Can't beat it for the $$, Great results!

I love taking digital pictures. I can go on a week vacation and shoot over 500 pictures. Sure I don’t print anywhere near that many, but could easily print 150 of them. When I get together with family and friends I always have the camera and shoot away.

Because I take so many pictures, I like to get them printed. When I have large quantities, the easiest and cheapest way to get that done is to send them out. Even with postage or with the gas to pick them up, it is pretty cheap these days to get stacks of prints.

Then there are those times where you just need a few prints….. kids activities, family events or other things that come along in life. Obviously, mailing away isn’t the way to go, especially if you need them quickly. Sure, you could take your photos to the local Target and get them printed, but then there is the time, the gas, and the price they charge for essentially fast turnover…. And if you want something fast during the holiday season… forget it! It won’t happen.

Because of this, after reading numerous reviews, I purchased an Epson PictureMate Dash 260 ($99 list, found on sale for $79!). This is a cute little printer whose sole purpose in life is to make 4” x 6” prints. It is a self contained unit that looks like a lunch box. It is only 9.1” x 6.5”x 8.7” in size when stowed. When it is used, the front door comes down and instead of 6.5” it becomes 13.6”.

The printer creates amazing prints. I have amazed people over and over when I show them a print and tell them that the “little Epson” did that. You really can’t tell the difference between commercial printing and what comes out of the Dash 260.

The Dash 260 uses a single 4-color dye cartridge. It prints at 5760 x 1440 dpi resolution. When you replace the cartridge, you replace all of the ink at once. One cartridge holds all of the ink.

As for connectivity, there are many ways to get pictures from your Dash:

Built-in Memory Card Slots
The Dash 260 has slots for Compact Flash (types I and II), Secure Digital (SD), SDHC, MMC, Memory Sticks, Microdrives (Type M/H) and xD-Picture Cards.

Connectivity
The Dash 260 can use it’s USB connection between the printer and PC, it’s USB connection for external CD-R/RW drives, zip drives, flash memory (thumb drives), Bluetooth (with the optional Bluetooth Photo Print Adapter for Epson), Pictbridge and USB Direct Print-enabled digital cameras.

Like I stated earlier, the prints are amazing. They print as fast as 37 seconds! It can’t be easier. Attach your source for pictures, watch them come up on the on-board LCD screen, select it, edit it if you would like (correct red-eye, crop, zoom) and hit print! That’s it! That’s all it takes to get a print out!

The printer holds up to 20 pages at a time. You can print on either Epson matte or glossy paper. The refills from Epson are both paper and ink in one kit. The ink cartridge is supposed to last for the stack of paper that comes in the kit. Kits are under $40 either way, glossy with 150 sheets and matte with 120 sheets of paper. At that price, glossy prints are in your hands in seconds for about $0.26 each! Not bad considering there was no waiting and no gas to go get them!

If you connect this printer to a PC it will support Windows Vista (32 and 62), XP, XP Pro, XP64 and Windows 2000. It also supports Mac OS X10.2.8 – 10.3.9 or later (either PowerPC or Intel Core Processors).

Would I buy this printer again… yes without a second thought. It is fast, convenient, easy to use, and, yes, even fun to use. I can’t get this kind of results this quickly with my regular printer. This is GREAT! You won’t be sorry!