The price of printers has dropped quite a bit in the past 5 or 10 years compared to when they were first available. Much is the same for portable printers. What once cost you hundreds of dollars is now not only cheaper, but lighter, smaller, faster, and looks better, not only the printer, but the print quality as well.
When considering the purchase of a portable printer, options are typically limited to Canon and HP. In some ways that is a good thing, because it saves you a mind numbing list of companies and models to sort through. However, if you are used to having numerous options to dig through for computer products and enjoy doing so, you may feel a little limited.
Canon has a few options for portable printers. They have several photo-printers, however if you are looking to print full size 8 ½” x 11” paper, their choices quickly limit to about 2 models. Although the models change and are periodically updated, full retail price from Canon for their main models run from 200 to 250 dollars. Of course, they can be found online from major discounters for much less, putting the street price at around 180 at the lowest.
HP has more portable printer options than Canon, but only by one. With three models to choose from, well, one model with three designations, HP isn’t flush with choices. Their retail prices are higher than Canon’s, starting at around 250 and going up to 350 dollars, but they typically offset the higher cost with a little bigger and more robust printer than Canon. This may be desirable if you travel often but not so much if you’re simply looking for something small that can be moved on occasion. Street prices are going to range from around 170 up to about 280 or so.
Although the consumer may not have a lot of choices, the choices that they have are good ones. They just need to think about what they intend to use their portable printer for before they buy.