Epson's PictureMate Dash Photo Printer - Review

As a scrapbooker, I love being able to print my own photos. I have been a big fan of the PictureMate for years, however the photos printed with the PictureMate Dash have exceeded my expectations. The colors are true and sharp. The print time has been cut to a mere 37 seconds. The choices in photo sizes have been expanded to 18 different layouts. The view screen is now much larger than on the PictureMate Deluxe, making is much easier to see details as you edit photos right on the printer.

Stand Alone Capabilities

I especially enjoy being able to edit and print my photos without having to use my computer. Using the PictureMate Dash, I can remove red-eye, sharpen a slightly blurry photo, crop, or even select auto correct to prepare my photos for printing. When I am ready to print, I am able to select color, black and white, or sepia tone prints. One of the features that I use most often for my scrapbook pages is printing photos in various sizes. I love printing a borderless 4x6 inch print for my focal point photo and then selecting one of the smaller sizes for my supporting photos. With the PictureMate Dash, I can choose from layouts which include wallet-sized photos, mini wallets, digital size, U.S. passport photos and jumbo wallet-size, 2 x 2 inch, 3 x 3 inch, CD index and portrait packages (4, 6, 10 or 12 photos to a page). The PictureMate Zoom as the added stand alone capability to burn photos from your camera card right to a CD. The PictureMate Dash and Zoom support all popular camera cards, and can also print photos via USB cable from CD and flash drives.

Photo Facts

The PictureMate Dash and Zoom use a brand new ink technology that creates photos that have been tested by the Wilhelm Institute to resist fading for about 200 years in a photo album or scrapbook. The prints resist smudges, scratches, water, and fingerprints. I have held a PictureMate printed photo under running water with no ill-effects to the photo. As I mentioned above, I was actually surprised by how gorgeous skin tones look when the photos are printed on the PictureMate Dash. You can see in my sample photo that the photo printed on the PictureMate Deluxe did not capture the true skin tone quite as well as the photo printed on the Dash.

Cost Per Print

Ink cartridges and photo paper come in combo packs for the PictureMate Dash and Zoom. The manufacturer suggested retail price for 150 glossy photos paper combo pack is $39.99, while 100 matte photos are $34.99. As is almost always the case, with a little searching online you can find the combo packs discounted at certain retailers. At the time of writing this review, I found the 150 photo combo pack at Amazon.com for $35.99 with free shipping bringing the cost per print down to about 24 cents.

Final Thoughts

I loved the Dash so much when I tried it that I purchased one for my own scrapbooking. The expanded capabilities of the Dash have meant a slightly larger learning curve and there are still a couple of things that I need to figure how to do on my new printer. I am excited, however, to be able to print in a huge variety of sizes for my next scrapbook page. The reasons that I have given the printer 4.5 stars out of 5 is that 4x6 is the largest print that you can make and the cost per print is slightly higher than I was used to with my PictureMate Deluxe.