Rating of the best photo printers for home

We have com­piled a rat­ing, adding to it the best tech­nique for tak­ing pho­tos at home and in spe­cial­ized salons. Per­haps he will help you make the right deci­sion.

Content

Which brand of photo printer is better to choose

This TOP includes com­pa­nies that have been oper­at­ing on the mar­ket for a long time and have already won the trust of cus­tomers. Basi­cal­ly, it describes the prod­ucts of com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in the mid­dle price range and the pre­mi­um seg­ment. Each of these brands is quite pop­u­lar in the mar­ket and has earned a big name for itself. The top three brands are:

• Hewlett Packard is one of the most pop­u­lar and pres­ti­gious com­pa­nies in the pro­duc­tion of office equip­ment. She doesn’t have any cheap prod­ucts in her assort­ment, here are devices of the mid­dle price range and pre­mi­um mod­els. Basi­cal­ly, it pro­duces jet-type units, which are suit­able for both home use and office use by a small team. This is one of the few com­pa­nies that offer com­pact pho­to print­ers. They dif­fer from sim­i­lar options in bright col­ors and ease of use.
• Epson is the main com­peti­tor of Hewlett-Packard, but, unlike it, it is not con­cen­trat­ed on the pro­duc­tion of any one type of print­er. He has inkjet, matrix, and laser mod­els of office equip­ment. They are inter­est­ing because of their good resource, ver­sa­til­i­ty in rela­tion to the use of var­i­ous types of paper and because of their ease of use. There are con­ve­nient con­trol pan­els, capa­cious ink tanks, large paper trays with auto­mat­ic feed. Some of them can even be con­nect­ed to a PC remote­ly via the Inter­net. There are also prod­ucts suit­able for syn­chro­niza­tion with mobile devices.
• Ricoh — This Japan­ese com­pa­ny is not as wide­ly known in the Euro­pean mar­ket com­pared to Epson and Hewlett-Packard. How­ev­er, in recent years, its pho­to print­ers have been rec­og­nized as some of the best. She has mod­els for print­ing in A3 and A4 for­mat, they com­pare favor­ably with an intu­itive inter­face, eco­nom­i­cal ink con­sump­tion, auto­mat­ed work, which makes their use com­fort­able. Basi­cal­ly, we are talk­ing about laser mod­els, and there­fore the price for them can­not be called low. How­ev­er, high qual­i­ty ful­ly com­pen­sates for this draw­back, the pho­tos are clean, clear, bright, like pro­fes­sion­als.

Rating of the best photo printers

The rea­son for adding office equip­ment to the rat­ing was numer­ous pos­i­tive cus­tomer reviews, suc­cess­ful results of our tests and high marks from experts in this field. When ana­lyz­ing the char­ac­ter­is­tics of all mod­els, we relied on the fol­low­ing points:

• Ease of use;
• Effi­cien­cy of use;
• Prof­itabil­i­ty;
• Ver­sa­til­i­ty of oper­a­tion;
• Life time;
• Val­ue for mon­ey;
• Type — for pro­fes­sion­als or ama­teurs;
• Dimen­sions and design;
• The dura­tion of the war­ran­ty.

Among the char­ac­ter­is­tics, we paid atten­tion to prod­uct life, print speed, num­ber of col­ors, noise lev­el, print res­o­lu­tion, and wire­less con­nec­tiv­i­ty. Also, the warm-up time (for laser mod­els) and the first page out, the vol­ume of the tray, the type and thick­ness of the paper used were tak­en into account. Not the last place in the analy­sis of goods, as one of the selec­tion cri­te­ria, was giv­en to the rep­u­ta­tion of man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies, which, due to fame, often raise prices for their prod­ucts.

The best compact photo printers

There are very few such mod­els on the mar­ket, they include devices that can be car­ried with you and con­nect­ed to phones or tablets. With their help, it is allowed to print pho­tos of lim­it­ed sizes, on aver­age, 7x15 cm. Despite their small dimen­sions, their cost is not low. Based on print qual­i­ty and ease of use, we have select­ed one of the best pho­to print­ers out of 10 mod­els.

