Canon Selphy CP740 review

If you take a lot of photos it can be a real hassle getting them developed, and not everyone wants a big A4 printer taking up space in the home.

For many people the answer is a dedicated 6x4in photo printer, which is compact, economical and extremely simple to use. Canon's Selphy CP740 is the latest to be released. It has a very Apple-like style with its white finish and recessed 2in screen.

The point of these printers is to take the PC out of the equation by pairing up directly with your camera, and to this end you get media slots for Memory Stick, CompactFlash and SD cards, but sadly no support for xD. If you pull out the discreetly placed rubber stopper on the front, the CP740 also has a retractable mini-USB cable to plug into your camera, so you can print using PictBridge directly and never have to worry about losing your camera's cable again. A standard USB port completes the set should you wish to hook it up to your PC. This is useful if you want to edit your images before printing them or want to print any old photos stored on your computer.

The paper tray sticks out of the front, so it's not quite as stylish as it first appears, but it can be removed when not printing. As there are three dye-sub colours and one gloss tank, the paper is pulled back and forth through the printer once for each coat, and the image gradually builds to a recognisable picture. You need to leave six inches free behind the printer for this process to work and to avoid jams.

You can choose borderless prints and red-eye removal, and the print quality was reasonable in our tests. Colours were pretty accurate on the whole, but different tones didn't blend too cleanly and photos came out a little too dark at default settings. Nonetheless, the contrast was impressive and pictures were pleasantly vibrant. Each 6x4in print will take around one minute and 20 seconds to appear, so it's not a slow printer.

In the box you'll find a starter ink and paper pack. As per usual with starter kits, it prints only a measly five photos, but you can get a 108-picture pack of ink and photo paper for just £23 from www.expansys.com. This works out at 22p per photo, which is nowhere near as good as a photo service such as www.photobox.com but certainly beats most A4 photo inkjets for economy. It's also not a bad price if you want to print out only a couple of pictures rather than all your holiday snaps.

All-round, then, Canon's Selphy CP740 isn't a bad printer. It's incredibly simple to use and has little maintenance. Print quality is good, making this a decent, if unspectacular, choice.