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ReviewsEpson PictureMate Deluxe Viewer Edition Photo Printer
PC Magazine commented in May 2005:
The original Epson PictureMate impressed us enough to earn the Editors' Choice for dedicated photo printers, and it has held on to that position against all comers. The PictureMate Deluxe Viewer Edition ($249.99 direct) maintains all the features we liked in the first PictureMate (from true photo-quality output to a low cost per print) and adds still more, most notably a color LCD to let you preview prints. That makes it a shoo-in as our new Editors' Choice.
Like the original, the new PictureMate is designed for portability, but even more so. Both measure 6 by 10 by 6 inches (HWD), weigh 5.5 pounds, and have a handle and a shape that make them look like a mini boom box. But the Deluxe Viewer Edition also has a battery option ($69 direct) with enough juice for a claimed 60 to 80 prints (approximately two hours of continuous printing, according to Epson), so you can take it with you to print photos on the spot, even if there's no place to plug in a power cord.
Setup is just as easy as with the original. Simply slide the single six-color ink cartridge—with cyan, yellow, magenta, black, red, and blue inks—into the slot in the back, load the photo paper, connect the power cord, and you're ready to print from a camera, external CD or ZIP drive, a USB memory key, or any type of memory card, although you'll need an adapter for miniSD cards and some Memory Stick formats. To print from your computer, the only additional steps are to connect by USB cable and run the automated install program. You can also add Epson's optional Bluetooth adapter ($69 direct) for wireless printing.
The most obvious difference from the original model is the color LCD and a slightly different set of menu control buttons. We found the menus easy to understand and use, and the LCD bright and easy to read. The menu choices are well thought out, with options, for example, to mark individual photos or print everything. You can also set the defaults to match the settings you use most often. And you'll find options to crop and resize photos, adjust brightness, add frames, and more. The preview images were a little blurred, but once you realize that the output won't also be blurred, it's easy enough to ignore that.
The August 2005 edition of PC World magazine agreed:
Epson's original PictureMate snapshot printer has been a PC World Best Buy ever since we first reviewed it in June 2004. Now, for about $50 more the company is offering the PictureMate Deluxe Viewer Edition, which addresses the few quibbles we had with the previous excellent version.
The most notable difference is the 2.4-inch color monitor that flips up from the top of the printer and lets you view and edit your photos.
The Deluxe Viewer Edition is also faster. When we connected our shipping unit to a PC, our test photo printed in 1 minute, 39 seconds--37 seconds faster than the original and swifter than many of the other desktop photo printers we've tested. The quality is excellent, too: Our photos appeared bright and sharp, with plenty of shadow and highlight detail. Part of the reason for the speed increase may be the printer's USB 2.0 Hi-Speed port.
Macworld said in July 2005:
The Deluxe Viewer Edition is noticeably faster than the original, which took a little over two minutes to print a 4-by-6-inch, borderless print in stand-alone mode; this newer version printed the same image in just over a minute and a half.
Wherever you print them, the PictureMate’s prints are clear, colorful, and pleasing to the eye. Skin tones looked a little strange, though. One viewer thought they looked flat, but to me, it looked like a little makeup had been applied, removing some of the shine that you’d naturally see on people’s faces. You certainly can get a better, more lifelike print from some desktop ink-jet photo printers, but most consumers and weekend shooters will love the prints they get from the PictureMate.
…You can’t ask for a better, more convenient portable ink-jet printer than the PictureMate Deluxe Viewer Edition. Its speed and image quality are great. But the new 2.4-inch LCD, which offers thumbnail previews, and the optional rechargeable battery, make this little printer shine.
Business Week in August 2005 commented:
Epson's PictureMate Deluxe Viewer Edition is a big improvement over its original PictureMate: It now has a color display for previewing and selecting pictures, which HP has always had. It's faster, too, printing a snapshot in 90 seconds instead of the former 2 1/2 minutes.
But here's the dilemma: Epson's older model is now a bargain, if you don't mind picking the shots you want to print from an index sheet rather than from a color display. You should be able to find it for $150 to $180, and there's a $50 rebate on it that's good through September. That means that you can get the older model for half the price of the new one.
The Epson corporate website carries considerable detail on the printer.
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February 8th, 2006 |
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Epson
is one of the world’s premier printer manufacturers, and the PictureMate
Deluxe Viewer Edition photo printer is one of the most popular of its
enormous range.