Portable printers come in various shapes and sizes. Some come in sleek designs similar to a laptop and some come in structures that look like a tool box. Some, aside from the different shapes, come with different combinations of features. Some come with wireless printing capabilities which enable you to print directly from PDAs, laptops or mobile phones. Some allow pc-less printing with the use of memory card slots. Some offer maximum portability with the use of built-in batteries.
If you are looking to buy a portable printer, it is important that you make an informed decision. There are a lot of models for portable printers. Most printer companies have their own series of mobile printers and each one of them has their own strengths and weaknesses. It is a common practice for printer companies to compromise on some features especially when they are trying to increase one feature. With the case of portable printers, they wish to decrease the size for maximum portability. However, it is important that you choose the one that does not compromise on 2 of the important features for a portable printer
Picture Quality
One feature that should not be compromised is the quality of the output. It is important to maintain a high grade of output despite the small size of the machine. In the previous years, printer companies experimented on minimizing the size of the printer. However, this made others resort to printing technologies that did not assure high resolution prints. The best example would be the smallest printer in the world, the PrintStik from Planon. The PrintStik only weighs a little over a pound. Unfortunately, the best resolution it can offer is 600dpi and it only prints in black and white. If you want picture quality, you can take HP portable printers or the ones from Canon. Currently, the Canon Pixma iP100 holds the highest resolution available for portable printers. At a resolution of 9600 x 2400, you can assure yourself of the highest degree of accuracy when it comes to printing pictures.
High Speed
Speed is an important feature for a printer. The purpose of having a portable printer is that you are able to conveniently carry it with you wherever you go. It is for this purpose that you want things done quickly. Having a printer with a low printing speed will not serve this purpose. The fastest available speed for a mobile printer happens to be one of HP portable printers, the HP OfficeJet H470WBT. It prints at a speed of 22 pages per minute in monochrome and 18ppm in color. It comes with a fold up tray that can hold 50 sheets. This means you can have a 50-page report in less than 3 minutes without having to feed the pages manually.
These are the two features that you should not be willing to compromise, when choosing a portable printer. Fortunately, there are some models that have high speed printing and good picture quality even though they are not exactly the fastest or have the highest resolution. It’s all about balancing the features that will make the printer worth buying.
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