If you’ve ever wished your printer could speak to you, listen up. Canon has a new portable photo printer that talks to you through the printing process.
The Selphy ES40 Compact Photo Printer, which will be available in October for $150, can give you some verbal guidance in printing snapshots. The company says it added verbal coaching to ensure that people of all ages (including the very young and the not so young) feel comfortable using the printer.
I got to look at the ES40 last week, and it works well, with or without the voice guidance. It has an intuitive interface and an easy-to-use scroll wheel that simplifies viewing and editing photos on its 3.5-inch LCD. The ES40 prints a 4-by-6-inch photo in 55 seconds, and the test images I saw were crisp and color- correct.
It’s easy to load the printer: Simply slip a Canon Easy Photo Pack, which combines paper and the thermal dye, into the printer and you’re good to go. The paper comes in packs of 100 for about $30, which means you’ll pay about 30 cents a print.
Rik Fairlie
