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 Likes- Durable construction
- Well designed and constructed paper tray
- Good-looking continuous tone prints
- Good blacks
Dislikes
- Poor documentation
- Awkward menus
- Tiny LCD screen
Conclusion
The HiTi 731PS brings a whole new range of print sizes to the dye sub market. For a bit more than most other home dye sub printers, the 731PS can produce 5-by-7-inch and 6-by-8-inch prints from PC or memory card. Users can print using most of the commonly used memory cards.
The 731PS stands out among printers in its unique, upright design with a separate LCD Controller, connected by a cord to the printer. There’s only a small, 1.5-inch, LCD screen on the controller to preview images and navigate menus with when printing from memory cards. However, the paper cassette is more durable and much easier to use than any other dye sub printer. Users can even load the cassette while it’s still inserted into the printer.
Documentation and drivers are two areas where HiTi could improve upon. The quick start guide, printed manual, and electronic manual leave a lot to be desired, with minimal instruction and explanation, and poor translation. The drivers themselves provide basic controls with a little bit of editing power, such as color and brightness settings. Black-and-white and monochrome effects are only available in software. Photo Désirée 2, the bundled software, is a fun, playful program with a few minimal editing controls, but several formatting options, including bookmarks and multiple prints on a page.
The 731PS was able to print a 4-by-6-inch print in 54 seconds, just a shade under the fastest dye sub we’ve tested, the Sony DPP-FP90. See the Print Speed / Timing section on the Photo Performance page (link) for a chart of compared printers.
Print quality scored quite well in comparison to other dye sub printers. Color accuracy, a measure of the printer’s output against an ideal, yielded good results, with the error distributed rather evenly across the 24 colors that make up the Colorchecker chart. (See the Color Accuracy section on the Photo Performance page for more info.) While the 731PS’s color gamut, the range of reproducible colors, was lower than most inkjets, it was able to reproduce more than any other dye sub printer.
Cost per print for the HiTi 731PS is more expensive than other dye sublimation printers. A standard, 60-sheet pack of 4-by-6-inch paper will cost the user 40 cents per sheet, as compared to about 30 to 35 cents for the competition and even lower prices when users purchase the larger print packs available for other makes, including Canon and Sony. HiTi's large, 720-sheet print pack brings the price down to 37 cents per print, still higher than the competition
No truly comparable dye sublimation printers to the HiTi 731PS exist on the market. All others can only print in the 4-by-6-inch size. Of these, the Canon Selphy ES1 has a similar vertical design and small LCD screen. Users can purchase an optional battery, and there is no separate paper tray. The Sony FP90 has a much large screen (3.6") and scored the closest to the 731PS in speed and quality. The HiTi S400 is a smaller version of the 731PS that only outputs 4-by-6-inch prints. It sells for $249. See the Comparisons section of the Overall Impressions page for more info on other dye sub models.
Hi-Touch presents a unique design with its dye sub printers, and the 731 PS seems to be one of the most durable and versatile of the bunch. We liked its print quality and easy media handling. Prints do cost more than other makes and models. However, the greater image quality and range of print sizes may be worth the cost.
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