Sony DPP-FP55 review

Designed for nothing more demanding than pumping out snapshots without bothering with all that going-down-the-chemist stuff, this is a compact printer that can – just about – be plausibly dragged around with your camera.  

Machine gun approach

Only running to 6×4 photo prints means that it can’t lay claim to super-fast print speeds, but one snap per minute is a reasonable rate for something so small and the results are very good. 

The dye-sub printing technology means grain-free prints, as long as you can keep the dust out during the four-stage printing process: a few specks can lean unpleasant streaks. 

Being Sony, it supports Memory Stick to the exclusion of other, more useful formats: you can plug in SD or MMC cards, but CompactFlash and XD will have to be piped through your computer or by connecting your camera to the USB connection.

Basic editorYou can carry out basic editing as the photos pass through, removing redeye and adjusting the colour settings on the two-inch screen.

[MPU]

Having to do this on something so small isn’t the last word in ease-of-use and the controls aren’t quite as easy to grasp as the more resolutely newcomer-friendly, but bigger, Kodak, but it shouldn’t present too much of a challenge for anybody used to desktop printers. 

It all adds up to a competent package and it’s reasonably priced with it. While falling some way short of bargain territory, it’s a good balance between price, picture quality and portability.