I post things here.

I don't think there might be a more boring and hated piece of technology than a printer, yet this is a post about a printer. A photo printer.

The Canon Selphy CP1500.

The Printer

The Canon CP1500 is a small photo-dedicated printer that prints on 10x15 cm paper and uses dye-sublimation instead of inkjet technology. The printer accepts specific Canon paper and ink cartridges with a determined capacity: a 54 photo ink catridge will only print 54 photos regardless of how dark or light the photo is.

The printer makes a total of 4 passes for each print, each pass layering on the paper one of the three colors (yellow, magenta and cyan) and a final clear coat. Black and white photos are printed by layering all colors on top of each other.

The most boring video in the world: A printer printing...

Quality

Color rendering is good, with some minor deviations depending on the colors of the photos, but it's pretty good nonetheless. A little boost in brightness, saturation and contrast might be needed in darker shots to get closer results to what you get on the screen. Lighter photos shouldn't need it.

Black and white quality is ok, but there's a very slight redish/yellowish hue in some photos. I'm being picky, because I think the results are better than I expected considering it only prints CMY (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow). I wish it had a additional black layer, alternatively, I would be happy to buy a separate black and white ink cartridge only for black and white photography.

The printer's resolution is 300 dpi, which is lower than what an inkjet printer can do, and it's noticeable in the form of a slight softness. No pixelization or dithering is visible.

Nevertheless, the print quality is good, almost as good as a lab printed photo and way better than photo printing machines available at supermarkets.

Edit: Weirdly enough, printing directly from an SD Card yields better results, both in color reproduction and sharpness.

Speed

Printing via AirPrint, it takes about 1 minute and 20 seconds to print a photo. Printing from an SD card takes a bit less than a minute.

Running Costs

The printer costed around €90 and a paper/ink bundle of 108 prints costs around €30, making the price per print €0.28.

Impressions

The Good

• Good enough quality.
• Small. I keep mine in a drawer.
• Fast and the ink is dry right away.
• Supports AirPrint and has a SD card slot.

The Meh

• Only prints cyan, magenta and yellow layers. No black layer for black and white photos or deeper blacks.
• Only glossy paper is available (at least from Canon).
• Not cheap, but acceptable. There are decent inkjet printers that are cheaper.
• No ink/paper included with the printer.

The Unknown

• I hope it's more reliable than the inkjet printers I've had. I've had issues with all of them.
• Canon says prints will last 100 years, I'm not sure how to test that...