If It Prints, I'll Let You Know

Epson PictureMate Show Prints and Displays

In a previous post we talked about the compact photo printer and how it can be a nice idea for a gift this holiday season. While we did not talk specific models and brands on that post, a new release from Epson looks like a good gadget that will fit into that category.

We talked a bit about the various features that are nice to have when looking at compact photo printers, and this model has one feature that we did not mention in our previous post — it can not only provide family and friends with the convenience of printing holiday memories on site, the machine’s owner will also be given the opportunity to relive all these memories while enjoying a cup of coffee in the living room.

Epson PictureMate Show Snapshot Printer This is thanks to a good-sized LCD that allows this printer to double as a digital photo frame as well. Okay, so it is a great deal more bulky as far as digital photo frames go, but the bottom line is that this machine is mainly being marketed as a printer anyway. The PictureMate Show PM 300 is being tagged as a “hybrid” for being able to serve as both a printer and a picture frame.

The machine has most of the features that one will look for in a dedicated compact photo printer, especially that of being able to read from a variety of image sources, including memory cards, USB flash drives and cameras via PictBridge. It can also print images directly from mobile devices via Bluetooth. In addition, it is equipped with a 16:9, 800 by 400 resolution and 7-inch color LCD to view images from, using any of the 12 slideshow formats that Epson already included. There is also a remote control for one’s convenience and 270MB of internal memory for storing images.