CANON SELPHY CP500 review

Canon is already well established in the 6x4" photo printing market.

In September the company launched several products under the new SELPHY sub-brand. The name sounds pleasant enough, until you discover it's a wince-inducing contraction of 'do-it-yourself photography'.

This CP500 is the most highly specified dye-sublimation printer in the range. It's similar to the cheaper CP400 but faster. A rubber flap on the printer's left side protects the two USB ports for a PC connection or PictBridge camera, but there are no memory card slots.

The SELPHY is a deep, silvery blue and very small. It comes with removable paper trays that accommodate either postcard (6x4") or credit card-sized (3.4x2.1") paper supplies. Postcard packs are available with enough paper and ink ribbon to print either 36 or 108 pictures. Using the larger pack, the cost per print is under 27p, which just beats the Epson PictureMate.

Despite the printer's diminutive size, it requires quite a lot of desk space when printing Postcard media, as each page is fed out of the back by several inches. The paper is uncovered during this time, and we found that two of our test prints appeared to have a spot caused by dust.

The printer was a little slower than Canon's claimed 63 seconds per print, producing six 6x4" images in seven minutes, 36 seconds. In the past we criticised the colour balance of prints from Canon's CP-200 dye-sublimation printer, but the colours in prints from the SELPHY were spot on. At the default settings black-and-white images weren't so impressive; our test prints were too dark and lacked contrast.

Dye-sublimation doesn't produce grain like an inkjet, but the SELPHY's 300dpi resolution manifested itself in a slight dappling effect in some areas. Some more expensive dye-subs print at 400dpi. The lower resolution isn't enough to spoil a photo, but we prefer prints from the PictureMate, which also supports memory cards.