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Warm-up (7.30)
The Canon ES2 took approximately seven seconds to fully warm up. It was usually closer to five-and-half seconds when it wasn’t connected to a PC, and close to seven seconds when it was. This is about a one-second increase in warm-up time than its previous Canon ES1, but a lot better compared to the Panasonic KX-PX20, which took around14 seconds to warm-up.
Power Usage (7.15)
The Canon ES2 stayed on par with other printers in its class in terms of power usage. The printer doesn’t have an idle value, merely because it doesn’t have an idle phase, it’s either on or it shuts off. While off, it uses no power but when on and ready to print it soaks up about three kilowatt-hours. The ES2 did, however, take more power than many of the other printers in its printing power usage, even its predecessor, ES1.
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Power Usage (watts)
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|
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Off
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Idle
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Ready
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Printing
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Self-Cleaning
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| Canon Selphy ES2 |
0
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n/a
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3
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40
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n/a
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| Canon Selphy ES1 |
0
|
n/a
|
3
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32
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n/a
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Epson PictureMate 240
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0
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n/a
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4
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12
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12
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Panasonic KX-PX20
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1
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5
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6
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31.5 |
n/a
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Photo Speed/Timing (4.70)
The Canon ES2 did fairly well in its print speeds. The ES2 has a unusual way of printing in that it does a few pass throughs while it layers on the ink that lets you see the progress with each pass. It appears to be going very slow when you watch the process, but looks are deceiving; it's actually a fairly nippy printer.
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Photo Print Speeds in Pages per Minute
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From Computer
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From CompactFlash
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|
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Small file
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Large file
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Small file
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Large file
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Canon Selphy ES2
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1.24
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1.25
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1.22
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1.23 |
| Canon Selphy ES1 |
.74
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.74 |
.81
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n/a
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Epson PictureMate 240
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1.40
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1.40
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1.36
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.10
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Panasonic KX-PX20
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.73
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.57
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.56
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.48
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The ES2 did improve its print speed, especially since the ES1. It also was able to beat out the Panasonic KX-PX20 but lost to the PictureMate PictureMate 240, which printed at rate of .16 ppm faster than the ES2. Even with this said, the ES2 performed on par for its class and seeing a speed improvement from the ES1 is definitely welcome.
Color Accuracy (1.47)
We test a printer's color accuracy by printing the below chart on both the manufacturer's paper and Ilford paper. We also take it a step further by printing the same chart using a custom ICC profile created witha professional printer calibration system. However because the Canon ES2 does not accept any other paper besides Canon ES2 preassembled paper, we could not test using the Ilford paper. We also couldn't create the custom profile because the ES2 driver couldn't print the chart the calibration system uses correctly to the paper size. While many other printer drivers have an option to fit the object to a paper size, the ES2 did not. Thus, we ended up only being able to test the color accuracy using the default profile and Canon paper, and the result was not very good.
The mean color error for the Canon ES2 using the default color profile was 9.9, which is a very poor score. The ES2 was had particualr problems outputting blues, blacks and reds. Its biggest errors came in blue sky (box 3), bluish green (box 6), green (box 14) and yellow (box 16). It also had moderate errors in red (box 15) and magenta (box 17).
This very poor performance, more so because it did worse than the Canon ES1, which earned an error score of 8.60. The Epson PictureMate 240 earned an error score of 5.03. The ES2 was only able to beat a very poor performer in color accuracy, the Panasonic KX-PX20, which had a bigger mean color error of 10.01.
Color Gamut (3.45)
All printers have a range of colors that they can produce, and it’s this spectrum of colors that partially determines the resulting quality of the prints. To test the range of colors a printer can produce, we use a software program called Gamutvision developed by Norman Koren. The chart below shows the color range results of the Canon ES2; the grid represents the entire color gamut range, and the solid block represents how much of this the ES2 could reproduce.
The Canon ES2 performed at a pretty mediocre level with it came our color gamut test. It was able to reproduce 43.6% of the color space. Most of the printers we review can do significantly more; the Epson PictureMate Snap PM240 managed 48.65%. Still, it is an improvement on the ES1, which was able to reproduce a mediocre 38% of the color space.
DMax (6.12)
The DMax test measures the density of the black tones that the printer creates. The deeper the black, the wider the tonal range that the printer can reproduce. The ideal standard value for a very rich, deep black is 2.50. Many high-end photo printers can usually attain a Dmax value around 2.30.
The Canon ES2 was able to make its best DMax 2.17. Normally we also test on both the manufacturer’s paper and Ilford paper using both the default profile and a custom profile that we make using a Gretag Macbeth software called Eye-One Match. But since this printer cannot take in any paper other than Canon's own, we could not use the Ilford paper. And also because the ES2 printer driver does not have an option to fit the print object onto a media size, we could not fit or print the needed chart.
With that said, the ES2 did slightly better than the Canon ES1, which had a score of 2.0, the HP PhotoSmart A440, which had a score of 1.72 and the Panasonic KX-PX20, which had a score of 1.56. It did, however, take second to the Epson PictureMate 240, which earned a very good 2.43.
Black and White (6)
The black and white on this printer was good, not great, but good. The ES2 has a black and white cartridge and paper packet that you can purchase specifically for black and white prints. We tried printing black and white photographs using both the color cartridge and the black and white cartridge. The color cartridge produced color tinted black and white pictures, with a hint of gray-green. The detailing the color cartridge produced was not good: the photograph was dark and gloomy and lacked shadow detail.
The black and white cartridge did a much better job of producing black and white photographs, which had more light and subtle grey tones, which looked much more attractive. There was good detail in the dark portions of the photograph and it was able to capture more detail even in the darker areas.
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