Dell Photo Printer 540

Compact, efficient, and easy to use, the new Dell Photo Printer 540 has all the makings of a good first step for Dell into the increasingly competitive world of standalone mini-photo printers. The only problem is the prints themselves, which fall below Dell's claim of photo-lab quality.

At 3.2 x 7.4 x 5.4 inches, the 540 is an attractive printer that's small and light enough to take with you just about anywhere. Better yet, for the novice photographer, the 540 is a breeze to use. It can link directly to digital cameras via its PictBridge connector, or you can plug your digital camera's memory card right into the printer's five-in-one reader. The Dell supports CompactFlash, Secure Digital, MultiMediaCard, Memory Stick, and SmartMedia, but not the newer xD format favored by FujiFilm and Olympus.

The 2.5-inch adjustable LCD is also a nice feature, as it allows you to preview and select which pictures you want to print. Unfortunately, the screen's resolution leaves something to be desired; most images looked slightly distorted. Also, scrolling through large images (we were using a 5MP camera set at the highest capture size) is slow, taking about a second or so to view each one. This sluggishness gets frustrating when you've got close to 100 pictures stored on a 256MB card.

On the plus side, the 540 has dedicated buttons for printing in black and white or color. Being able to print easily in black and white is an overlooked feature in many home printers, and we're glad Dell sees the value in offering this option. The 540 also has a handy"Save to PC" button which allows users to back up their images onto their hard drives to avert disaster.

The 540 is relatively quick for a dye-sub printer, producing prints in about 60 seconds. The prints have a glossy finish called Clear Life Coating that increases durability and makes them both waterproof and smudge-proof. Like many dye-sub home printers, the special paper used in conjunction with 540 has perforated edges that need to be torn off after printing. This cuts off the fringes of an image and gives the sides a jagged, unprofessional feel.

The quality of the prints was also below average. Highlights were blown out and colors, even when we printed with the Vivid setting on, were washed out and flat. We tried boosting the saturation and lowering the bright spots in Photoshop when we connected the 540 to a PC, but the results were just as bad, with colors taking on a lurid pinkish cast.

Dye-sub printers, which use heat applied to a ribbon to produce colors as opposed to spraying ink on in droplets as inkjet printers do, have a reputation for creating better prints because of the continuous tone of the images. In lower-end models though, and even in some kiosks, we've found the opposite to be true, with colors looking painted-on and unnatural. This is particularly true with skin tones, which are often rendered as pasty and doll-like. We found the 540 to suffer from these same problems.

While Dell's new compact printer may be an easy way for making prints to share with friends, anyone looking to produce high-quality pictures from their digital camera should look elsewhere.