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Ease of Use (8)
With the Selphy ES1, Canon has made an easy printer technology even easier to use. Most dye sublimation printers have separate ink and paper cartridges, and typically the paper cartridge is awkward to assemble and operate. By combining the two into a single cartridge, what little fuss there is with these printers is eliminated.
While not as effortless as the cartridge, the control panel is definitely intuitively designed. Buttons are mostly self-explanatory, with navigation to and within the menu a simple process. Each manufacturer has their own quirks with menus, and it’s up to the user to learn the one they’ve purchased (or in our case, to learn them all). Different buttons control different functions among printers. Canon does a decent job of directing you through the menus with instructional cues at the bottom of the screen. The User’s Manual helps rectify any difficulties encountered.
Value(4)
The Selphy ES1’s unique design—the upright position and the combined ink and paper cartridge—sets the printer apart from its competitors. We only wish the print quality was better than the rest of the pack to justify the slightly higher price. At $249, the ES1 is $50 more expensive than many of its peers, such as the Sony DPP-FP90 or the Epson PictureMate Flash. These printers beat the Selphy ES1 (in some cases, just barely) in nearly every category, so the main reasons to purchase the ES1 over another compact photo printer would be the convenience of the combined ink/paper pack and the unique design of the printer.
Comparisons
 The Sony DPP-FP90 has a design more typical of other dye sub printers. It lays flat, and the paper comes in a separate cartridge which attaches to the front of the printer. It has a much larger LCD screen, 3.6 inches, with better resolution than the ES1. Like the ES1, the FP90 features a carrying handle, but Sony does not provide the consumer the option of a battery pack, which can be purchased for the ES1 for $99. This is a printer we’ve tested and reviewed, and it comes out ahead in all of our quality tests except for color accuracy, which both printers did poorly on. The menus are well organized and provide a lot of editing and extras, with a preview of the image before printing, something the Selphy ES1 doesn’t do. The Sony FP90 sells for $199, fifty dollars less than the ES1.
 The PictureMate Flash (PM280) is Epson’s top-end compact inkjet photo printer. This series of printers has a lunchbox design, which treads the line between cute and dull. But the prints from this baby are anything but dull. We tested the next model down, the PictureMate Snap (PM240), and it scored higher than nearly anything we’ve tested, even high-end photo printers, in most of the quality tests. Both the ES1 and the PM series have a comfortable and sturdy carrying handle and an optional battery. At $50 less each for the battery and the printer itself, the Epson PM280 comes out at $100 less than the ES1, for much superior printing quality. The problem of multiple cartridges with inkjet printers is also eliminated with the PictureMate series, as they also use a single ink cartridge which plugs easily into the back of the printer. While neither printer has a hard drive, the PM280 has a CD burner for saving images, a useful tool in a portable printer.
 The HiTi S400 sells for a little less at most outlets than the Selphy ES1 (HiTi actually offers it at their online shop for the same price including a 200-sheet print pack). We’ll be looking at this one soon, but from the specs we can tell you that it offers a slightly higher resolution, 403 dpi, than the ES1 (300 dpi). It has a smaller, 1.5" display, but this is on a corded remote-control-like device. It’s cheapest print pack option, the 200-sheet pack, brings the cost per print, at 35 cents each, within the range of other compact printers, but still more expensive by 5 cents per print than the ES1.
 For the same money, the HP Photosmart 475 GoGo Photo Printer packs a heckuva lot more features than the Selphy ES1. LCD size; memory card, PC, and PictBridge compatibility; and optional battery and Bluetooth compatibility are the same as the ES1. But this little inkjet printer can print up to 5" x 7", it has a 1.5-gigabyte hard drive for storing images, it can print still from videos, and it has a remote control (which like the Panasonic FX series printers, has questionable utility). All of these are very attractive options, but if the sturdiness of the unit and the print quality are comparable to the HP Photosmart A440 printer dock that we’ve reviewed, then the Selphy ES1 or, better yet, the Epson PictureMate Flash are better options.
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