Amazon.com Product Description The PictureMate from Epson is a photo printer designed to produce lab-quality prints from the comfort of your own home. With its simple one-touch printing, 5,760 x 1,440 maximum dpi resolution, and convenient PictureMate Print Packs, this printer is a remarkable combination of quality, ease of use, and affordability. Wide Compatibility | | Slots for digital camera memory cards in several formats | The PictureMate prints JPEG or TIFF photos from any USB digital camera and is compatible with both Mac and PC operating platforms. A wide variety of card types are also accepted, including CF Type I and II, SmartMedia, Sony Memory Stick/MemoryStick PRO, Duo (requires adapter), SD, MMC, and xD-Picture. The printer initially comes with a starter photo cartridge and 20 sheets of paper. Thereafter, you'll purchase PictureMate Print Packs, which contain 100 sheets of paper and a photo ink cartridge with an approximate 100-page yield. Prints That Last and Stay Beautiful | | Original print (left), then a spill-and-wipe test on leading glossy and semi-gloss papers (two middle) and on PictureMate (right) | The prints resist water, smudging, and most notably fading. Epson estimates an archival lifetime of up to 200 years if the photos are kept in a relatively dark place (such as a photo album) or up to 100 years in a frame (see Epson's web site for details). True borderless printing (or bordered, if you prefer) combined with sturdy stock help to give your prints a professional look and feel. A cartridge level indicator lets you know how much ink you have left. Easy Operation | | Simple menus and one-touch buttons make printing a snap! | Other features include a multiple print function that lets you make up to 100 copies of a single picture. A Save Photo button lets you back up digital files directly to an external CD-R, Zip drive, or USB Thumb drive. The small 10-by-6-inch footprint fits neatly onto your desk or countertop, and the convenient handle provides true portability. An optional Bluetooth adapter lets you print wirelessly from Bluetooth enabled devices. The PictureMate is backed by a one-year limited warranty. What's in the Box PictureMate Personal Photo Lab, power cord, starter PictureMate photo cartridge, 20 sheets of PictureMate Photo Paper, CD-ROM, user manuals; Epson Software Film Factory 3.05 (PC and Macintosh compatible, P.I.M. and Exif Print-enabled); USB cable not included |
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Terrific Little Printer
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| Review Date: September 9, 2004 |
| Reviewer: Rev. Paul D. Doellinger, Monmouth, or |
Before I bought the Epson PictureMate, I had some of my digital photos printed at the local drug store. Then I took them in to the store where I was going to buy my Picture Mate and asked them to print the same pictures so I could compare the quality.
There was no comparison! The pictures printed by the Epson PictureMate were 100% better than the same pictures when they were printed commercially. So I bought it immediately.
for $29 you get a six jet ink cartridge plus 100 sheets of 4 x 6 paper -- making the cost 29 cents per photo, same as in the store. Epson guarantees that you can print 100 pictures from the ink cartridges. Being somewhat cheap, I have printed several more pictures after the 100 sheets ran out. I did find that the quality on another brand of paper is not as good as on the Epson paper. They probably design the ink and paper to be used together.
I am very satisfied with my Epson PictureMate. We took a long vacation this summer in a travel trailer, and it is compact enough to store easily, and easy enough to use that when I wanted to print up some of my photos I did. |
Best Little Photo Printer Ever!
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| Review Date: November 2, 2004 |
| Reviewer: In. Novick, Long Island, NY |
I have owned the Epson PictureMate for the past five months and have printed at least 1000 pictures with it. No other photo printer I have ever owned comes close. The prints are dry coming out of the printer, scratch resistant, and gorgeous. They are equal in quality to 60 cent prints from a photo shop and superior to what you can get at CVS, Costco, or online. I routinely get at least 150 prints from each cartridge (extra paper is available from Epson at $14/100 sheets) so the cost per print is much less that the 29 cents advertised. I have only had to clean the print head once. I use Photoshop Elements to crop and edit all my photos and have never had the cropping problem described in previous reviews. I suspect that some of this my be due to the camera not being set to take 4x6 ratio shots.
