Customer Reviews

Canon SELPHY CP800 Black Compact Photo Printer (4350B001)

5 star:		(49)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(14)

 

 

Length:: 2:08 Mins

Here's what it takes to print pictures with the SELPHY. The audio is a little low (Sorry!) but you can see how long it takes to print. This is light enough to take along to family gatherings so that you can give your mother prints of her grandchildren to show off immediately.

Prints are under $0.40 each for a package of paper and the ink cartridge. It's more expensive than taking your memory card to your drugstore, but you pay for convenience. The quality of the prints is very high. You can get a rechargeable battery ( Battery Pack NB-CP2L for Selphy CP-600/CP-330/CP-300 Photo )but as of today, it's $57, which I think is a little pricey compared to the cost of the printer, but it would be worth it if you have to print outside a lot.

All in all, this is a good product.

This printer does exactly what it is advertised to do.

It is easy to set up. It is easy to use. The photographs looks very good. The 4 x 6 photos print in about a minute. Supposedly they last for many, many years. The viewing screen is large enough and looks good. There are basic operations, such as red eye reduction and back-light correction that are useful and easy to use. You can also print in black and white or sepia which is something I like to do, so I appreciate that ability. The owner's manual makes sense and is easy to comprehend, and is not overly complicated. Inserting the ink cartridge and the paper is easy.

I didn't hook this printer up to my computer. I use it with memory cards. It is very easy to use with memory cards. I have not and do not plan to plug it into my computer, so I have no experience with that ability of the machine.

In short, this thing does exactly what the Amazon description and Canon advertising says it will do.

The only problem I see is the cost of the prints. Each 4 x 6 print will cost about 25-30 cents, which isn't overly high, but it is more than twice what I can get prints made for in local stores. Add the cost of the machine, and that will be pretty expensive. However, that cost isn't any surprise, as it can be figured BEFORE you buy this machine.

My wife has commandeered this machine to use for "scrap booking" and she finds it very useful to be able to get any picture she wants, when she wants it, by sticking a memory card in the machine and printing out the few pictures she wants. And she doesn't have to wait around for someone else to develop the pictures and get them back to us. The machine is also very compact and easy to carry around with all of her other scrap booking stuff when she goes to her scrap booking "parties." For that type of use, this is an excellent machine.

As I have had this machine for less than a month, I can not comment on its long-term reliability, but it does seem to be built very well. However, the only other Canon printer I have ever owned did not fare so well in long term reliability, so that does concern me. (Note in the past, if you search my reviews, I have given a Canon printer a 1-star review because it died way too soon.)

Personally, I would like a machine that prints 5 x 7's. If I was buying a printer, I would buy one that has the ability to print 5 x 7's. But I was given this machine, so I can't really complain about that.

To sum up, this machine appears to be an excellent choice for anyone who wants 4 x 6 prints. It works exactly as Canon says it does. It works well. It makes very good prints. But I think the per-print cost to be a bit high, so I knocked the rating down to four stars.

Right off the bat, no printer cable. That still irks me. I know, no printer comes with them, but why not?

Setting up the printer was easy - plug it in, install the software and you're off. I choose to print my photos directly from my PC instead of a SD card (since that's where all my photos were). The SELPHY Photo Print software is really easy to use. The startup kit only allows for five photos, so I chose wisely. It takes about 40 seconds to print a full color photo. The photo quality is pretty amazing! I was very impressed. I've been printing with inkjet printers for over 10 years and if you haven't used the printer in awhile, there's always some ink waste in getting the photo to turn out right. Plus, you always need to calibrate and clean your print heads. None of what will be necessary with this machine.

The unit is small and attractive. The giant white power adapter is not! And why a white power adapter for a black unit? I couldn't believe the size of the AC adapter for this thing! Kinda kills the whole small and portable thing, but there is a battery pack available for this unit.

The process in which this printer prints pictures is very cool and I hadn't seen anything like it before. It transfers via thermal film and puts down the yellow (Y), the magenta (M), the cyan (C), and then the black (B). So the photo paper makes four passes through the printer. When it makes the first pass, you see a yellow photo, then a yellow+magenta photo, etc. It's kinda cool to watch. Once your "cartridge" is used, you throw it out, something I wasn't keen on. From what I can tell, these are not recyclable and that's not a good thing. Canon is usually pretty green, so I can only hope some sort of recycling will exist for these bulky plastic cartridges. There's likely something on their website (I hope). The cartridges seem very wasteful and the 108 photo/cartridge pack means you'll be throwing THREE cartridges away when you're done.