HP Sprocket, Black

Look­ing at the small size of this device, you do not imme­di­ate­ly under­stand why it is so expen­sive. How­ev­er, the almost flaw­less print qual­i­ty and excel­lent col­or repro­duc­tion make things clear. Of course, you can’t print large pic­tures on it, but it pro­duces stan­dard ones (7.6 x 7.6 cm) eas­i­ly. The fea­ture of this tech­nique is the abil­i­ty to send pho­tos to it from a smart­phone or tablet with­out con­nect­ing to a PC, which expands the user expe­ri­ence and saves time. Despite the small dimen­sions, 10 sheets of pho­to paper are insert­ed here with­out prob­lems.

HP Sprock­et, Black is qui­et enough and con­sumes not too much pow­er, 15.91 watts. It is con­ve­nient to car­ry it in a bag and use it not only at home, since the weight of the prod­uct does not exceed 260 g. The device is easy to oper­ate due to a thought­ful design and smart soft­ware. On the left is the pow­er but­ton, on the back is a charg­ing indi­ca­tor, a place for a cable and a reset but­ton.

Advantages:

• No draw­er;
• Good print speed
• One year war­ran­ty;
• The pres­ence of Blue­tooth;
• Accepts pho­to paper with a sticky lay­er;
• High res­o­lu­tion images.

Flaws:

• Does not feed paper auto­mat­i­cal­ly;
• Lim­it­ed pho­to size.

The best professional photo printers

These devices allow you to print not only pho­tographs, but also var­i­ous adver­tis­ing book­lets, brochures, fly­ers. Nat­u­ral­ly, the cost of such prod­ucts will be high­er than aver­age. Such devices usu­al­ly work not only with A4 and A3 for­mats, but also with stick­ers. Of all the options avail­able on the mar­ket, 3 units have been added to the rat­ing. The rea­son for this was their effi­cien­cy in work, econ­o­my, ease of use.

Epson L1800

This pho­to print­er is the best for print­ing pho­tos, in part because of the fact that it has built-in large ink tanks. In total, 6 con­tain­ers are avail­able here, which are locat­ed as con­ve­nient­ly as pos­si­ble and are not vis­i­ble to oth­ers, being hid­den under the lid. At one refill, you can print about 1,500 col­or pho­tographs in a for­mat of 10x15 cm. They are not smeared, the paints dry quick­ly and, before use, they do not need to be dried on pur­pose, as in the case of many oth­er mod­els.

When the ink runs out, com­pared to car­tridge devices, the Epson L1800 inkjet pho­to print­er can be replaced quite eas­i­ly, and the cost of the ser­vice is sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced. The reviews also write about the eco­nom­i­cal con­sump­tion of inks thanks to the 1.5 pico­l­iter “drop” print­ing tech­nol­o­gy. Trans­porta­tion of this print­er, which prints pho­tos in almost any con­di­tions, is car­ried out with­out any prob­lems, although its dimen­sions are con­sid­er­able.

Advantages:

• Wide range of paper den­si­ty — from 64 to 300 g/m2;
• Can print in black and white;
• Large resource — up to 75,000 pages;
• Good tray capac­i­ty — up to 100 sheets;
• Com­pat­i­ble with OS X, Win­dows;
• A com­plete set for instant appli­ca­tion.

Flaws:

• Sup­ports only A3 paper size;
• The out­put speed of the fin­ished pho­to is low­er than the text (191 sec.);
• Con­sid­er­able weight of 12.5 kg.

As the reviews show, Epson L1800 is suit­able for both home use and office use for print­ing not only pho­tos, but also adver­tis­ing brochures.

Epson SureColor SC-P600

This is the best pho­to print­er in terms of func­tion­al­i­ty, which boasts a com­bi­na­tion of high print qual­i­ty and ease of use. Yes, the price is not low, but it is ful­ly jus­ti­fied by the good results of use. Here, the unique Vivid Magen­ta col­or for­mu­la is tak­en as the basis, which allows you to get bright, sat­u­rat­ed, con­trast­ing pho­tos. This is what makes it pos­si­ble to call this mod­el pro­fes­sion­al.

This is one of the few devices in which, in addi­tion to the main ink (6 col­ors — yel­low, cyan, cyan, black, magen­ta light and sat­u­rat­ed), gray shades are also used. Due to this, a wide col­or gamut is pro­vid­ed, which, when print­ed, con­veys exact­ly the orig­i­nal tones. The device looks even more attrac­tive because of the impec­ca­bly high out­put speed of prints — up to 150 sec­onds ver­sus 191 sec­onds, which are observed in the pre­vi­ous ver­sion in the rat­ing.

