One of the joys of digital photography is being able to show off snaps instantly on the camera’s screen. Nevertheless, the tiny LCD displays on most compact cameras are a poor substitute for proper prints for friends and family to savour.

The classic route to instant prints was once a Polaroid camera. Today the equivalent is a compact photoprinter designed to create 6x4in snaps in seconds. These gadgets are smaller and speedier than a standard A4 printer, surprisingly inexpensive, and mercifully straightforward. You don’t even need to plug one into a computer. Pop the memory card from your camera into the printer (most accept all common memory card formats), select which shots you want using the built-in colour screen, and you’re off. Within a minute you could be holding your first photo.

What’s more, some of the models under review can be equipped with an optional battery-power pack, which makes them eminently portable. Tuck one under your arm as you toddle off to a child’s birthday party and everybody can go home clutching a photo of the clown (hopefully not you).

Such convenience does not necessarily mean a lack of versatility. You can often rotate shots and make a quick crop here or a small colour adjustment there, just like on a computer. Picture quality from the better models was surprisingly good, though a few proved disappointing. In some cases images proved comparable to that of high street or online photo developers, albeit not up to the calibre of some full-sized home printers.

When choosing, consider the price of prints as well as the hardware. In our tests photos were printed intermittently over a period of weeks, which is far more representative of real-world use and means that the costs cited include the ink that a printer uses for head cleaning after being inactive for a while. To ensure running costs were realistic, test photos were chosen with colours most likely to appear in family snaps: blue skies, lawns and skin tones.

These smaller machines proved pricier than commercial photo developers, and hence less suitable for large batches, yet they are cheaper to run than A4 printers. The manufacturers offer aggressively priced packs of ink and paper designed to produce a fixed number of 6x4 photos. These tend to work out at 18p per print, about half as much as a standard-sized model. Even the most economical A4 printer costs about 10p more per 6x4in photo.

All compact printers employ one of two technologies: inkjet or dye sublimation. Inkjets fire tiny dots of four, sometimes more, coloured inks onto the paper a line at a time. This used to result in a grainy appearance and annoying bands of colour: however, as the ink drops have grown smaller these defects have become far less noticeable. Dye sublimation printers build up images from three layers of colour without any grain. This technology has recently been overtaken and all the models on test were inkjets apart from the Sony and the Canon ES1.

Whichever way the ink hits the paper, fading is a long-term worry. Thankfully, printer makers are investing in more fade-resistant inks. Most quote figures based on fading tests by Wilhelm Imaging Research, a respected independent lab. However, we conducted our own extreme fade tests by hanging photos in a window exposed to daylight, including sunlight, for 10 weeks.

Another vital factor is that your choice of printer works with your existing equipment. All the models on test can be connected to a PC, or in many cases a Mac, with a USB cable. They can also print directly from any camera that supports the PictBridge standard, which covers most recent models. For sheer convenience, though, most people will stick a camera’s memory card into the printer, so ensure your printer accepts the card type used by your camera.

In fairness, high street and online print services provide equivalent-calibre prints for less money, while an A4-sized inkjet printer offers more creative power. Nevertheless, for tiptop convenience and less clowning around these are the business.

JARGON BUSTER

Banding Defect in printed photos where clear bands of colour can be seen running across the surface. In some cases, white lines may appear between the bands

Bluetooth Radio-frequency based wireless communications between some gadgets. Enables, say, a mobile phone to send photos to a printer

Crop To select an area from an image to print, discarding the remainder

Grain Visible dots of ink within the printed image that reduce detail in photos and spoil the illusion of looking at a continuous image

PictBridge Standard that enables a camera and a printer to “talk” when connected by a USB cable, without either being attached to a computer. PictBridge printers can output photos direct from a camera

FAMILY FAVOURITE

Epson PictureMate 240 – typically £87, or £81 from www.pcworld.co.uk

Study, powerful and fast: the class leader

The PictureMate 240 may look like a bucket but its sturdy styling (along with an optional battery) also makes it easy to tote about. The Epson is one of the fastest photoprinters around – it took less than 50sec to dish out prints – and the quality was top notch for a compact. If you look closely you might see some grain but the lifelike colours, superb detail and smooth gradations of tone were far more noticeable. The prints proved resistant to fading and only degraded marginally in our extreme tests. At 18p per print (with the 150-sheet pack) it’s fairly economical too. The built-in editing was powerful and easy to use with clear rubber buttons. It’s pricey and lacks Bluetooth, but overall the PictureMate 240 is unbeatable.