Though there is a cute little credit-card sized photo option, it requires a separate tray and obviously, smaller paper. It seems like they could have combined the (only) two paper sizes in the same cartridge with a lever or something. But, each paper size requires a different cartridge. I have not been ablebto find the smaller credit-card sized paper/paper tray/cartridge anywhere else besides Canon's site. That's frustrating. I'd love to make tiny photos!

Overall, I like it, though it seems a little wasteful and costly. Cost per print for the 108 photo pack is about 27 cents/image right now. Not too bad.

PROS:
* Small printer, small footprint
* Excellent photo quality
* Software is easy to use, if even a little *too* simplistic
* One photo in about 40 seconds
* Variety of connection methods (USB, SD card, memory stick, cell phone [with bluetooth add-on $50])
* Heat transfer is nicer to deal with than messy ink tanks
* No print calibration or alignment needed
* No messy ink or waiting for photo to "dry"

CONS:
* Wasteful cartridges - a very specialty item that cannot be reused or refilled
* Giant AC adapter
* Each paper size requires its own cartridge AND paper tray
* Can only print two different sizes of photos - not an all-purpose device
* Expensive add-ons (Battery $80, Bluetooth Adapter $50)
* Credit-card sized paper, tray and cartridge are hard to find and expensive

This is my first photo printer and I absolutely love it. It's nice to be able to print photos at home, without having to upload them and make a trip to the drugstore to pick them up. And if you watch for sales here at Amazon, the price per print breaks down to within 1 or 2 cents of what you would pay elsewhere.

You will need to pick up a USB printer cable - I just removed the cable I had hooked up to my LaserJet printer and moved it over to this printer, it's not a big deal. To take advantage of the Canon software that comes with this printer (with frames, templates for different seasons and holidays, etc.), it needs to be connected to your computer. (Although you can use this not being hooked up to the PC, by using the flip-up LCD screen on the printer.)

You will also need to buy more ink and paper. It comes with a starter pack of just 5 prints. Make sure you load the paper cassette glossy side up - I wasted my first print by using the wrong side of the paper. It comes with the postcard size paper cassette, which makes 4" x 6" prints.

This printer can be used a multitude of ways:
By printer cable connected to your PC
By inserting a memory card in the slot in front: most cards are compatible, check the listing here - xD cards will need an adapter
By connecting your digital camera to the USB port
By a USB Flash Memory
From your mobile phone (Bluetooth)

Setting it up was easy; if you are familiar using a laser printer or a fax machine, works pretty much the same way. You slide the ink cartridge in the side until it clicks and the paper cassette installs the same as a LaserJet paper cartridge does - by sliding into the front until it clicks.

And I have to tell you, the print quality is excellent! Just as good, if not better, than the prints I had made at the local big box store that starts with W.

When using the printer without being hooked up to your PC, you have the options of adding the date, auto correcting the color, correcting red eye, making the people in the picture have smooth skin (I love this one!), border or borderless, printing in various color settings such as vivid, neutral, sepia, or black & white. In other words, you can do just about anything without using your PC - I just prefer using my photo printer hooked to the computer as the 2.5" LCD screen is a strain on my eyes.

Using the Canon software, I was able to create a Holiday card of my dog - which I have taken a picture of and uploaded here in the customer images. I will have a blast doing my Holiday cards this year.

Imagine the fun you could have taking this to the next party of family reunion you go to - take this along with your digital camera and create instant memories for everyone to take home with them. That's what I plan on doing!

The battery is not included with the printer, and they are expensive, and I really don't see the need at this time for the battery, since almost anyplace I go has electricity and the power cord that came with this is fairly long.

Overall, it's perfect except for the white power cord that came with the black printer. Black would have looked nicer, but it's not that big of a deal so I'm not deducting a star for this minor complaint.

