Just like the technology is improving every hour, so are the features available in a travel printer. At times, one contemplates whether he/she should buy a travel printer now or wait for the next model with all the new features. However, this all narrows down to one thing whether or not you require a travel printer?

This was all about travel printers but do you really require one? A travel printer can be useful to business men and professionals who are on the go!! But if you think of owning a travel printer just for the technology then beware about the rates!! Some of them although are just single-functional and yet can cost you a fortune. Before you start your travel printer shopping, be sure that it is a necessity and not a hobby.

Listed down are some of the pros and cons of owning a travel printer which will help you decide whether you really need to buy one.

Professionals from the marketing field should be the first ones to think about buying a travel printer. Their business is always on the go and has to jump from one meeting to another. And due to no buffer time in between these impromptu meetings, it is possibility that you might want to share your brochure or company catalog and then how and where will you find a printer to get the print outs. So here is how the travel printer proves beneficial.

Likewise for professionals who are on the go and have a busy scheduling and there is a remote possibility that the busy schedule can often make you forget things like printing some important documents. But when you have a travel printer in your car all you have to do is borrow your laptop car charger from your laptop and you can print for hours.

So far we have talked about professionals and business men who are always traveling and require travel printers. But even others who are keen about photography or like collecting their memoirs can also go for these travel printers.

Another incredible feature of a travel printer is not massive and still prints well and with good quality. So you can use this printer even for domestic use with minimal power or even without power supply.

It is always recommended to keep with you a travel printer! All leading companies do have travel printers. Epson as always tops the chart not just in printers but prices too! Canon is generally preferred by users because they stand up in quality but keep their prices affordable so common man can afford to use.

There are many travel printers even in the Canon brand itself. One of the users recommended is the Canon PIXMA mini 320. Even I have tried this travel printer and would recommend!! It lets you print high quality pictures from anywhere you want.

This Canon travel printer lets you print pictures up to 5” x 7” large with a resolution of 9600 x 2400 color dpi. To add to the benefit you don’t need to be connected with a laptop or a computer. It lets you print pictures from the digital camera or your cell phone. Or you can even print photos from your memory cards. It even has an easy scroll wheel that makes it easy to operate.

Some of the features of this travel printer which have appealed me very much. Take a look at them! My favorite is the wireless technology. It lets me print with a compatible Bluetooth device by simply connecting the Bluetooth adapter (bought separately) or even print straight from my cell phone via infrared. It even connects with my camcorder with Pictbridge.

There are other features too which are also notable in the Canon travel printer. It has the resolution of 1536 precision nozzles and color resolution of 9600 x 2400 dpi. The ink drop size is 1picoliter.

I even like the printing speed. It prints a 4 x 6 picture in less than 40 seconds. The printer starts quickly and is user friendly. It even has 2.5” HD display which gives sharper previews of the images. The built-in Auto-Image fix make the final prints perfect.

The Canon PIXMA mini 320 travel printer costs $179 plus the additional stuff like bluetooth adapter and all. It still will cost way less than other such quality printers. I love my own printer and travel with it everywhere!

Unfortunately there are no travel printers which work on laser technology! There are compact laser printers but surely not travel laser printers. The reason is that laser technology used in the printer itself.

A laser printer does not print pictures like an inkjet printer. They print page by page and not line by line. First the entire document is transferred in the laser printer’s memory. Then the data is imprinted on the drum which rotates. Then that drum is rolled on the paper transferring the ink to the paper. Then the ink is heated at such high temperatures that it binds with the paper.

This mechanism of the laser printer requires lots of space. It has to fit in the drums and the other components to heat the toner. Plus the regular components of the printer will be there too. All this makes it difficult for the laser printer to be modified to a printer for traveling.

Another drawback for the laser printer is that it requires a lot of power. It needs to store larger data like a whole document, then roll the drums and finally heat the toner. All this requires so much power that a normal battery will not sustain for that many hours. Even if a battery is installed it will drain out too quickly. We need a printer with extensive battery hours which is not feasible with a laser printer.

