Instead of the usual box-like design, the Canon Selphy ES1 compact dye sublimation photo printer is a silver tower that stands almost 8 inches high, with the controls, including a 2.5-inch LCD screen, on the top. At $249, the ES1 is a little more expensive than its competitors, such as the $199 Sony DPP-FP90 and the $199 Epson PictureMate PM280. It's a portable printer as well, weighing just 4.5 pounds, with a handle on the top that makes for easy carrying and a $99 lithium ion battery that provides for printing on the road.
The ES1 has a slightly unusual approach to paper and ink handling. Both the ink ribbon cassette and the 4x6-inch postcard paper are contained in the plastic printer cartridge, which fits inside the printer through the cartridge door on the right side. The ink is designed to cover the number of sheets of paper in the cartridge. Canon charges $14.99 for a 50-sheet cartridge and $28 for a 100-sheet cartridge. The maximum size print it can produce is 4x6 inches.
The controls on the top of the ES1 are well labeled and easy to use. The on-screen menu of the ES1 makes controlling the printing process relatively easy; you can quickly select a single print or multiple copies of the same image. You can also add special effects, such as a speech bubble, or create an album page that contains several images in one print.
The ES1 is not a quick printer, though; it took a lengthy 80 seconds to produce a 4x6 print from a photo on a memory card. Printing from a PC was a little quicker; our large test image took 74 seconds to print. Both of these speeds are in the middle of the pack; the HP Photosmart A440 took just 60 seconds to print our test file from a PC. While 20 seconds might not sound like much of a difference, it can quickly mount up if you are doing a lot of printing.
We found the prints produced by the ES1 to be a little weak. Flesh tones were accurate, and grays and blacks were pretty close to neutral. But other colors were somewhat inaccurate, and the ES1 could only cover about 38 percent of the color gamut, meaning there are lots of colors the printer just can't manage. Also, black-and-white images didn't print well. Mid-range gray tones that give black-and-white images a rich and attractive appearance weren’t fully reproduced, making the prints look flat and washed out.
The ES1 is at the high end of the price range for compact photo printers. There are several models that are significantly cheaper and others at the same price that offer more features. Both the Sony DPP-FP90 (another dye sublimation printer) and the Epson PictureMate Flash PM280 (an inkjet printer) are $50 cheaper and can do everything the ES1 can. The HP Photosmart 475 costs the same as the ES1, but can manage up to 5x7-inch prints.
The Canon Selphy ES1 is a convenient printer: the combined ink and paper cartridge makes it easy to load and use, and the optional battery means you could print out in the wild. However, the print quality was lackluster, and the price makes it a poor choice for those who value print quality over convenience.