First of all there are two types of personal photo printers. Ink Jet and Dye Sublimation. The Canon Selphy 800 is a Dye Sublimation printer. Why is this important? If you are not prepared to print pictures almost everyday, the Ink Jet printer nozzles will clog (dry) up. Then you have to run a head cleaning cycle. This wastes ink that should be used for printing pictures. Say your Ink Jet printer's cartridge is rated for 100 4x6 pictures before it has to be replaced. If you don't keep the nozzels moist and the head primed by printing frequent, and I mean frequent, pictures you will have to run a head cleaning cycle. This means you might end up printing 70 instead of 100 pictures with your printers new cartridge before it has to be replaced. Each time you perform head cleaning you waste ink. Dye Sublimation is a different animal. The dye is film based and never clogs heads. That means I can let my Selphy sit inactive for months and never have a problem with clogged heads or wasted ink. Given that there is little difference in the quality of prints printed with Ink Jet or Dye Sublimation, Dye Sublimation is a no brainer for me. You always get the rated number of pictures from a Selphy Cartridge. That is reason alone to buy a Canon Selphy printer.

The Selphy CP800 sub-dye printer is geared towards mobile on the go printing, as evidenced by the small size, available battery pack, and ability to read and print from several media cards and USB drives. It does not ship with a USB cable, although it can be connected to a PC (if you purchase or have a spare USB cable lying around), and includes a CD containing drivers and printing software offering more printing features and options than the stand-alone device. When assembled, the body is compact, although the paper tray extends about 7-8 inches out from the front of the printer. The printer specifications claim it can read and print photos from nearly two-dozen memory card formats, however, it only has three different sized slots (compactFlash, SD, and memory stick). If you want to use different sized cards, like micro-SD, you'll need adapters, but according to Canon, they should be readable. It can also read directly from USB thumb drives. Like most photo printers, the USB port has a pictbridge logo instead of the normal USB logo, but it is indeed a USB interface.

Assembly of the CP800 is simple. After inserting the print (dye) roll, paper, paper cartridge, and plugging in the AC adapter, you're ready to print. The LCD display is clear and nicely sized. Oddly, although the printer is black, the AC adapter and cord are white.

Printing takes about one minute per print. The photo slides back and forth through the front and rear of the printer during printing. When the picture passes through the rear during printing, it makes contact with the surface that the printer is sitting on. It's a good idea to make sure you sit the printer on a clean dust free surface to prevent the photo from picking up any debris as it passes back and forth through the rear. Different colors are applied to the print with each pass. On the first pass, you might think the printer is defective when you see the yellow print coming out of the front. Rest assured, it will pass through the printer a few more times and will begin to look normal by the third pass. The finished photos look very nice. The colors are more uniform and free from defects and artifacts than my ink jet prints. There's no separation of colors, no "pop-out" effect (where the photo is held on an angle under lighting and some areas appear so differently, they seem to pop out from the rest of the image. For instance, the face might seem really glossy, while the hair and clothing appear matte), no roller marks, no ink spatter, no orange tinge, etc. Photos from the Selphy also seem more durable and resistant to damage from handling. There are no worries of smudging, fingerprint swirls, or easy moisture damage like inkjet prints. Also, the longevity of inkjet prints is very unpredictable. I have two HP inkjet photos hanging beside each other on a wall in my home. Neither is framed nor exposed to any direct sunlight. The newer print (printed on "high-quality" photo paper) has turned a funky shade of yellowish orange, while the other print (at least two years older and printed on plain paper) is perfectly fine. I've also witnessed some brands of blank inkjet photo paper yellow over time. I have several dye-sub prints (from different printers, not the Selphy), that are at least five years old and still look as nice as the day they were printed.

The CP800 is cleaner, faster, and the prints are more durable than inkjet prints. That's the good news. The bad news is the cost and scarcity of supplies. Dye-subs are generally more expensive to use than inkjets, and the Selphy is no exception. The special paper (you can't just grab any old photo paper on sale) and the dye rolls can cost into the hundreds of dollars for high-end dye-subs, IF you can even find the paper and dye. Fortunately, Selphi supplies are more affordable, but still far from cheap. Prints on the Selphy average out to roughly 41 cents per print (assuming no lost prints). Compared to the typical photo printing services, that's pretty expensive. Also, like I mentioned, supplies are hard to find. Although you should be relatively safe ordering supplies online, if you get caught in a situation where you need to purchase supplies quickly, you may not be able to find any readily available. The Selphy is okay for occasional lab-quality, durable prints; however, unless you have a compelling reason to pay nearly triple the price-per-print of a photo lab, it's hard to recommend it for casual users who want to occasionally print snapshots. I'll likely use the Selphy for those few very special prints or my kids' school assignments. However, my bulk digital printing will continue to be processed through a lab.

