Sony DPP-FP55 review

The inkjet photo printers in this month's group test are great if you need one printer that can cope with photos and everyday plain paper jobs. If, however, you just want to print your snaps, then a compact printer might be all you need.

Like most other compact photo printers, Sony's DPP-FP55 is designed to print borderless 6 x 4in photos. It creates them using dye-sublimation (dye-sub) printing - a process that uses dye from an ink ribbon rather than the tiny droplets of ink fired by an inkjet. Because there aren't any droplets, there's no grain in the final picture.

You can connect the Sony to your PC with USB, but it also has a couple of slots for reading camera memory cards. There's a clear colour preview screen and support for SD cards and Sony's Memory Sticks, though you can't use other popular formats such as xD and CompactFlash. If your digital camera uses either type, you'll have to resort to a direct USB connection to the printer's PictBridge port.

The DPP-FP55 is very quick to create professional-looking photographs. Each sheet of photo paper passes through the printer four times as three colours are laid down in turn. On the final pass, a clear protective coat is added. Printing from a PC or directly from an SD card, the DPP-FP55 took only seven minutes to print six borderless photos. Photos looked great, but like other dye-sub printers, the Sony is susceptible to dust, which results in odd blemishes on the print if it gets onto the exposed paper during printing.

Sony sells ink ribbons and paper for the printer in bundles of 40, 80 or 120. Each print will cost a little over 21p if you stick to the latter, which is higher than some inkjet and dye-sub competitors, such as Canon's Selphy CP-720.

Author: Simon Handby