Need recommendations for fast dye-sublimation, 4x6, <$1000 printer.
September 23, 2010 4:34 PM Subscribe
I'm running a photobooth rental company, and need a new on-site dye-sub printer. I want one with fast prints and high capacity. I'd also like reasonable price (<$1000), and no tear-off strips on the prints. I've seen a few, but I'd love to hear people's experiences and recommendations.
I originally used a Canon ip4500 inkjet - decent prints (for a 4 color printer), prints took 45 seconds. Overall pretty good.
Then I switched to a Canon Selphy CP780 - prints looked better (glossier, better colors, less dithering), more durable, took 1min. Small paper tray (only 18 sheets!), annoying footprint (paper leaves the front & back of machine, have to leave extra space), and has small tear-off pieces on the finished prints.
Now I'm using a Hiti P110s. Holds 60 pages :), still has tear-off tabs :(, and takes 1:10 :(. Leaves ever-so-faint scratch marks on photos for the length of the print :( :(. The scratches are just barely visible, and the prints are passable, but annoying to me anyway. The extra capacity over the CP780 is worth it for me, but now I need something faster.
The goal: a good dye-sub 4x6 printer with Hiti P510s: $800, 330 sheet capacity, 12 second prints, and roll-fed (so I'm assuming no tear-off tabs). If it weren't for those ever-so-faint scratches from the P110s, I'd go with this immediately. However, I'd like to consider my alternatives.
There's also the Sony UPCX1. About $900, 200 sheet capacity, 16 second prints, roll fed.
I'm sure there's tons of others, but 1) it's much harder to find a good list of current dye sub printers than ink jet printers, and 2) it's hard to find good recommendations/reviews/comparisons. I've tried just browsing manufacturer's websites to find lists of dye-sub printers - they sure don't seem to make them easy to find :(
So how about you guys? Has anyone used these printers? Have any other recommendations for others in the same price/capacity/category?
Just to clarify:
-Not interested in larger than 4x6: that's useless for my (very specific) use.
-Anywhere from $800-$1000 is fine. Might possibly consider a little more if it's that much better, but $800 is very tempting.
-Small would be nice. But I know most printers in this class will be large (medium-sized laser printer size?).
-Any experiences and direct comparisons would be extremely helpful.
Thanks!
I originally used a Canon ip4500 inkjet - decent prints (for a 4 color printer), prints took 45 seconds. Overall pretty good.
Then I switched to a Canon Selphy CP780 - prints looked better (glossier, better colors, less dithering), more durable, took 1min. Small paper tray (only 18 sheets!), annoying footprint (paper leaves the front & back of machine, have to leave extra space), and has small tear-off pieces on the finished prints.
Now I'm using a Hiti P110s. Holds 60 pages :), still has tear-off tabs :(, and takes 1:10 :(. Leaves ever-so-faint scratch marks on photos for the length of the print :( :(. The scratches are just barely visible, and the prints are passable, but annoying to me anyway. The extra capacity over the CP780 is worth it for me, but now I need something faster.
The goal: a good dye-sub 4x6 printer with Hiti P510s: $800, 330 sheet capacity, 12 second prints, and roll-fed (so I'm assuming no tear-off tabs). If it weren't for those ever-so-faint scratches from the P110s, I'd go with this immediately. However, I'd like to consider my alternatives.
There's also the Sony UPCX1. About $900, 200 sheet capacity, 16 second prints, roll fed.
I'm sure there's tons of others, but 1) it's much harder to find a good list of current dye sub printers than ink jet printers, and 2) it's hard to find good recommendations/reviews/comparisons. I've tried just browsing manufacturer's websites to find lists of dye-sub printers - they sure don't seem to make them easy to find :(
So how about you guys? Has anyone used these printers? Have any other recommendations for others in the same price/capacity/category?
Just to clarify:
-Not interested in larger than 4x6: that's useless for my (very specific) use.
-Anywhere from $800-$1000 is fine. Might possibly consider a little more if it's that much better, but $800 is very tempting.
-Small would be nice. But I know most printers in this class will be large (medium-sized laser printer size?).
-Any experiences and direct comparisons would be extremely helpful.
Thanks!
This thread is closed to new comments.
I ended up using the Hiti P110S at a couple events - worst. printer. ever. During testing (and the first 15 minutes of use) it seemed fine - prints took 1:10 (a little slow), and the paper feed would malfunction if the paper cartridge was full (60 sheets), but other than that it seemed ok.
The biggest problem is that after a while of printing (say 30 min or so), the printer starts pausing in between prints for a couple minutes. It shows a dialog that says "Printer driver processing" or something, and has a steady vertical countdown/progress bar. I'm pretty sure this is related to a part in the manual which says if the printer overheats, it will pause until it cools down.
So my 1min prints were taking more like 3-5 minutes each! That caused quite a long line, with some people waiting 30-45 minutes for their picture to pop out. So that printer got returned (thanks B&H, you won a customer for life), and I'm not interested in any more Hiti printers.
I got a Sony UP-CR10L printer. It's a step up from the UPCX1, but ended up being cheaper on sale. It worked perfectly. The prints take about 25-30 seconds, the roll holds 200 at a time (not 300 like the P510s, but still good), the prints are decent. The prints are slightly blurry, so sharp edges get a bit lost. Not ideal, but definitely serviceable.
One redeeming aspect of Hiti: once I got past their incredibly awful support home page, they did respond to my email and send me a return shipping label (on their tab, no less). Good effort & gesture, unfortunately this is a key part of my business and I don't have the time to wait for a possible fix on a sub-par printer. Too bad, the specs looked nice.
So bottom line: Hiti not recommended for heavy usage, Sony worked great.
posted by jumpfroggy at 10:38 PM on October 17, 2010