Canon SELPHY CP500 Compact Photo Printer > Reviews (1)

What a great printer! I bought one 12 months ago for my Canon Ixusdigital camera (although this printer works with any "PictBridge" compatible camera) and haven't looked back.

I'm sure if I added up the price of the printer and the paper/ink packs then it would take a very long time before I started saving money not using photo labs, but it's good fun to use and handy being able to print photos whenever you want (e.g. if a relative comes round and wants a copy).

The printer is a real no-brainer to use with a PictBridge-compatible camera - just plug the camera into it and press the "print" button (it can also be plugged into a PC and used like a conventional printer).

The paper/ink packs cost around £10 for 36 prints, and you'll soon see why they are sold in packs. The printer is a "dye sublimation" printer, and works like a commercial printing machine by repeatedly passing the paper through the printer and applying each of the ink colours (yellow, cyan, magenta) to build up the final image. It's fascinating to watch the picture forming as the paper goes back and forth.
The ink "cartridge" is actually a roll of plastic containing the different ink colours, and is designed to print 36 prints (if you've bought a 36 pack), due to the way it applies the ink across the paper.

The printer is a little on the slow side, taking around a minute to print a photo, but as I mentioned above it is fascinating to watch, and a talking point if you have anyone around! However most cameras should allow you to select a number of photos to print, and you can leave it to it.

The printer itself is a really nice bit of kit - very small (about the size of a thick paperback), with lights inside that glow to tell you what it is doing, but it's a little noisy when printing.

All-in-all an excellent printer, producing genuine photo-lab quality prints.