mySimon Printers Shopping Picks

This HP printer doesn't look like much, and that's exactly the point. It can crank out 18 laser-quality black and white pages a minute, and 12 color pages a minute, and can also handle borderless 4" x 6" color prints, but its footprint is small enough (16.6" wide and 5.5" deep) so you can stash it on a bookshelf or under your desk, saving work surface area for more important things like coffee cups and Trapper Keepers. And you can get it for as little as $67. Shop for inkjet printers by price, manufacturer, and type.

New from Canon: A yellow and white bucket/beach pail! OK not really. This is the Canon Selphy CP770 portable photo printer. Actually, just the top half is the printer; it sits on top of a bucket that holds your paper, paper tray, power cord, and other supplies. The top panel of the bucket has big Fisher-Price style controls and a 2.5" LCD that lets you preview images before printing 4" x 6" photos (maximum resolution of 300 x 300 dpi). A fun thing to take to birthday parties - but not to the beach. More photo printers.

A month ago we borrowed this book called Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity from a friend. While the author's system for getting your life organized felt like too much work, the most valuable thing we took away from the book was the importance of a label maker. So we picked up the $30 Brother P-Touch PT-80 and spent a day labeling file folders and filling recycling bins with a metric ton of paper we no longer needed. Now this may not sound like a rockin' good time to you, but our OCD was happy to be unleashed for a day, and the end result - a beautifully organized file cabinet with a lot more room - is a vision to behold.

Looking for an inexpensive printer that also prints photos? Check out the Canon Pixma iP3500. It doesn't have a slot for your memory cards, but it does have a PictBridge USB port, which means you can connect your camera directly to the printer to print (no computer required), and it lets you print wirelessly from your infrared-enabled cell phone. Two paper trays let you store photo paper and regular paper, and print quality is impressive for both photos and regular documents. Best of all, you can get the Pixma for less than $65. More photo printers.

If you burn a lot of CDs and DVDs for friends (or for professional presentations), you might be interested in the DYMO DiscPainter. It's a compact printer that lets you toss the Sharpies and labels and instead print in full color right onto matte, glossy, or colorized discs, from the edge to the hub, at up to 1200 dpi. You can use the included software with its fun photo collage tool to develop designs, or just print from Illustrator or Photoshop.

Printing digital photos always sounded like a boring chore to us until we heard about the HP Photosmart A826 "home photo center." In addition to the R2D2-like design and huge 7" touch screen display, there's a "Get Creative" option that lets you add frames and captions - just type them into a virtual keyboard, choose a font and size, and put them anywhere on the image. You can even draw (a mustache) on the image with a stylus before it prints out. The printer doesn't need to be hooked up to your PC; just insert your memory cards and have fun.

For just $99, you can get a great multifunction printer that lets you copy, scan, and print photos. Highly recommended by the CNET Editors for home users on a budget ("of all the $100 multifunctions we've tested, this one produced the best text and graphics prints"), the compact Canon Pixma MP470 has a built-in memory card reader and PictBridge port, scans with resolutions up to 2400 x 4800 color dpi, and prints 4" x 6" photos in 46 seconds. Oh yeah, it also prints term papers. More multifunction printers.

Too lazy (or embarrassed) to have your digital photos printed out at the drug store? This compact Sony photo printer lets you make lab-quality color 4" x 6" prints at home, for about 29 cents apiece. No computer required - just insert your Memory Stick/SD/CompactFlash card (or connect your camera to the printer), preview the image on the large 3.6" LCD screen, and in less than a minute you'll have something ready to frame. The printer takes care of red-eye, improves exposure, sharpens focus, and even makes index prints of thumbnail images. More compact photo printers.

If you took some great photos over the holidays but you're dreading the trip to Costco to get the prints, consider getting the Epson PictureMate Snap, an affordable and easy-to-use photo printer that lets you make professional looking prints (rich color, sharp detail, true-to-life skin tones) all by yourself. You can crop out Uncle Paul, remove Mom's red-eye, add Disney borders, and print photos from memory cards, cameras, and cell phones, all without a PC. More photo printers.

Print your digital photos at home or on the go with the HP PhotoSmart A716 compact photo printer. It has a 4GB hard drive (enough room for 4,000 photos), 2.5" LCD, a remote control, and a fold-up tray and handle so you can take it with you anywhere. You can print wirelessly from camera phones and PDAs (with a separately-sold adapter), and print from most memory cards, flash drives, and PictBridge-enabled cameras. The water-resistant prints dry fast and look great. More photo printers.

Get instant printing gratification with the new HP Photosmart 475. It prints both 4" x 6" and 5" x 7" photos, as well as 4" x 12" panoramas, directly from memory cards (no computer necessary!). It's easy to use, holds up to 1,000 photos (thanks to its 1.5GB of internal memory), is Bluetooth-compatible, and weighs just 3.3 pounds. More portable photo printers.

Print your digital photos anywhere with HP's tiny new "GoGo" photo printer. No computer needed; you can print directly from PictBridge cameras or memory cards. The 2.5" LCD and kiosk-style menu let you preview, crop, edit, and print multiple photos per page. You can even print wirelessly from your camera phone, PDA, or other Bluetooth wireless device. More photo printers.

Print your digital photos at home with Epson's new PictureMate Deluxe Viewer Edition. This personal photo lab makes it easy to view, edit, and print glossy and fade-proof 4" x 6" photos, for just 29 cents apiece. It's PictBridge compatible and works with all memory cards.