Canon Selphy CP710 review

On-the-go digital photographers travelling without a computer will appreciate the Canon Selphy CP710's small size, light weight and mobility. When equipped with the optional rechargeable battery, this compact, 300dpi dye-sublimation printer has everything you need to output 150x100mm photos anywhere; that includes a unique retractable USB cable for your camera, a built-in memory-card reader and a 38mm (1.5in) colour LCD.

With its roughly 70-seconds-per-snapshot print speed and a per-print cost as low as 22p (if you buy Canon's 108-print paper/ink ribbon bundle and depending upon the retailer price), the Selphy is fairly quick and cheap to run, too. This printer shares most specifications with its stablemate, the bare-bones Selphy CP510, which lacks the card reader and the LCD screen.

Features
The chief drawback of this printer is a lack of basic, stand-alone image-editing options, such as cropping, rotation or colour correction. For those functions, you'll need your computer and either the Easy-PhotoPrint bundled software or your own image editor.

The 178x132x64mm, 1kg Canon Selphy CP710 can be set up in seconds, even if you choose to travel with the bundled power brick. Connect the power, if necessary; insert the dye-sub ribbon cartridge in the right side; slide the included 20-sheet paper cassette into a flip-down front slot and you're ready to go. Software and driver installation for printing from a computer take another few minutes.

Although the Selphy fits most desktops, you'll need to allocate an extra 190mm in front for the paper tray and a bit of space behind to allow the printer to cycle the paper through separate passes for the cyan, magenta, and yellow dye layers, plus a fourth protective overcoat. We had to carefully arrange the power-supply cables to avoid interfering with the paper path.

The pull-out USB cable for your camera and a memory-card reader for Secure Digital/MultiMedia Card, CompactFlash, Microdrive and Memory Stick media (as well as Memory Stick Duo, xD-Picture Card and Mini SD card with adapters) reside on the front, just above the input cassette/output tray. A USB port, for connecting to your computer, and a Direct Print port are located on the left side. All the other controls are found on top. A control pad for selecting images and the quantity of prints for each image is located to the right of the fixed LCD. Under the display are a trio of buttons for printing mode (print selected images, all images or prints specified in the camera using DPOF), layout (bordered, borderless, stickers, or index print), date options and a Print/Stop key to activate or cancel printing of selected images.

You can make only postcard-size 150x100mm prints using the bundled paper cassette; you need to purchase separate cassettes to print credit-card-size sheets or stickers, L-size (89x119mm) or wide (102x203mm) paper sizes. The latter stock, suitable for printing panoramas, can also be purchased in greeting card kits, complete with mailing envelopes.