Sun
1 CANON PIXMA IP90V PORTABLE PHOTO PRINTER, $375.
If you’re looking for a portable printer — small enough to fit into one of the larger laptop bags — with high print quality, then the stylish new Canon Pixma iP90v could fit the bill. Its print head has 1,088 nozzles, which allows for high-speed printing in a single pass. The unit’s maximum colour resolution is 4800×1200 dpi with droplets as small as two (count ’em, two) picoliters. Speed is 12 pages per minute in colour and 16 ppm in black. If you want to you can get (for $130) a Bluetooth unit and (for $175) a portable kit that includes a lithium ion battery.
2 EPSON STYLUS PHOTO R1400 PRINTER, $500.
With this offering from Epson, photographers don’t have to confine themselves to prints the size of a sheet of standard printer paper. Its 13-inch-wide capability lets you print in 11×14, 12×12 and 13×19-inch sizes, which means that if you’re using a six-megapixel or higher camera, your enlargements will have greater impact. The printer’s inks — in six high-capacity cartridges — resist fading for up to 98 years under glass and 200 year in an album. Epson claims good quality (not draft) print speeds as fast as 108 seconds for an 8×10 photo.
3 KODAK EASYSHARE DIGITAL PICTURE FRAMES, from $150 for a 7-inch to $330 for a 10-inch frame. Available in April.
You can view a continuous show of your favourite photos in any room in your house with these new frames from Kodak that also include speakers so that you can play MP3 music to provide background. The top-of-the-line EX811 and Ex1011 models are also WiFi enabled so you can send the photos wirelessly straight from your computer’s hard drive to the frame.
4 OLYMPUS E-410 DIGITAL SLR, $800, for body; $900 with the ED 14-42mm Zuiko digital zoom lens: $1,000 with both the 14-42mm and 40 to 150mm lens. Available in May.
When Olympus’s E-400 digital SLR, noted for its small size and easy handling, first came out it was not available in Canada. The good news is that its 10-megapixel successor, the E-410, with its live-view LCD — which lets you see what you’re snapping without looking through the lens — is available here. Also, the Olympus can be bought with two new lightweight, compact lenses that make toting an SLR around a little less of an effort.
The Vancouver Sun 2007