Customer Reviews

Canon ES2 Compact Photo Printer (2096B001)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I've been using a Selphy CP-510 for several years and I've been extremely pleased with it, so when time came to replace my dad's old HP photo printer, the latest generation Canon was the logical choice.

With this new generation of dye sublimation printers, Canon departs from the CP-series by offering an all-in-one cartridge, holding both the paper and the dye film. This is a vast improvement over the previous system, which required the use of separate, optional paper trays for the non-4x6 formats. Now, you just buy one consumable (the price per print remains the same) and you don't have to deal with these pesky paper trays. want to change format? Just replace the cartridge.

The printer operation is guaranteed to fascinate children: the output bin lid pops out by itself if it was left shut, the paper comes out horizontally, rotates 90 degrees, gets pulled back in, goes in back and forth several times as the yellow, magenta, cyan and clearcoat films are applied. As with the previous system, the picture has extra white leader at both ends, but they're pre-cut and you just need to fold the strip back and forth once to separate them neatly.

Picture quality is just about perfect, and you can touch the picture immediately as it comes out of the printer; unlike ink-jet prints, it won't smear even if you drop water on it. Prints are also very fade-resistant.

The ES-2 has many neat features that can very easily be accessed through the menu system and the large, clear color LCD screen. You can zoom, pan, crop, adjust color, even add frames, all that without any need for a computer.

On the negative side, as of this writing (February 2008) Canon still hasn't released a Leopard-compatible driver. Although preliminary support is available through Gimp-Print, it is not for the novice.
Another negative is the size and shape of the printer. The CP-510 was very small and easy to take on a trip. The ES-2 is significantly larger and its shape is less convenient to pack. Also, it's unfortunate that Canon chose to ship a separate power supply. That's yet another box and cords to pack. The power supply is 110-240V capable, so at least it will work anywhere in the world. An optional (and expensive) Li-Ion battery is also available.

[...]
Despite these minor gripes, I couldn't recommend the ES-2 more. It's a foolproof printer, perfect for the computerphobic, that's also good enough to satisfy the savvy photographer. My dad loves his! Just make sure you shop around.

Edit - April 8, 2008: the price of the ES1 has been reduced, so it is now lower than the ES2's. Since the difference between the two printers is minimal (the ES2's screen is a little larger, 3" instead of 2.5"), the ES1 is now a choice worth considering.

Edit - August 13, 2008: the price of the ES2 has been going down... and the ES1 now costs twenty dollars more. These pricing shenanigans are really incomprehensible! Just keep an eye out for the best deal.

I bought this as a gift for Mother's Day. The ES2 is simple enough for my mother to use. There is no hooking up cables or learning new software. Just load the camera's memory card into the correct slot, select the photos and quantities you want, and press the PRINT button. It would really be perfect for travelers who want to make photos/postcards from pics they take along the way. (Every photo is also a postcard.) Prints are a bit slow at ~1min/photo.

Print quality is very good, and lab-like. Your eyes can't detect dithering because it isn't there. Color balance appears good, and brightness is about right. Some of the photos I printed appeared slightly too green, but you could compensate with Photoshop.

On the flip side, dye sub results are less saturated than photo quality inkjet. You get a more "old school" 35mm photo lab look with complete color blending, but the colors are slightly subdued and edges are just a tiny bit less sharp from what I can tell. I'm pretty sure that color gamut on a 6-ink inkjet will be wider.

The printer's features look nice. We didn't spend a long time playing with them. I like the zoom, border, and speech balloon functions. The power save feature is cool, and is the optional battery option.

I prefer to give it 4.5 stars, so I'm rounding down to 4. Overall an excellent product, but when only the highest print quality will do, look elsewhere.

I've had this printer for almost a month and have printed over 100 photo's with it. I cannot say enough good things about it. It prints at average speed and the photo's can be touched, scrapbooked or framed immediately after printing without fear of ruining the photo. The directions on some of the bubble-jet photo papers warn not to frame for at least 7 days! For those who were wondering, even though the photo's can be used as postcards, they are no thicker than regular photos. My photo's come out with rich color and are easily manipulated (frames, clip art, etc.) from features right on the printer. If I had one recommendation for this printer, it would be to include a USB port that is compatible for all USB drives, not just PictBridge compatible. I also find it extremely convenient that the ink & paper come together; I will never go back to a bubble jet after this!

