Canon i900d/Epson R300M/HP 7960 questions

[Pond Scum]

My 4-year old son seems to have an interest in taking pictures with my
and my wife's digital cameras and printing them out on his computer (he has
an old Epson 740i now), so my wife wants to get him his own camera and a better
photo printer for Xmas. My budget for a printer is under $300 (I plan to
use it too), so I'm considering the three models in the subject line.

I thought a printer which had slots for flash memory would be useful as
it wouldn't require using the computer to print, but reading the literature
for the HP and Canon leads me to believe that when printing from memory cards,
you can't access the highest print engine resolution, or obtain the highest
print speed. Is this correct - is printing from a computer the only way to
access the highest resolution, and print at the highest speed? If that's true,
how useful are the memory card slots? Do most people find them of limited
use, and end up printing from the computer most of the time?

At four years old, my son isn't quite old enough to use the Epson Film Factory
software by himself, or navigate the Windows print dialog, and my wife doesn't
have the patience, so I was hoping to be able to have a simple way of printing
out pictures. Neither my wife or son is going to notice a small difference in
quality or speed, so even if the prints are slower and lower resolution when
printing without the computer, it may still be acceptable.

I'm also interested in knowing if there is much difference in cost per 4x6"
photo print on each printer. I have an Epson Stylus Photo 870 now, and when
printing on premium glossy photo paper, it goes through ink fast - much faster
than my son's Stylus 740 printing on photo paper. It seems like ten 4x6
photo prints onto premium glossy photo paper use up 25% of a cartridge on my
870, while printing twice that number onto regular photo paper barely makes
a dent in the ink supply on my son's 740. Anyone know how much of the ink
usage can be attributed to the type of paper selected in the driver? Even if
it were 2x, my photo printer still goes through ink faster than the 740.
Some of the reviews I've read suggest the Canon printers have significantly
lower costs per page than HP or Epson printers.

-Jonathan (e-mail address removed)

 

[Safetymom123]

The cost of printing a 4x6 is around .30 cents. Your 740 should have used
more ink that the 870 because it had larger ink droplets. The cart. was
larger on the 740 though. To print an 8x10 you are talking around $1.50 a
print with it printed all the way to the edge.

When printing from the memory slot it runs very slowly. Yes you can print
directly but it takes much longer and you are right you don't have access to
the highest resolutions. Chances are though you will not be doing much
printing at the higher dpi because the lower resolutions still give a great
picture.

Another great use for the memory card slot is to transfer your pictures to
the computer. It is much faster than hooking your camera up to the
computer. It shows up on your system as a removable hard drive. Great way
to transfer photos back and forth to the card.

Also if these are important photos you would want to take them into the
computer and save them before you start working on them.