Lexmark P450

Dedicated photo printers have been around for a while now, but the latest model from Lexmark adds a CD writer, so not only can you print your photos, you can write them straight to CD without bothering your computer.

Features
The device comes with lots of options for collecting photos. You can remove the memory card (CompactFlash, Secure Digital, Memory Stick, SmartMedia or xD) from your camera and slot it straight in, utilise PictBridge if your camera supports it, plug in a USB memory drive or use aCD with photos on. With an optional adapter you can even use Bluetooth to wirelessly connect if your camera is compatible. Then just choose the photos you want to print via a simple menu, load up the paper tray and off you print. Its CD writer also means you can copy photos directly from your camera onto a CD-R.

Performance
Unfortunately, the prints themselves don’t stand up to close scrutiny. We used Lexmark’s own printer paper and although they look good enough at first glance, with reasonable colour reproduction for a single-cartridge system, if you look closely you can see lines on the prints. If you got these from your high-street printer you’d probably kick up a fuss.

Ease of use
With a minimal number of buttons and a clear on-screen menu, the printer is designed to be as simple as possible to operate. However, some of this simplification works against it. For example, if you put a photo source with a file structure into the device (like a USB memory device or CD with photos in different folders) the printer will simply list the number of pictures it finds and only let you flick through them one by one. You can’t skip to a specific folder and find the images you want. If you have a lot of images on the device, this is going to take an awful lot of time.

Value for money
Lexmark suggests that the overall cost of printing should work out to around 20p per print, based on the recommended retail price of Lexmark’s own paper and ink products. By shopping around on the net we reckon we could bring that down significantly, with services like Snapfish (www.snapfish.co.uk) offering better quality prints for as little as 10p. You’d have to really want the convenience of home photo printing to persuade you that this was a wise investment.