mobile printer

Anyone have any experience with mobile printing? All I've seen is the Canon they have at best buy and I don't think I'm happy with that one. I'm not looking for outstanding image quality; I will be printing mostly black and white text. The most important feature to me would be size and portability. How do these typically connect to notebooks and what power source do they use?

 

I had also been seeking such a item but couldn't justify the purchase because I'd only use it every once in a while. Have you considered a BlueTooth printing module? Although I'm not the biggest fan of BT, it has been very helpful. It's basically a parallel pass-through with integrated BlueTooth. You add it to the printer and print from a BlueTooth equipped machine or a machine that has an external BT adapter. Because I don't have a parallel port, I keep one at work and one with me and it has been a life saver.

 

Oh ok, never thought of that, but I understand what you are talking about. I guess the question comes down to an issue of portability. Are there printers that are specifically designed to be taken from place to place? I'm a real estate professional and it would be handy to be able to print documents whereever I happen to be.

 

Such beasts do exist. Brother and Pentax both make portable black and white printers. The Brother model is about the size of a laptop, but slim. It also uses a rechargeable lithium ion battery. The Pentax is a smaller sheet-fed model and uses Nickel Cadium. Personally, I wouldn't go with either of these because I'm not familiar with the print quality and overall quality of Brother or Pentax printers. Brother makes a nice word processor and Pentax made nice cameras...but printers?? I also wouldn't go with the Pentax because of the Nickel Cadium. NiCad batteries have a shorter life than newer Lithium Ion and Nicket Metal Hydride. Also, NiCad batteries require a little more care when charging. You can actually over charge them if left too long, whereas Lithium Ion and NiHM usually have features to regulate charging at various stages.

On the color end of the spectrum, there are offerings from Canon and HP. Both offer Lithium Ion batteries as an option. I'd be more inclined to go with the HP becuase I have used their printers before and the quality quite good. The overall product quality is also good. I do own devices from Canon, but never owned a printer. Seeing how my Canoscan scanner is still ticking after owning it for 4+ years, I'd say they have respectable quality.

The only caution I would throw out there is the ink. If you're going from location to location, you run the risk of possibly spilling ink or damaging the cartridge. Other than that, they are a great solution as long as you have the need.

 

I've used both the HP and Canon portables in the past. They're the two major players in the color market. I prefer Canon's product line over HP right now though. In the end the quality will be comparable. I'd go with the better priced unit.

Editor in Chief http://www.bargainPDA.com and http://www.SPOTstop.com