VALUE PACKED

Canon Pixma mini220 – typically £60, or £58.50 from www.cameras2u.com

Excellent prints and well priced but not portable

Yes, it lurks on the ugly side of the street, but if Canon’s Pixma mini220 looks like a tiny tank, at least it boasts serious printing firepower too. The minuscule ink drops from this inkjet kept grain at bay, and despite having only three coloured inks to work with, it extracted great detail from photos, creating vivid, accurate prints that degraded only slightly over time. With Canon’s 100-sheet value pack, running costs were kept to a reasonable 19p per print and an automatic setup helped simplify operation. There’s an optional plug-in Bluetooth module, but the printer’s built-in 2.5in screen was shoddy. Also, with no battery (even as an option) the Canon is not truly portable. That said, if mobility isn’t a top priority, this is a worthy, wallet-friendly choice.

MOBILE-FRIENDLY MARVEL

HP PhotoSmart A618 – typically £66, or £64 from www.microwarehouse.co.uk

Ideal companion for a cameraphone This HP has two big advantages. First, its built-in Bluetooth module worked flawlessly with a Bluetooth-enabled camera phone. It can also print slightly larger than normal 7x5in photos as well as on special 12x4in panoramic paper. However, costs rise from 18p for a 6x4in photo to 48p for a 7x5in print, which makes this less attractive. Prints proved largely fade-resistant, but the quality wasn’t as good as from the Pixma mini220 or the PictureMate 240. Colours were lighter than they should be, and it was hard to see fine detail in shadows. At 1min 41sec per print, the HP was also a bit slow. Still, as long as you use 7x5in prints sparingly, the reasonable price, easy-to-use menus and mobile phone connectivity make this a serious contender.

OVERPRICED TOY

Canon Selphy ES1 – typically £126, or £91 from www.oyyy.co.uk

Mediocre quality and poor fade-resistance

The Selphy ES1 tries to justify its hefty price tag with a smart vertical design that takes up less desk space. The dye-sublimation print engine also offers gadget flair aplenty as photos are passed back and forth four times. There’s a great screen, fine editing facilities and, at 17p per photo, cheap running costs too. Unfortunately, the print quality simply wasn’t up to scratch. Colours were too rich and darker than they looked on the screen. The Canon also failed to reproduce subtle variations of tone, though it fared better with monochrome prints. Even if you get the prints you like, you may struggle to keep them. In our tests, the photos deteriorated in bright sunlight, fading dyes turned blues to brown and added a jaundiced tone to skin. Users of Fuji and Olympus cameras should note that it doesn’t support the xD memory-card format.

BUDGET BLUNDER

Lexmark P350 – typically £40, or £33 from www.pixmania.co.uk

Pay peanuts, get a monkey

Lexmark is renowned for budget printers but this is an economy too far. It has some merits: the built-in editing was solid (bar an ineffective redeye removal) the 2.5in screen was fine and menus were easy to navigate. The photos also proved highly resistant to fading and there’s optional Bluetooth. The trouble is, the P350 was painfully slow, taking 2min 12sec per photo, and the quality wasn’t worth the wait. Colours were too vivid, particularly skin tones that’ll give your family the appearance of sunburn. There was visible grain and also banding in areas of solid colour – if, that is, you can see through the weird purple reflections from the paper. At 20p per print, the Lexmark is reasonable to run, but it’s mains only, and the bargain price tag doesn’t add enough allure. Better to pay more for photos that you can be proud to hand out.

DUST BITER

Sony DPP-FP55 – typically £110, or £97 from www.amazon.co.uk

Suave, but too many flaws for the price

This Sony DPP-FP55 is stylish and the menus were particularly easy to operate. However, it’s also beset by flaws. There are no CompactFlash or xD memory-card slots – bad news for owners of older digital cameras or recent Olympus or Fuji models. You can buy a Bluetooth adaptor to partner it with a camera phone, but there’s no battery option. The small 1.8in screen is fixed and hence difficult to see. Worse, both speed and image quality were mediocre. It took 1min 5sec to produce a photo, and while being a dye-sublimation printer and therefore not prone to the grainy picture problem of some inkjets, colours were unnaturally bright and the images lacked detail. Prints were also susceptible to fading and dust blemishes. This pricey Sony is not particularly economic to run at roughly 22p a photo, so best avoided.

Research supplied by PC Pro magazine

Reviews adapted by Stuart Andrews

Prices include Vat & delivery