Love that portability but why do you?: Do you need a portable printer?
Jan 23 '01
The Bottom Line Determine the needs of your office and printing needs. If your needs don't support a case for buying a portable, you shouldn't buy the portable printer.
So you're looking for a portable printer? You've saved up some money and want to get a printer that you can use both at home, in the car, on the road, and anywhere you can easily take it. The answer is obvious that you buy a portable printer!
Or is it?
Before you go and purchase a portable printer, look first at the pros and cons of having a portable printer versus a desktop one.
What's so nice about a portable printer?
That isn't too hard to see. You get a fairly easy to carry printer that doesn't weigh many pounds that can operate through an AC adapter, car adapter, or NiCd, NiMH, or Lithium Ion battery. It makes it easy to print a document just about anywhere. On top of that, you can set up most portables to act as a home office printer as well. These few advantages tend to outweigh what the user's own needs are in deciding towards a portable printer.
Ok, that's cool! So who cares about the problems of a portable printer!?
Well, you should! The fact of the matter is that portable printers give you much less bang for your buck compared to a desktop printer with the same print output quality. For example, the HP DeskJet 350 portable costs $300-350 to buy. The desktop equivalent is a low end DeskJet 6xx series printer which is less than a $100! You are getting a printer with a slower print speed with poorer print output for your money. Ink cartridges can also be more expensive since these cartridges need to fit into a smaller form factor than a desktop printer. Again, for comparison sakes, the DeskJet 350 is capable of 3-4 ppm print speed with an acceptable picture print quality (but not photo-quality) for $300. The DeskJet 930 prints up to 9 ppm B&W in draft mode and 7 ppm color in draft mode. The 930's draft mode also kicks the 350 print output all over the place. The 930 gives photo-quality prints!
Desktop printers also tend to have more features than similarly priced portable printers. The DeskJet 970 is now under $300 and allows for duplex printing as well as high speed output and great photo-quality prints.
Decide what you want from your printer!
What to do?
Before you decide on which portable printer, you have to evaluate your own needs. If you need high quality printer output with a good print speed, then look at a desktop printer. If you think you need portability, then evaluate the needs of your travel. If it is between home and office, then consider other low cost but high quality desktop printers from Epson, HP, Canon, Lexmark, etc... You will find that there are excellent printers out there where you can purchase 2 maybe even 3 of those models for the price of a portable printer. If you do alot of traveling to other cities, decide on the level of detail that the printer can provide, and determine whether the places you are traveling to have office services for printing. Many hotels offer such services. Otherwise, stay away from portable printers if you don't have a real reason to purchase one... If you decide on getting a portable, well...
What to look for?
As with shopping for a desktop printer, you have to look at print quality, speed, and text quality. However, you have to keep in mind that weight, battery power, and size also count much more than in desktop printer shopping. You should also consider accessories and cost of the ink cartridges.
As I have already said, don't expect the same print quality that you would from most desktop printers. At this time, it doesn't exist in portable printers. However, models by HP and Canon provide acceptable print quality. It's not eye popping but it will do. Text quality will be acceptable to good, but will still exhibit slight streaking and smudging from time to time. Speed is not an important factor in portable printers since they are all generally slow compared to the low end desktop inkjets.
Now, the size and weight of the portable should be carefully considered. The HP DeskJet 350 is rather bulky for a portable and heavy as well. It was meant to be more of a printer you could move from office to office rather than use in the car or a plane. The Canon BJC-50 is extreme small and light in comparison... easily having half the size and the weight of the average notebook computer. Both have rated battery life of 100-200 pages per full charged battery. The HP uses NiMH batteries while the Canon uses Lithium Ion.
As far as accessories go, the Canon BJC-50 has an optional 360 dpi scanner cartridge. The BJC-85 has an optional 360 dpi scanner cartridge (the same cartridge for the BJC-50) and sheet feeder (although it does have a 30 sheet capacity feeder built in and infrared port). The DeskJet 350 has an external infrared port and 30-sheet feeder included. However, you can purchase a 100-sheet feeder as well.
Ink cartridges are more expensive for the Canon since the cartridges are unique to the BJC-50, BJC-80, and BJC-85 printers. The DeskJet 350 uses the same cartridges as the HP DeskJet 5xx and 6xx series... so they are much easier to find and cheaper to purchase.
To my memory, I can only think of the Canon BJC-50, Canon BJC-85, and the HP DeskJet 350 as the only portable printers still being actively sold on the market. I know Citizen had made one 2-3 years ago that could more or less fit in your pant pocket but I don't know if it is still made. I haven't heard of any other portable printers made recently but I assume that Canon and HP would update their offerings in the near future.
I have written comprehensive reviews on the HP DeskJet 340/350, Canon BJC-50, and Canon BJC-85 on epinions. Feel free to check them out.
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Member: Rich Go
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