DPP-FP50

A member of Sony's line of dye-sublimation photo printers, the DPP-FP50 is a sleek little unit designed to look stylish yet unobtrusive in your living room. And why would you want it in your lounge? Because it features an AV port and a remote control, which let you hook it up to your TV to turn it into your own photo lab. With built-in software you can do basic editing and enhancements, such as red-eye reduction, cropping, rotating and adjusting brightness and sharpness, on the TV screen. You can also add text and fancy borders, if you wish, and run slide shows and then print any photo in the slide show with the remote.

The Sony has some of the best connectivity options on offer. There are built-in card readers for Memory Stick, CompactFlash and SD cards; a PictBridge port to connect a camera; the TV-out option; and a USB port to connect the printer to a PC (Sony's PictureGear software is supplied). For standalone printing, a control panel with buttons and monochrome LCD lets you navigate options.

All of this makes the DPP-FP50 a better option for owners of non-Kodak (or other ImageLink-compatible) cameras who want the excellent image quality of a dye sublimation printer. In our testing, the Sony printed superb quality photos at a very high speed. On average speed, it took 1 minute 13 seconds to produce a 4" x 6" print.

The Sony's has high print costs: at the time of writing, a 40-sheet paper/cartridge kit cost $44.95, for an average print cost of $1.12. If you buy the 80-sheet pack for $79 the cost drops slightly to 99 cents per print.