Advantages:

• Func­tion of the press on CD/DVD;
• The pres­ence of a spe­cial tray for cre­at­ing lay­outs;
• Good print head resource;
• Menis­cus con­trol for pre­cise posi­tion­ing;
• Two USB ports.

Flaws:

• A lit­tle noisy when work­ing.

Ricoh SP C260DNw

This is the best solu­tion for both small offices and home use. This tech­nique deserves atten­tion due to high-qual­i­ty and at the same time eco­nom­i­cal print­ing. It eas­i­ly han­dles a large stream of jobs, giv­ing out about 20 pages in one minute. Equal­ly con­ve­nient here is the fact that the print­er sup­ports Mac, Win­dows and Lin­ux envi­ron­ments. The device warms up almost instant­ly and is ready for use with­in 30 sec­onds after switch­ing on.

The Ricoh SP C260DNw laser pho­to print­er works with A4, A5, A6, B5, B6 paper, and there­fore allows you to get more than just pic­tures. It is very con­ve­nient here that 150 sheets can be loaded into the tray at once, and their den­si­ty can be com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent, in the range of 60–160 g / m². As with all mod­els, the resource of car­tridges is strict­ly indi­vid­ual for dif­fer­ent col­ors, of which there are four — yel­low, cyan, magen­ta, black. How­ev­er, this is suf­fi­cient to pro­duce clear and bright images.

Advantages:

• Pow­er con­sump­tion in print mode up to 58.3 W;
• With­stands a load of up to 30,000 prints per month;
• First page out in 14 sec­onds in any col­or;
• Can con­nect with smart devices;
• It is not dif­fi­cult to refill the car­tridge with the mas­ters;
• Does­n’t dam­age sheets.

Flaws:

• Weight at 23.8 kg;
• A lit­tle noisy.

The best photo printers for home use

Such prod­ucts are usu­al­ly sold in the mid­dle price range, they may have auto­mat­ic paper feed and a large tray. Most often, they are char­ac­ter­ized by sup­port for 4–6 col­ors, but the bright­ness and clar­i­ty of the image trans­mis­sion are accept­able. They are dis­tin­guished from pro­fes­sion­al devices by a low­er print out­put speed and a not so good resource. These devices form the basis of the mar­ket. We stud­ied 10 dif­fer­ent options and, based on their para­me­ters, select­ed the 3 best pho­to print­ers.

HP DeskJet Ink Advantage 5075 M2U86C

This is a mul­ti­func­tion­al device with an opti­mal com­bi­na­tion of qual­i­ty and price, which is inter­est­ing pri­mar­i­ly because it allows you to print pho­tos and doc­u­ments direct­ly from your smart­phone. For this, inkjet car­tridges are used here, how­ev­er, they must have a spe­cial micro­cir­cuit, oth­er options are not suit­able here. But it is pre­cise­ly because of this that the high qual­i­ty and accu­ra­cy of the print is ensured.

Despite the fact that the device is not very large, it still has a wire­less con­nec­tion, which means that it is not nec­es­sary to keep it near the com­put­er. Com­mu­ni­ca­tion between them can be pro­vid­ed using Wi-Fi, and it is con­fig­ured quite sim­ply using a spe­cial adapter. For one price, the buy­er receives, along with a pho­to print­er, a scan­ner with a copi­er, which is very prof­itable. But in this mod­el, the load per month should not exceed 1200 pages in A4 for­mat, oth­er­wise it may fail pre­ma­ture­ly.

Advantages:

• Col­or print res­o­lu­tion — up to 4800 x 1200 dots;
• Black and white images are pro­duced at 1200 x 1200 dpi;
• Not very noisy;
• Con­ve­nient con­trol pan­el;
• Rel­a­tive­ly light­weight;
• Does­n’t take up much space in the house.

Flaws:

• Does not inde­pen­dent­ly deter­mine the type of paper;
• Con­sum­ables must be pro­vid­ed by your­self.

The HP DeskJet Ink Advan­tage 5075 M2U86C is a pre­mi­um mod­el, but it can’t print and scan at the same time.

