto the desktop.

The inkjet cartridges are flat too but also surprisingly easy to replace. Just fold open the translucent carriage cover and the printhead zips to the centre. Print speed is good for a portable product, producing 10 crisp copies of a Word text-only document in one and a half minutes.

It can also be used as a photo printer, completing a high-quality borderless 6 x 4in glossy photocard from Adobe Photoshop Elements 2 in an acceptable two minutes. Printing is not silent but is appreciably quiet.

It's still not our idea of a perfect portable printer, though. At 5cm thick, the I70 is still rather bulky to squeeze into the same carry case as your notebook, and locating the power, USB and infrared ports at the back as if it was just another desktop printer seems inappropriate.

The price is good for a miniaturised device, but battery power comes only as an extra-cost option. No other portable product comes near the I70 for speed and quality, though.

Contact: Canon 0870 514 3723
www.canon.co.uk/bubblejet

Specifications:

• Thermal inkjet technology
• 30-sheet paper capacity
• Quoted speed: 11ppm mono, 4.9ppm colour
• 1,200 x 4,800dpi resolution
• Two-cartridge system
• 64KB memory buffer
• USB2, infrared connection
• Cartridge life: black 80pp, colour 100pp (5 per cent coverage)
• Cartridge price: black £12.99, colour £19.99
• 1.8kg
• 310 x 174 x 51.8 mm (w x d x h)