All this for less than $100—holy cow! The Canon PIXMA iP4700 offers up to 9600x2400 dpi resolution with a minimum color droplet size of 1 picoliter, plus a five-color ink system that consists of four dye-based inks and a pigment-based black ink, which produces outstanding photos and clean, crisp, laser-quality text. It produces up to 8.5x11-inch prints. Estimated Street Price: $99.
Hewlett-Packard inkjet photo-printing systems combine durable, innovative hardware with advanced HP Vivera pigment ink technology and superlative papers and media. The Photosmart Pro B9180 Photo Printer leverages HP’s third-generation gray ink to maximize monochrome and black-and-white output. Eight individual high-capacity pigment ink cartridges enable high-volume printing that’s quite speedy—4x6-inch photos appear in as little as 10 seconds and 13x19-inch photos print as fast as 1.5 minutes. The B9180 accepts a variety of media, including canvas, photo rag, water-color, stiff pre-matte and film up to 13x19 inches. Estimated Street Price: $699.
The HP Photosmart Pro B8850 produces outstanding photo-quality prints up to 13x19 inches and also shows off its versatility by delivering sharp text equal to a high-end laser printer. The B8850 uses an eight-color ink set and will produce a 13x19-inch print in less than 90 seconds, and can print mixed color text and graphics in as fast as 26 ppm. The B8850 features a built-in color-calibration system for reliable and predictable results using HP’s legendary pigment Vivera inks. It offers support for Adobe RGB, sRGB and ICC profiles, plus full compatibility with Adobe Photoshop. A unique monitoring system tells you when one of the individually replaceable ink cartridges is running low, and a built-in self-cleaning system reduces waste and keeps things tidy. Estimated Street Price: $549.
Photographers on a budget will appreciate the HP Photosmart B8550, which provides a terrific dye-based, five-ink thermal-jet solution that knocks out 4x5- to 13x19-inch prints at 1200x1200 dpi (up to 9600x2400-optimized dpi color when printing from a computer on select HP photo papers and with 1200-input dpi). It can print without a computer via dedicated card slots. Estimated Street Price: $299.
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