Just because of the mechanism, the two desktop printers have a vast difference in sizes; with the inkjet printer being smaller and compact than a laser printer. The laser printers were so bulky initially that they were not even considered for household use. With the advancement in technology laser printers have reduced in size considerably. The most current laser printer weighs about 10lbs. But even that size is not considered good for a printer made for traveling .

One other shortfall in the laser printer is that laser printer is black and white only. There are color printers available but they are beyond a normal person’s budget. Anyway a travel printer is mostly used for business purposes. Those who want it for other leisure use opt for photo printers or Photosmart printers. So a black and white laser travel printer doesn’t seem to be useful for everybody. And the colored laser travel printer will cost a fortune.

There are many notable features of HP Photosmart A626 compact travel printer. Here are a few which you will find interesting. One of them is a 4.8” touch screen with LCD display. You can print pictures of different sizes like 4 x 6, 5 x 7 and even 4 x 12 even when you are on the roads.

There are 4 memory card slots which do accept compact flash, memory stick, SD cards, MMC cards and even picture card. There is even a PictBridge USB port. Besides, it is even Bluetooth compatible but needs an additional Bluetooth adapter.

Another notable thing is the wireless technology. There are no more wires hanging. Then there are some other technical details which users might be interested. It has 1,200 x 1,200 dpi resolution and 4,800 x 1,200 optimized dpi. With in built memory of 64 GB.

It is compatible with Windows XP, Windows Vista and Mac. It is even capable of removing the red eye from the pictures, adjust the brightness, crop, add frame or even clip art to the images. In short you can modify and personalize your photo to make it your perfect picture.

There are a few drawbacks of HP Photosmart A626 Compact travel printer. First is that although it is compact but will not be able to fit in the bags. To compensate it they have made a handle and it weighs 3.4 pounds. The rechargeable battery is not included and should be bought separately. It cannot carry the papers internally. It has only 3 color ink without the black color. This affects the shadowing quality. Then the speed is another issue. When most printers try to increase their speed this one lags a little behind. It takes more than a minute to print a sheet. Disapproved by many users!

Another thing which has turned many buyers is the cost of the accessories. The only things that come with this travel printer are the tri color ink cartridge which will not last more than 20 pictures, a software CD, Set up guide, user guide and power adapter. The rest must be bought separately. When you sum up the cost of the remaining accessories they add up to as much as the cost of the printer itself. This travel printer is sure a good one but how much are you willing to spend!!

The Canon Pixma iP90v travel printer has similar ink cartridges to that of its older model. It even offers two options when it comes to normal printing. When you think you are about to be done with the black ink, you can switch to the Save Black mode and the next text is printed in dark gray and not black.

Another interesting feature is when you are done with the black ink by using the Composite Black mode, all the colors in the color tank is mixed and the resultant text is printed in multi-colored. This text may be little informal but definitely a plus point at odd times.

The Canon Pixma iP90v is more so a very similar product to the Pixma iP90 so much so that the costs also remains $250. Although if you have an iP90, do not even think about upgrading it.

A little expensive but when it serves your purpose, why not? But without the additions like the battery packs the printer can be very affordable. And to top it all, for just a single-task printer, 200 odd dollars are way more than you want to pay!!

However if you don’t have a travel printer, you might think of buying this, but beware of the price, which seems to increase all the more with the accessories that are to be purchased separately. But one thing is for sure, this travel printer is a tough competitor to the HP Deskjet 460 series especially taking the speed and the printing quality.

Another drawback of this travel printer is the speed of the photo print which is slower than the older model. The scores somewhat like this, the black text are printed at the rate of 6.23 pages per minute whereas when the color graphics printing is concerned, it takes about 1.42 pages per minute. However the printing quality of the graphics is impressive and must say is better than its older version.

The text quality has definitely improved and the compact design makes it an ideal travel printer. Moreover, this travel printer is enhanced with ink-saving modes and PictBridge and IrDA. So this technology helps when you need to print something from a Bluetooth enabled device such as laptop or mobile phones with the add-on bluetooth adapter provided by Canon. So are you in for this travel printer. We would say it is buy only if you have the money for it.