Customer Reviews

Sony DPP-FP30 Digital Photo Printer

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Aside from Sony, many other brands make portable dye-sublimation printers these days, which makes the choice tougher. I did not consider purchasing the Dell, HP, Kodak, or Olympus ones because they are simply too big - I wanted one that I can comfortably bring with me on my travels, so I can print my own postcards to send home.

I tried out the Canon CP-400 (form factor even smaller than the Sony DPP-FP30) in the store, and found that the print-outs (direct from my camera, not touched up by computer) have a blue cast to them, and in a side-by-side comparison the Sony print-outs (of the same pictures) have much prettier colors.

And comparing to Sony's own older model DPP-SV77, which I have at home: The DPP-SV77 is bigger, complete with touchscreen LCD and Memory Stick/PC Card slots, built-in creativety functions such as printing calendars, and has a higher resolution of 403 dpi (the DPP-FP30 reviewed here, like the Canon models, only has 300 dpi). BUT the little DPP-FP30 actually prints photos with much truer color, while the big brother DPP-SV77 tends to exagerate reds and greens, and over-sharpen any edges. The lower resolution in the DPP-FP30 is not noticeable at all unless I print fine text to it from a computer, which is not this printer's intended purpose anyway.

While I am very happy with the Sony DPP-FP30, I WISH IT COULD HAVE HAD (Sony, are you listening):

- A battery option, so it's not necessary to carry the AC adapter or to be tethered to a power source when printing.

- A button to toggle between bordered (no cropping) and borderless (cropped).

- More creativety functions in the included software.

- Without increasing the overall size by too much, add multi-type card reader slots and a small color LCD to choose pictures (better yet, ability to trim/crop them before printing). This would also eliminate the requirement that the digital camera must be PicBridge compatible.

The other obvious shortcomings common to all portable dye-sub printers are that 1) paper/cartridge are prioritery and on the expensive side, and 2) print size is limited to a maximum of 4x6 (4x8 in some cases). These I accept for now, because I want the quality and durability of dye-sub prints (as opposed to inkjet prints). Hopefully these will improve with time.

As no other printer today has everything I hope for (see above), I am still giving the Sony DPP-FP30 5 stars for its excellent quality prints.

I picked up my Sony PictureStation last week. I had also considered the Canon CP 220, but decided on the Sony after I saw the prints from one at a friends home.

Installation was very easy and all went flawlessy. Setup consisted of installing the driver to my computer and hooking up the power, and usb (remember to buy a usb cable)...then inserting the printer cartridge and paper.The printer has a very small form factor and takes up litle space on my desk. I was printing 10 minutes after opening the box.

The prints are beautiful 4x6 pictures. Prints take about 1.5 minutes and are smudgeproof and waterproof right out of the printer. I would compare them favorably to photo lab prints. Cost is around 40 cents a picture if you shop around online for the 80 picture ink/paper pack.

Sony includes a 40 count paper/ink pack with the Dpp-Fp30 which is a very nice little bonus that allows you to print right away without purchaseing extra supplies.

Printing is easy from a computer or from my camera using the pictbridge feature. I am very pleased with the Sony Fp30 and would recommend it to anyone who wants a simple easy way to print gorgeous 4x6 pictures.

I spent a lot of time reviewing these dye-sub printers. I rarely print from a memory card, so that feature was not important to me. Watching this thing do its magic is a lot of fun! 3 passes to apply color, then the last pass for the glossy coat.

I got it mainly for its portable size. It is tiny! Another plus is that it comes with a paper pack and ribbon.
The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that the photos are a tad (just a tad) flat. I think it has more to do with the sony paper. My full size canon i960 makes a better print on the canon glossy paper.

Other than that, this is a fantastic little device!

Besides the expensive ink and paper (although value packs are available now), this little devil is a charm with a cherry on top!

It is a bit more expensive than other dye-sub printers, but once you try it out you'll realize it's worth it.

One leasson I learned, never go cheap on dye-sub photo printers, they're worth every penny and the DPP-FP30 rules them all.

nice, small, compact printer. quality of the photos is great using dye sublimation printing. fun to watch the picture come together color by color. a little time consuming, but worth it.

Pictures are shape and the color is crisp and defined. It was easy to use and the price was right. I took about 1/2 minute for each picture to print. I'm a novice at photo printing and I had no problem. I highly recommend this device. You won't be disappointed.

I've had this printer for a few months now and I've never seen a better one!! The pictures look as good as the ones I got from a photoshop here in town. If I could give it more stars I would! The only problem I've found so far is that they print on postcards. You wouldnt know it til you turned it over, but still.

This printer is amazing. I don't know why it is so cheap. The pictures are great, it is compact, and very easy to use.

I've had this printer for 3 years and use it all the time. I've had no problems with it and it still prints wonderful pictures. The only down side is that when I purchase the 40 picture pack, I usually have 1 picture paper left and I run out of ink, so I don't get my 40 prints, but the quality is so good that I like them better than if I go to CVS OR WAL MART.

I was fine with the picture quality and print speed although the colors sometimes looked too intense. My gripe is that the printer stopped working before I could even reach 100 pictures. I've read online comments from others with the same problem of sections of the photo coming out white/blank. I've tried cleaning the print head, checking for visible loose/broken parts, and replacing the ink cartridge and paper several times to no avail. It's past the 1 yr warranty, so it'll be going out in my trash soon.