Printer companies compete with each other by providing better products. Better mean can mean products with more features or enhanced feature. Before, they used to compete before by increasing printing speed or enhancing printing resolutions. Today, they explore different types of printers such as large format printers and professional photo printers. With all things going portable, it is only logical to see that they are going into portable photo printers as well. In this article, we will discuss which one makes the better portable photo printer, Canon or HP. For purposes of comparison, we will talk about their latest portable photo printer, the Canon Selphy ES3 and HP PhotoSmart A646.
Printing Resolution
It is important for a portable photo printer to have a very good printing resolution. Though both printers are designed for printing photos, HP's printer has a higher printing resolution compared to Canon's printers. At 4800 x 1200 dots per inch resolution, it is far better than 300 dpi. You can expect much clearer photos from HP.
Printing Speed
Both printers are relatively fast in a sense that they can print one borderless 4″ x 6″ photo under one minute. However, if you go into the specifics, HP's photo printer is a lot faster compared to Canon's printers. HP's printer can finish one photo in 28 seconds. Canon's printer can finish one in 55 seconds. Relatively, HP can print twice as fast as Canon's. This doesn't matter much if you're only printing a few photos. However, if you want to print a lot of photos, then HP's portable photo printer is the way to go.
Interfaces
Since both of them are the latest photo printers, we can expect the both of them to be able to interface with different devices. In this aspect, both of them are on par with each other. Both printers are capable of interfacing with Bluetooth enabled devices. Both of them have USB ports where you can connect to your computer. This port can also be used to interface with PictBridge-enabled cameras. If you have a PictBridge-enabled camera, then there is no need for you to bring a computer as well. You can just take pictures and directly print them from your cameras.
OS Compatibility
As far as operating systems are concerned, both printers are capable of supporting multiple operating systems, namely: Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS. However, HP has the edge by being able to support Windows 7 that is Windows's latest operating system. If you don't use Windows 7, you are already comfortable using it, and you don't see yourself upgrading, then it should be no problem.
Portability
Both printers sport a handle. This makes it easy for both units to be carried by hand. Although in terms of weight, Canon's printer weighs almost twice as much as HP's.
All in all, HP leads most of the features mentioned. The HP PhotoSmart A646 prints faster. It has a higher printing resolution and is capable of interfacing with Windows 7 on top of the other operating systems.