There's not a lot to say. Open the package, insert it "ink" cartridge (dye sublimation process, not liquid ink)....plug in your camera, select print and in 1 minute, you have a gorgeous, permanent print. It's ready for handling immediately. Sharp,clear, well saturated images. Borderless and inexpensive.

My wife is NOT technology oriented. She wanted a printer that she could simply plug her camera into and then print the photos she wished. I got this, and it worked perfectly for her. She made close to 100 prints, everyone perfect, everyone easy. She loves it.

The cost per print is reasonable, depending on what capacity packs you buy (36 or 108) it's as low as 30 CENTS per print.

THe 36 print ink/paper packs include 2 packs of 18 postacard sized papers and one ink pack that will print out 36 prints. The 108i print in/paper pack is simple 3 of the above for only twice the cost.

This is simplicity, very easy to use and and excellent product.

I'd buy another were the occasion to come up.

This printer is one powerhouse packed into a little package.

* Light, compact body and an optional battery makes it easy to take this printer with you
* Preview your images on the built-in 2.5" tilt-up LCD
* Enhance your photos with the improved "Portrait Image Optimize"
* Print water resistant photos that last up to 100 years in just 47 seconds
* Print directly from your memory cards, compatible digital camera, USB flash drive or wirelessly from a Bluetooth enabled device.

The setup took less than 10 minutes and I was up and running printing from my SD camera card. The loading of paper was straightforward and the ink cartridge slid into place. I printed first without changing any settings and then went for a bordered image with smooth skin toning and vivid imagery and the colors really jumped off the paper.

If you purchase the paper and ink from Amazon the cost per picture is around .26 per photo, and you will not be disappointed. You will however need to purchase a printer cable to connect to your computer since the printer doesn't come with one. I found it's not needed with all the features that came loaded on the printer but it's a nice to have if needed. Several reviews have complained about a white power cord with a black printer, which is really not a big issue. It's black and white to me.

This printer can also be ultra portable with a battery pack that can be picked up on Amazon for around $60.00. Simply clip it into the rear slot and you are ready to print. The enclosed data sheets say that you can get around 50 prints from one charge. I'll update this review when I pick up the next set of ink and photo papers. For now it certainly deserves 5 stars for it's vibrant pictures, fast printing, and ease of setup.

The camera I used to demo the Canon SELPHY CP800 was a Canon T2i, and it certainly seems the perfect pairing. I took several Civil War Battlefield images with the T2i and printed out 3 of them. They looked outstanding! I just wish Canon would have send more than 5 photo papers with a limited ink cartridge to test.

I pretty much agree with the other positive reviews but I wanted to point out one problem.
I prefer to work from my PC. The printing software provided would not work on my newish Windows 7 64-bit computer.
Canon customer service (which is otherwise top notch) was not able
to find a solution and did not seem too interested in coming up with one.
It did operate properly on my XP equipped laptop. The software provided was pretty rudimentary but workable.
Luckily, I already have Corel Media One on my Windows 7 Computer and it accepted the CP800 seamlessly and worked
perfectly without any additional setup. For the person who wanted to make smaller prints, Media One allows you to
put 1, 2, 4, or 8 different pictures on each 4x6 sheet which you can then cut up. I also understand that the free
Windows Gallery software available at Windows Downloads works well. I would only use the Canon Selphy print software
If I didn't have anything else. It's just not very good. It wouldn't stop me from buying the machine because I think
it's great but just wanted to warn the 64 bit owners.
One other warning: I purchased a 10 ft USB printer cable from Amazon at the same time I purchased the printer to take
advantage of the free shipping. Once the unit arrived and I read the manual, it turns out they don't recommend using a
printer cable longer than 8 ft. OOPS! so much for saving a few dollars. Buy the 6 ft not the 10 ft cable!

I needed a little printer to take to an event to make quick but professional 4x6 prints - I am a professional photographer and my product needs to look great. Several years ago I tried an Epson printer - similar but larger and more expensive. It did a great job but was larger and more expensive. I eventually sold it since I rarely offer this service and just was not using it. I needed one again this year it turned out and so tried the Selphy this time (the reviews were better than several years ago) and was very pleased. Easy to set up, the prints looked great and all worked well. Because of the size, cost and ease of use I will keep this one. Great little printer and it printed well either from my memory card or from the computer. Good value if you enjoy doing this at home rather than go to a lab.