Pros & Cons
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- Highly portable: It's small, it's light, and the only consumable you need to carry is paper.
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- Relatively poor photo quality.
- High cost per photo.
- Small preview screen.
- Photo lifetime rated at only 10 years.
Pandigital Portable Photo Printer Specs
| Claimed lifetime for photos - dark storage: | 10 years |
| Color or Monochrome: | 1-pass color |
| Connection Type: | USB |
| Cost Per Page (Color): | 40 cents |
| Direct Printing from Cameras: | Yes (via cable) |
| Direct Printing from Media Slots: | Memory Stick |
| Direct Printing from Media Slots: | Memory Stick Pro |
| Direct Printing from Media Slots: | MultiMedia Card |
| Direct Printing from Media Slots: | Secure Digital |
| Direct Printing from Media Slots: | xD-Picture Card |
| Duty Cycle: | 10 pages per month |
| Ink Jet Type: | Dedicated Photo |
| LCD Preview Screen: | Yes |
| Maximum Standard Paper Size: | 4" x 6" |
| Number of Ink Colors: | 3 |
| Photos - HIGH -QUALITY SETTINGS - Adobe Photoshop 7 - Average output time per print: 4" x 6" prints : | 1:14 (min:sec) |
| Printer Category: | Zink |
| Tech Support: | 1 year parts and labor |
| Tech Support: | 800-715-5354 |
| Tech Support: | http://www.pandigital.net/support |
| Type: | Printer Only |
| Water/smudge proof or resistant: | Yes |
When ZINK technology was announced in December 2007, it was the first new printer technology in years that was potentially of interest to a wide range of people. (The next most recent was thermal dye technology, which I first reviewed in 1992). But the first-generation ZINK printers—the
Most of the Pandigital printer's strong points are related to its portability. At 1.5 by 6.2 by 6.75 inches (HWD), it's small enough to fit in a coat pocket, and at 1.75 pounds complete with a full tray of paper, it's much lighter than most small-format printers. Even better, because ZINK technology embeds the ink in the paper—in the form of dye crystals—the only consumable you have to worry about carrying with you is the paper itself.
In addition to portability, the printer earns points for ease of use, which I'll come back to shortly. In most ways, however, it's well behind the competition, with a mere 1.4-inch color LCD preview screen and no built-in editing features, even though it can print directly from a USB key or memory card. It can also print directly from PictBridge cameras.
Setting up the Pandigital printer is a snap. To print from a memory card, USB key, or camera, simply load paper in the paper tray (the printer comes with a pack of 5 sheets), insert the tray in the printer, and plug in the power cord, all of which shouldn't take more than a minute or so. To print from a computer as well, insert the supplied CD and run the automated installation program. I installed the printer driver on a Windows Vista system, but according to Pandigital, the disc also includes drivers for Windows XP, Windows 7, and Mac OS X 10.5 and higher (but only for Macs using an Intel CPU).
Once the printer is set up, printing from a memory card or USB key is a simple matter of plugging in the card or key, using the front-panel arrow keys to move to the photo you want to print, and hitting the Enter key twice. Similarly, to print from a camera or computer you only need to plug either one into the printer, and print using the camera's print commands or an appropriate program on the computer.
As I've already mentioned, the printer doesn't offer any editing features—not even for such basics as cropping or red eye removal—which makes the printer somewhat limited in capability but extremely easy to use.
Speed and Quality
The Pandigital printer scored reasonably well on speed. I timed it at an average 1 minute 14 seconds for a 4-by-6 on our standard test photos printed from a computer, compared to a 41 second average for the Editors' Choice
Output quality, unfortunately, was significantly worse than you'll get from most of today's inkjets. Key issues include colors that were outside of a realistic range for several photos, an obvious reddish tint in some shades of gray in a monochrome photo, obvious aliasing (aka jaggies) in the spokes of a wheel in one photo, and a loss of detail in both dark and light areas in several photos. Light lines on a white background simply disappeared in one photo, and a blue sky with white clouds turned into a nearly solid white block in another. Details in dark areas turned into solid black blocks in still other photos.
More generally, the photo quality was acceptable for some photos, but far below the level you would expect for an inkjet printer today in almost all cases. There's also an issue with photo lifetime: Pandigital warrants the photos against fading for only 10 years in dark storage (as in an album), compared with, for example, 200 years in dark storage or 96 years framed behind glass for Epson PictureMate Charm photos. On the plus side, the photos scored reasonably well for water and scratch resistance in my tests.
Running Costs and Warranties
Another important issue for the Pandigital printer is its running cost. At $39.99 for 100 sheets of paper—the most economical way to buy supplies—the cost per photo works out to 40 cents each. In comparison, the running cost for the PictureMate Charm is less than 26 cents per photo.
The standard 1-year warranty, with the owner responsible for paying the cost of shipping the printer to Pandigital, is also lacking compared with Epson's warranty for the Charm, with Epson picking up the shipping charge in both directions.
Given that the Pandigital printer costs only about $20 less than the Epson PictureMate Charm but costs more to run, it's hard to recommend without reservation. Print just 200 photos on each printer, and the savings in running costs for the Charm will more than make up for the extra initial cost—not to mention that the Charm is faster and delivers better output quality. Even the $100
Ultimately, although the Pandigital printer's second-generation ZINK photo quality is much better than the quality in first-generation ZINK printers, and I look forward to seeing it get better still, for the moment it's just not a match for inkjets or thermal dye printers. If you're not too demanding about photo quality, don't plan to print a lot of photos, and can find the Pandigital printer at a deep discount, it might be worth considering. Otherwise, it is best thought of as demonstrating the promise of ZINK technology, but, unfortunately, without quite delivering on that promise.
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