Looking for the right portable printer for you is simply a matter of knowing your needs and then checking what is available. You can have quality on par with any desktop printer and even speed. Or you can have limited abilities in invoice printers that are hand held and inkless thermal printers.
Thermal Printers
As said it’s dependent on your need. If you just want to hand out simple receipts to customers and want something you could term smallest portable printer possible then the SiPix A6 may be the ideal. One of the reasons it may be ideal for field workers is simply that it doesn’t require inks and ribbons and is a simple pocket sized thermal printer.
It’s only really suitable for receipts and such like. It has a speed of 2ppm and not surprisingly its monochrome only. It uses A6 size paper and has a fair resolution for such a small piece of kit at 400 max dpi. It’s tiny and I mean pocketsize and can be used with PCs or Palm Pilots and runs off 4-AA batteries.
Surprisingly despite its size, it is equipped with Infrared wireless and serial port connectivity. Another asset is its price of around $30.
Full Page Thermal
The only thermal portable that prints full page are what used to be from Pentax but now linked with Brother who has the Pocketjet 3 and Pocketjet 3 Plus models.
They are still on the market although they have been discontinued and they have brought out the newer PocketJet 6 Direct Thermal Printer and the Pocketjet 6 Plus Kit with Bluetooth.
The Pocketjet 6 model can print up to legal size and is equipped with IrDA, USB 1.1 and a print resolution of 200 dpi and a print speed of 3ppm. It is compatible to just about every kind of OS system. The Pocketjet 6 Plus version has a resolution of 300 dpi. They will both give you 100 pages of print from a fully charged battery that comes supplied with both versions.
The drawback with thermal printers is that the print tends to fade and the paper can be expensive, but balance that against the fact that you will never need to buy any inks then it seems less significant.
They do have there advantages in so much as no messy inks and are as compact as you can get. For some this is an ideal choice and a Pocketjet 6 model will cost you around $280 and the plus version a little more at time of writing this article. However, both models have optional Bluetooth available but if you search out model number PJ663, it has Bluetooth already provided, as opposed to the PJ623 which does not.
Small Portable Quality Printers
For those that need a little more quality and speed, then there are options from Canon and HP. From HP the obvious choice is the most current HP OfficeJet 100 which comes with no thrills like LCD displays auto feeds but it does come providing an excellent performance with a fair old speed of 22ppm on black documents and 18ppm for color documents.
It can provide 4” x 6” borderless photos and can print up to 8.5″ x 14″ and has a resolution of up to 600 x 600 rendered dpi and up to 4800 x 1200 optimized dpi color. This is not great but its more than many would expect from mobile printers.
The battery that comes as standard and has built in Bluetooth. It can print 500 pages on a full charge and it also has a 50 sheet input tray. For those that feel size is the most important then the dimensions are 6.9 x 13.7 x 3.3 inches and weighing 5.1 pounds. This is for some the crucial thing as they don’t want anything too bulky when they are already carrying round a laptop.
The HP OfficeJet 100 Mobile Printer is a great buy. It retails at $250 but on Amazon you can obtain one for as little as around $175.
Top Quality
If you require the best quality available in mobile printers then it has to be the Canon PIXMA iP100 Mobile Photo Printer which is not a cheap option by any means but is definitely a very high quality mobile printer with a very high 9600 x 2400 dpi resolution and produces very high standard lab quality photos and perfectly clear crisp text.
It also comes with Built-in IrDA technology and can also produce 4”x 6” borderless prints. Now to buy the base model will cost you around $200 but unfortunately the cost does not end there. It does not come supplied with the Canon LK-62 Printer Portable Kit Battery & Attachment which retails for around $100 and can be found a little cheaper on Amazon for around $90. Bluetooth does not come as a standard either and the optional purchase of the Canon BU-30 Bluetooth Adapter can be found for around $50.
It can print up to legal size as well and the all important dimensions are 12.7″(W) x 2.4″(H) x 7.2″(D) and a lightweight 4.4lbs.
So as said earlier it really depends on your need and use for a portable printer to fit your printing needs, you should look at the features along with the measurements. Speed is important for some less so than others. They may also include an automatic feed or wireless capabilities, all these factors are what will drive your decision.
How you connect to your printer may be important if you travel on the road a lot and don’t always have an outlet available to plug into. By taking the time to do a little research you can find the right style of portable unit with the features you want at a price you can afford.
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About James Wikkee