A few minor caveats: You MUST use Epson PicureMate paper. Results are poor to fair with anything else. But at these prices, so what. Printing is s--l--o--w. Paper tray is too small. |
Film is finally obsolete!
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| Review Date: October 19, 2004 |
| Reviewer: And. Rasmussen, Ashburn, VA USA |
This is the killer of the last die hard film camera users! I purchased this printer for myself to go with a simple Sony 3.1 Digital Camera. My wife is the one in the family that takes all the snapshots of kids and family functions and vacations. She has resisted the digital photography revolution up until now due to the costs and hassle associated with digital photography. After one week of having this printer she changed her tune 100% and now has switched to digital photography solely due to this printer.
We've had this printer for many months and found it to be great. The ink outlasts 100 prints and you can by the Espson paper separately. So it is getting even better than 29 cents per print. The lack of a screen on the printer isn't that bad as we delete unwanted prints with the camera's functionality. It does cut off the head of the photo a bit, we are now careful to make sure the subject is not to the very top of the picture to workaround this problem.
Quality definitely is better than comparable drop off photo shops, we printed the same photo at home and had them developed at local drop offs to compare.
Only other minor annoyance iWith when you want to print just one or two photos on a card, there is no way to know what number the priter thinks they are without printing a thumbnail sheet(s).
I've had to copy the desired shots to another card via my computer as a solution to save time hassle when I want to do this.
This thing is great for basic snapshot photography people. If you take a lot of pictures and are always droping them off at local processors, this will change that forever. Its so easy to use, my six year old can even do it. The kids love to wait while the photos come out! |
If you just need 4x6 photos this is for you
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| Review Date: December 1, 2004 |
| Reviewer: Alfy, Ohio |
Great printer if all you need is 6x4 pictures. The print quality it's as advertised, top lab quality. Low price per print, since the "ink", in fact pigment, will last you more then 100 Photos.
On the down side, a little bit slow (but not 6-7 minutes like someone post it here), but considering the quality of the photos it's worth it. Also known poor Epson support.
Now if you print from desktop, the Epson driver will still somewhat crop your picture, even after you crop to 6x4 in Photoshop or something like that. That's because the printer driver increases the size of the print to allow for sloppy alignment and the edges of the photo are oversprayed (printed off the edge of the paper) when borderless is selected.
If this is a problem for you, there is a work around. Just add a border of about 15 pixels before you print, and the driver will remove the border and no additional cropping of the picture. There you go...Happy printing.... |
Perfect For Families & Photos Last 104 years!
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| Review Date: August 7, 2004 |
| Reviewer: Sn2000py, South, USA |
I only make 8x10 prints, so I would not even have looked at this printer, except I was looking for one for my sister--something simple, something that did not need to be hooked up to their computer. (The last thing we hooked up to her PC crashed their AOL. Her husband was not pleased!)
I've alSo never owned an Epson, but this one could not be beat. As I write this, there is no other 4x6 printer that compares to this one in costs. You get prints for 29 cents each. And they are waterproof. The printer itself is simple to use; my 9-year-old nephew figured out how to make prints just from reading the screen info. It also has a nice handle, so you can just take it with you on vacation or to other houses for holidays or parties. As stated, it does not need a computer. It reads cards, and has PictBridge; so, all PictBridge cameras can be connected to it.
The only problem I saw with it was it cropped the top of a picture by itself, which left someone a bit headless. But that may be something easily adjusted. Actually, this printer is too new right now to know if it has any major flaws. It seems to me it's always the users and not the editorial reviewers who actually discover most flaws in products.
If it has no flaws, However, As I said, it cannot be beat by any other 4x6 printer right now. Independent studies by Wilhelm Imaging Research even show the photos from this printer should last 104 years! Thus, it is truly the perfect printer for families or anyone else who make nothing but 4x6 prints, and lots of them! |
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