Sony DPP-EX50

If you're looking for a convenient and easy way to produce snapshots of your favorite digital images, consider the Sony DPP-EX50. It's a compact dye-sublimation digital photo printer that can print directly from removable media or from a connection to a conventional PC or Sony digital camera. You can view images on a PC monitor, digital camera LCD screen, or on a conventional TV via the included composite video cable. Quality is terrific, print times are reasonable (just over a minute and a half), and per-print costs rival film developing or a store-based print kiosk, when you figure in the costs of gas and time.

You won't have to give up much desk space for the DPP-EX50, which has a 2.5-inch-wide by 11-inches-deep footprint. A cartridge with the three primary ink colors and a clear-coat finish is inserted in the top of the unit and a paper cartridge slides into the front. A monochrome status-and-control LCD on the top of the unit responds to surrounding navigation and control buttons. You can also run the DPP-EX50 from any Windows image-editing or image-management application via a USB connection. If you have a Sony digital camera or camcorder that supports PictBridge, you can transfer images directly to the printer, or print images stored on CompactFlash or Memory Stick Pro media, using a TV to view them.

Sony touts the DPP-EX50 as a photo lab for your home, which overstates the printer's features, since it prints in only three sizes: 4-by-6, 3.5-by-5 and 3.5-by-4, (with borderless printing supported in the two larger sizes). Prints are sealed with a laminate Sony calls SuperCoat 2, which is dry as soon as it exits the printer and resists fading, fingerprints, and liquids. Sony's PictureGear image editing software is included, but you can use the DPP-EX50 with any Windows software. Even without a PC attached you can adjust image sharpness, brightness, contrast, and size, and create and use index prints. Using the printer with a PC, however, is significantly easier, and you don't have to sacrifice any of the DPP-EX50's convenience.

The DPP-EX50 offers excellent quality and acceptable speed. Assuming you're starting with a good digital image (we used high-resolution TIFF and JPEG files), the output is as good as you'll see with drugstore prints from most conventional film. As usual with dye-sub prints, the images can have a slight metallic shine, but most people won't notice, and the color and resolution are super. In our testing of numerous TIFF test files, it took from 1 minute 44 seconds to 1:48 to produce a borderless 4-by-6 print.

The DPP-EX50 is the least expensive of Sony's Digital Photo printer lineup. The $400 Sony DPP-EX7 has the same printing capabilities and adds a 3.8-inch diagonal color LCD screen for viewing images, but has no video output. The $280 Sony DPP-MP1 portable photo printer is more mobile, but prints only smaller, 2.0 by 3.75-inch photos.

As usual when comparing snapshot-format dye-sub printers to full-sized printers, the DPP-EX50 excels in ease of use, but is limited to photo prints. This isn't the type of printer to buy if you want to create a family newsletter or frameable, wall-sized prints, but it's a great choice for convenient snapshot printing.

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