Epson's PictureMate small-format photo printers have always stood out from the crowd, but the company has really outdone itself with its latest iteration, the PictureMate Dash ($99.99 direct). Although the Dash is the low-cost version of the newest generation of PictureMates, it offers features I'm used to seeing only on printers that cost far more—from a surprisingly big 3.6-inch LCD screen to the ability to print from a wide range of sources. It's also the fastest small-format photo printer I've seen at any price.

Like previous generation PictureMates, the Dash looks like a large lunchbox—literally, a box with a handle on it. To transform it into a printer, you set it on a flat surface and rotate the handle to the back and out of the way. Opening the top cover reveals the controls and LCD panel underneath, and transforms the cover into the paper tray. The front cover opens to turn into the output tray.

Despite including a handle, the Dash is a little less portable than it might be. It weighs 5.3 pounds and measures a bulky 9.1 by 8.7 by 6.5 inches. Even so, a battery option ($49.99 direct) lets you print anywhere, even outdoors. Epson says a fully charged battery can print about 140 photos.

Setting up the Dash is easy. Slide the four-color ink cartridge into its slot in the back, load paper, connect the power cord, and you're ready to print from a memory card, PictBridge camera, or USB key. To print directly from a computer, simply run the automated installation program and connect by USB cable.

The front panel is notable not just for the tiltable 3.6-inch LCD—which is huge for such an inexpensive photo printer—but also for the reasonably capable built-in editing commands that let you adjust brightness and color saturation, print color photos in black and white or sepia, remove red-eye, and add various frames and other graphics to photos. Although editing features are fairly common in photo printers, they're usually AWOL at this price. The Dash also includes an automatic photo fix feature that's on by default.

After timing the printer, I can only say that the Dash is well named. On our standard suite of 4-by-6 photos printed from a computer, it took a consistent 42 seconds per photo, which makes it the fastest photo printer I've ever tested. And it's not fast solely on our standard photo suite. I timed it at 38 to 46 seconds per photo whether printing from a CompactFlash memory card, a USB key, a computer using a range of other photos, or over a PictBridge connection using a Canon PowerShot S60 camera.

As a point of comparison, second place on our standard suite is a tie, at roughly 50 seconds, between the Olympus P-11, which costs about half again as much as the Dash, and the Sony Picture Station DPP-FP90 which costs twice as much.

Of course, high-speed performance is pointless if the photos don't look good. Fortunately, the Dash excels here as well. All of the photos I printed, regardless of source, qualify as true photo quality. They're one step down from what you might get at a professional photo lab or from a much more expensive printer, but easily a match for what you would expect from a local drugstore or photo shop.

Colors were well within the range of reasonable, and the only flaws I saw were things that you're not likely to notice without a frame of reference. One photo, for example, lost a little detail in a dark area when compared with the source. If you didn't already know it should have more detail, however, you wouldn't notice anything wrong. On another photo, thin white lettering on a black background filled in slightly, but again, if you didn't know what the original looked like, you wouldn't know there was a problem.

The photos are also long lived. Epson says its pictures will last 200 years in dark storage (as in an album) and 96 years framed behind glass. Testing for exposure to air is still underway as of this writing. Just as important, the photos are reasonably water resistant and scratch resistant, making them safe to pass around to other people without worrying that they'll come back ruined. Even after shuffling through the stack of photos multiple times, I didn't see any surface scratches. They'll show water stains if you leave drops to dry on them, but I held one under running water and rubbed it without any visible harm.

Also very much worth mentioning, and another strong point, is the cost per photo. At $37.99 (direct) for a print pack with enough ink and paper for 150 photos, the cost is just 25.3 cents—the lowest price per print for any dedicated small-format photo printer. The current range for the category is from 25.3 to 30 cents. If you prefer matte photos, the price is a little higher, at $32.29 (direct) for enough ink and paper for 100 photos, or 32.3 cents each.

My only complaint about the Dash is decidedly minor: Epson put the USB and PictBridge connectors in the back, which makes it a little cumbersome to plug in a PictBridge camera, a USB key, or a USB cable. Fortunately, that's one small design flaw in a superb printer. The Dash delivers a combination of features, speed, and output quality that until now has been unheard of at this price. In the process, it has redefined what you should demand in a low-cost, dedicated photo printer; raised the bar significantly for the competition, and become the latest PictureMate model to earn an Editors' Choice.

Check out the Epson PictureMate Dash's test scores.

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