HP Officejet Pro 6230 ePrinter

HP is one of the best pho­to print­er brands out there, so you expect a lot from it right from the start. This mod­el also did not dis­ap­point, although out­ward­ly it does not dif­fer from its pre­de­ces­sors in the rank­ing. Its advan­tage lies in the use of orig­i­nal in-house pig­ment ink, which guar­an­tees pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­ty prints, accu­rate col­or repro­duc­tion, dura­bil­i­ty and bright­ness.

This option is great for those who want to save on paper usage, as it cuts paper usage in half with bor­der­less print­ing on both sides. More­over, you can send pho­tos to it from any device that can be syn­chro­nized with it, includ­ing remote­ly. It’s all pos­si­ble with the 10/100 Eth­er­net option, and the HP All-in-One Print­er Remote app lets you scan pho­tos even from your mobile device.

Advantages:

• Tray for 225 sheets;
• Paper does not jam;
• With­stands pro­duc­tion up to 15,000 pages per month;
• Fin­ished prints do not fade in the sun and are stored for a long time;
• Easy to refill car­tridges;
• Excel­lent per­for­mance;
• Auto­mat­ic shut­down when idle.

Flaws:

• Sup­ports not all sizes and types of paper;
• Works with Mac and Win­dows OS only.

Canon Pixma G1410

Exter­nal­ly, this mod­el is very sim­i­lar to the HP Office­jet Pro 6230 ePrint­er, it is also an inkjet ver­sion. With its help, you can get fair­ly bright pic­tures with a res­o­lu­tion of up to 1200 × 4800 dpi. There is no smear­ing in the images and there are no com­plaints about col­or repro­duc­tion. Such an effect is pos­si­ble, in par­tic­u­lar, due to the sup­port of 4 col­ors.

Paint is not con­sumed as spar­ing­ly here as in pre­vi­ous mod­els, since the min­i­mum drop size is 2pl. How­ev­er, even with these fig­ures, this is one of the best pho­to print­ers for the home on the mar­ket, and ink replace­ment is often not required. For the price offered, this is just a gift!

Advantages:

• Col­or water-sol­u­ble ink;
• Can print bor­der­less;
• Reli­able FINE ink sys­tem.
• One set of inks is enough for 7000 pages;
• Resource — up to 6000 pages;
• Low noise lev­el;
• Ease of use;
• Tray top posi­tion.

Flaws:

• At high tem­per­a­tures, small streaks of paint may be notice­able.

Which photo printer is better to buy

When choos­ing the best office or home pho­to print­er, first of all, you need to pay atten­tion to its col­or for­mu­la. It is desir­able that there is a car­tridge or ink tanks of at least 4 shades. The stan­dard set is black, yel­low, magen­ta and cyan. How­ev­er, if there are more col­ors, the print is usu­al­ly even brighter and more inter­est­ing.

For ease of print­ing, it is bet­ter that the device can con­nect to a PC wire­less­ly via Wi-Fi. Equal­ly rel­e­vant is the abil­i­ty to trans­fer images direct­ly from the phone, which is ide­al for self­ie lovers. Those who want to receive prints of var­i­ous sizes should con­sid­er buy­ing office equip­ment that sup­ports A3, A3 +, A4 paper for­mats.

Here are some mod­els to choose from for dif­fer­ent pur­pos­es:

• For quick print­ing of self­ie images, you can buy HP Sprock­et, Black.
• For use in a pho­to salon, for exam­ple, in order to obtain prints for a pass­port and oth­er doc­u­ments, the Epson L1800 is well suit­ed.
• If you also need to print adver­tis­ing brochures, in addi­tion to pho­tos, you should pay atten­tion to the Epson Sure­Col­or SC-P600.
• For paper of dif­fer­ent types and sizes, the Ricoh SP C260DNw is the best choice.
• Ama­teur pho­tog­ra­phers can lim­it them­selves to non-pro­fes­sion­al options — HP DeskJet Ink Advan­tage 5075 M2U86C and HP Office­jet Pro 6230 ePrint­er.

Even if we are talk­ing about the best pho­to print­ers, no one can guar­an­tee the com­plete absence of their short­com­ings. There­fore, we advise you to famil­iar­ize your­self with them in advance and under­stand whether they are impor­tant to you. In any case, this rat­ing will help you make your choice!