I am a proud Grandmother who loves to take photos of the grandchildren. It is so easy and FUN to use this printer! The colors print out bright and true so that I am happy to share them with family and friends. Being able to mail the 4X6 photo as a post card is a big hit with family who lives far away. Thank you Canon!

I also own the ES1 and with the proper processing it produced acceptable prints. This printer is about 20% larger than the ES1 - they clearly changed something. The pictures upon direct comparison show that the ES2 are much better. The battery option is real nice. This printer clearly produced very high quality prints.

I felt the need to chime in on this printer and its qualities, but before that, I have to explain my experience with Canon customer service.

I originally bought a Canon ES1. The ES1 suffered from very dark pictures, regardless of the quality of the picture it was being fed. I contacted customer service and they arranged for a return. The ES1 was replaced with a new ES1, which still exhibited the same issues.

Again, I contacted customer service, who arranged for me to return the second one. However, their test labs determined that the second ES1 was within Canon Spec and returned it to me.

After trying the ES2 through Canon's Trymyphoto.com program, I proved that the ES1's pictures were indeed dark. I skipped customer service, which at that point was not being responsive and went to corporate. They immediately replaced my ES1 with the new ES2.

Now, to the review of the ES2. I, too was disappointed that the ES2 drivers would not work in Leopard. Even further, waiting until March 2008 seems a bit ridiculous.

However, the ES2 prints SPECTACULAR pictures. I no longer have to go to a print lab to print, unless I really want to, or have a need of large volume of pics. The printer is a 5. My experience with Canon brings it down a notch.

The product works great! The pictures are crisp and they take about a minute to print. I like the different features such as adding frames, creating a calendar, adding speech bubbles, corrects red-eye, and printing a picture diary. These features are especially useful for scrapbooking. I also liked the fact that the ink and paper are in one cartridge. It's nice that you can print from your camera, cell phone, or computer. The canon selphy ES2 printer is a terrific buy and you will want to use it all the time.

I bought this printer since I dealt with previous dye-sublimation printers and liked the picture quality. I think this printer also does a great job of producing excellent prints. I also like the integrated ink and paper packages Canon offers.

Now here's the only thing I wish was a little better:

I also have a used Epson Picturemate 240. The printouts from that printer seem to match the actual colors more than the ES2. Canon seems to magnify the color a bit much. (ex. light blue colors look extremely bright and darker) Maybe I don't have the correct settings. Also, I only have printed directly from the camera if that makes any difference.

But overall, I like this product.

ES

We have owned this printer for about 6 months now and can honestly say it is a great photo printer. We purchased this to use with our Canon Rebel XTI and was not dissapointed! This traveled with us across the country this summer for 30+ days and never let us down. It handled bouncing around in our trailer for over 6500 mile and no problem. My wife want to be able to sent post cards as we went and this was perfect. It's print speed is about average and the paper handling is amusing to watch. What we like best is the fact that the paper and ink is in 1 cartridge so there is nothing to loose or fuss with!I don't think it could be any easier to use this printer. Having the usb cord built in is great and it is on a spring loaded retract! We are using this with Vista Ultimate at the moment but aso used XP with no problems. Great

This printer has worked flawlessly and produced some great prints. The on screen controls and the easy loading paper\film pack are simple enough for a novice to use. No need to connect to a computer. Just insert the memory card from your camera, browse through your photos and then hit print. No ink, no mess, just great pics. The price per print is 27 cents but if we need a lot of prints we use Walmart or the photo printers at the local stores. For quick prints you can't beat the convenience.

I'd also suggest you buy a nice big compact flash card and a reader\writer to move your photos off the camera card. I bought one with 32Gbyte capacity and moved all my old photos onto one card. I keep a backup on the PC but with hard drive crashes and virus infections the compact flash makes a nice secure depository for all of our photos.