Page 1 of Epson PictureMate 100 Photo Printer £19.91 at Staples

Fancied one of these little portable photo printers for a while, so couldn`t resist this Epson at less than £20 (orginally cost £99)

It`s really easy to operate, takes almost any memory card and will also print from mobile phones (via optional Bluetooth) or USB memory stick. It`s Pictbridge and DPOF compatible too.

The picture quality is brilliant - I can`t tell the difference from high street processed prints (Google for reviews). If you shop around for consumables it should work at less than 20p a print.

Don`t know how good availability is across other Staples branches - I found it in the Clearance section at Staples in Manchester (Regent Road) - they also had original PictureMate at £19.91 and the PictureMate 500 at £39.91

Hi Carolyn

I had a look on Amazon at this but this review put me off, can you comment? Can you use compatibles? I can`t believe it costs £2.75 per print ! :o

Quote:
Having bought this printer, I was initially very impressed with the look of the output, even at the standard quality level. However, I was suprised to find that the printer displayed a low ink level message after printing just 6 photos. On raising this with support, I was told that the printer often displays this in error. This was true, the printer managed another 2 photos, before running dry.
Given that you only get to buy the ink in a combi paper/ink pack, I now have dozens of wasted photo sheets. For me, £2.75 per photo (not including the cost of the printer) seems a little expensive. Very disappointed with this product.

Hi Mike

Yes, I saw that customer review on Amazon (after, as the printer was an impulse buy) and I have to say that that hasn`t been our experience so far. I have to say that the Amazon review you quote is among very few negative ones for this product - still I guess there will always be someone who isn`t happy!


We have printed all 20 sheets of paper that came with the printer and are part-way through a pack of compatible sheets (it will print on any 6x4 glossy media) and the ink level still shows nearly 3/4 full.

The manual does say that you won`t get full capacity from the first cartridge as some ink is used to charge the heads. Also, like any printer that doesn`t have separate cartridges for each colour, if you print a lot of images with one predominant colour then that will run out before the others do.

There are compatible cartridges available (seem to average about £8) but I have just ordered a genuine Epson Print Pack (T5730) which has a cartridge and 135 sheets of paper for £17.99 with free carriage from www.mymemory.co.uk which according to my calculations will work at at just over 13p per print.

Thanks for that.

I`ll look out for this, although, at that price, you may have got a manager`s special, do you think?

As stated in the OP, it was a clearance line so I guess it is pot luck if other Staples have any remaining stock.