Olympus Camedia P-400 Digital Color Photo Printer

Rating:
Summary: Best Kept Secret In Photo Printers
Review: This printer is an outstanding photo printer. I am clueless as to why Olympus does not tout the remarkable quality of the prints produced on this printer. I looked at all the photo printers available, extensively read tons of reviews on inkjet, laser and dye sublimitation. The inkjets have improved a lot over the years, but the quality is still inkjet. Lots of ink sprayed on various types of paper produces pixelation and a picture that cannot stand up to the slightest smudge or drop of water. The laser printers were the next best bet, but they didn't seem to have the kind of depth that was needed. With the dye sublimitation, you get a seemless picture that is covered with a protective layer at the end of the printing process.
However, there is a price for that kind of quality. It costs about twice as much as each page printed on any other type of printer, and at this time I think only Olympus makes the paper. Perhaps this is due to some sort of patent law. But, if you want a great picture every time, and are not interested in printing tee shirt transfers, or fridge magnets, this is the printer for you.
A little update, 6 months after purchase, still love this printer, people are always amazed at the quality of prints, you will not be able to tell the difference between the photo lab pics and the pics made from this printer. The PC card slot allows almost all media, but I never use it because a multimedia adapter is always quicker and I never print from just the printer, I always use the computer. Some of my relatives have printers with different slots, but they are so slow it just always seems easier to slide a card reader into a USB slot and just dump the photos. I wouldn't make this an issue though, because camera media will always be changing. Also, it is true that this printer cannot print a true 8x10, so I just leave a hair of white paper around the edge. Besides that though, the printer is still working out great. It would be nice if the price of consumables went down, but at least you know when you print the picture it is going to look like a professional job. Another warning though, this is not a general purpose printer, such as inkjets are, you cannot turn in your expense report on this printer, this is a specialized printer that uses the same dye process that printers costing $1000s use to turn out wonderful photos.

Rating:
Summary: High Quality Photos, Hard to work with
Review: This printer spits out some beautiful prints, at about $1.60 per page between the paper and ink.
All of the cool options shown in the catalog, like index prints, are only done from a flash card. The flash card only holds one high quality picture from my Minolta Dimage 7, so that holds me back.
To get sizes, etc. I have to input my photos into word and then send to print, a bit annoying and problematic when it comes to exact sizes of prints.
Too bad the port for a memory card cant hold a larger memory card....