Photo printers that can do more. Bloomberg Boot Camp, a report on today's technology. Printers that are designed to print snapshots have become a popular category these days and they can be a quick and easy way to share pictures…or save a trip to the drugstore with your digital camera memory card. Epson's PhotoMate was the top selling ink jet printer during the holiday period last year. Among the competitors with some new features….Hewlett Packard is out with the Photosmart 475 GoGo Photo Printer. It's the first model that can copy photos from its card reader…into a 1 and a half gigabyte internal hard drive. It can also connect to a TV to display slide shows. Another plus…it can print 5 by 7 as well as 4 by 6 photos. And it does it all in a tiny, portable package. Somewhat larger is Lexmark's new P450. While it is limited to 4 by 6 prints. It's the only photo printer with a built in CD burner. Marketing director Branislav Zizkovic…
"We mostly see the device…it's an extension of the PC. It's much more in the household. I would put it in the equation of a household appliance So you might see the device actually in a kitchen or in a living room, versus that little office area where we typically saw our products."
The P450, unlike most other photo printers, is not designed to connect to a computer at all. What you can do….at family gatherings….is send everyone home with all of the snapshots on disc or with prints. The price works out to about 29 cents per print on most photo printers….not the cheapest around…but not bad. Bloomberg Boot Camp, I'm Fred Fishkin.