Supplied by Samsung

Samsung SPP-2040 Photo Printer Review

Image Courtesy of Samsung Canada

Introduction

It is no secret that digital photography has exploded over the last several years. Just about everyone I know owns at least one digital camera and most likely has a cellular phone that takes photographs as well. Multi-mega pixel cameras are becoming the norm, and the quality gap between traditional film and digital is closing rapidly. Despite these major advances, the one void that has yet to be filled is in the printing arena. From the moment digital cameras hit the market, the promise of ‘easy’ home printing was made and never delivered upon. At that time, you would be hard pressed to find a quality ink-jet or laser printer that could come close to the old-fashioned 35mm development process at any 1-hour photo joint. Let’s face it: people love to have physical photos in their hands and albums. It is never quite the same to gather around a PC monitor to view photos.

Today, the tables are beginning to turn with the introduction of ‘ink-less’ dedicated 4×6 photo printers. Samsung has recently released the SPP-2040, which promises to bring high quality 4×6 printing to anyone who really wants to experience a full digital conversion away from film.

Specifications

Full specifications for the SPP-2040 are available at the following URL:

http://www.samsung.com/ca/products/printer/photoprinter/spp_2040xaa.asp?page=Specifications

Some specifications of interest:

• Printing Method: Dye Diffusion Thermal Transfer (More on this later)
• Print Speed: 60 seconds (75 seconds for first print)
• Resolution: 300x300dpi
• Memory Card Support: CompactFlash I II, SmartMedia, SecureDigital, MultiMedia Card, Memory Stick, xD-Picture Card
• OS Compatibility: Windows 9x/2K/XP & Mac OS 10.3
• Display: 2″ Color TFT LCD
• Paper Size: 4″x6″
• Paper Capacity: 20 Page input tray, and 10 page output
• Dimensions: 180 x 136 x 66 mm (7.1″ x 5.4″ x 2.6″)
• Consumables: Two options: Samsung 40 page kit or 120 page kit (both include DDTT cartridge)
• Optional Accessories: Bluetooth dongle for wireless device support (camera phones, PDAs, laptops etc).
• Warranty: 1 year or 2000 prints (whichever comes first)

In the Box

Samsung packages the SPP-2040 in a stylish, protective box that unfolds to reveal all of the components and documentation. The packaging was sound, and the printer itself sits in a protective carton that should protect it from any delivery company abuse.

In the box, you’ll find the following:

• 1x SPP-2040 Photo Printer
• 1x Power Adapter
• 1x Power Cord
• 1x Warranty/Registration Card
• 1x Owners Manual
• 1x Paper Cartridge
• 1x Starter consumable pack (10 4×6 sheets and a matching ribbon cartridge)

The Unit

The first thing I thought when I saw the SPP-2040 was “wow, that’s a tiny printer”. Measuring only 7.1″ x 5.4″ x 2.6″, it has a very small footprint. The second photo below shows the SPP-2040 with a standard compact disc sitting on top of it for reference. Clearly, this is not your average colour printer.

The fit and finish of the SPP-2040 is excellent. It has a high quality look and feel to it. The finish has an attractive metallic gloss, and the control buttons feel firm and of high quality. Samsung currently has two flavours of the SPP-2040 available, including a black/silver model (as reviewed here) and a completely silver model.

One look at the label present on the printer alludes to the numerous features packed into this little unit.

The two-inch LCD screen is nice and bright and is easy on the eyes. It features a 640×240 resolution and can be seen clearly from a wide range of viewing angles. I found the tilt feature of the LCD to feel a little flimsy, and had a bit of ‘play’ when adjusting it. The power button outline has an attractive blue glow when the unit is powered on.

The SP-2040 includes a 7-in-1 card reader at the front of the unit. It accepts a variety of card types, including Compact Flash, Secure Digital and even the new ‘xD’ format used in many Olympus and Fuji cameras. With a card reader like this, there is little reason to have to connect this printer to your PC. An activity LED in the middle of the unit blinks whenever the card is being accessed.

The ports on the unit are located on the left hand side. There is a power plug for the included AC adapter, an ‘A to B’ printer style USB connection and the Bluetooth adapter plug. Although there appears to be two types of USB connections, the one on the far right is for the optional Samsung Bluetooth adapter or a ‘Pict-Bridge’ enabled device. I didn’t have the Bluetooth adapter available for testing, however it would certainly be useful for some of the new cellular phones and cameras with this capability built in.

The door on the front of the unit opens up to accept the included paper cartridge. Unfortunately, the paper does not load directly into the printer, and the printer’s footprint increases when it is loaded. This is really not surprising, because the printer is so small—there really is no place to put the paper, aside from an external cartridge.

The paper cartridge is really easy to insert and remove. I found myself leaving the cartridge in my drawer until I was ready to print, and simply connecting it when needed. The paper cartridge doubles as an output tray, and can hold up to 20 sheets of 4×6 paper. It is important to note that you must use Samsung’s 4×6 sheets for the printer to work correctly. I will talk more about the consumables in the next section.

You’ll also notice that there is an opening at the rear of the printer. This is to allow the paper to pass all the way through the printer’s internals. The paper will protrude out of the back about 5-6″ during printing, so be sure not to put anything too close to the rear of the printer or you may run into some paper jams. Above the opening is a fan grille. There is a small fan that starts during printing to keep the DDTT printing components at reasonable temperatures. See the ‘Dye Diffusion Thermal Transfer’ section for more detail on how the printing actually works.

Consumables

The SPP-2040’s consumables are fairly unique—especially the DDTT film cartridge. Samsung bundles the perfect amount of DDTT film with the paper, so that you’ll always have enough to print every included page.

Samsung has two consumable packs available. The one I used was the Samsung 40 page kit (IPP-4640G). Samsung also offers a more cost effective 120 page kit (IPP-46120G). Please see the ‘Cost Analysis’ section for more detail on pricing. The IPP-4640G included everything pictured below.

Installing the DDTT cartridge is very straightforward. Simply tension the film using the simple included instructions and insert it into the printer.

The cartridge fits snugly into the right hand side of the printer. The green clip pictured above snaps down when it is inserted correctly, and holds it into place. It is difficult to insert it incorrectly. Unlike ink-based printers, there is no head cleaning or any sort of maintenance required when changing cartridges. Be very careful not to expose the cartridge to any dust, as it will show up on your prints.

Using the Printer

The Samsung SPP-2040 is incredibly easy to use. With the built in card reader, there is little reason to hook this unit up to your PC. I had no issues using both Compact Flash and SD cards. The onscreen display and the controls are very simple to operate and provide all of the functionality you will need. Once a memory card is inserted, it allows you to browse between pictures using the directional arrow keys. When you find something you would like to print, it is a simple matter of hitting the print button.

The Zoom feature allows you to centre in on a specific area that you want to crop. Simply hit the ‘Zoom In’ button, and use the directional arrows to outline the area you wish to print. Cropping doesn’t get much easier than that! No need for photo touch-up applications on your PC.

There are a few settings that can be modified on the SPP-2040, but 90% of users will likely not even need to go into the menus. Some print settings can be modified, including sharpness and brightness. You can also select whether or not you want borderless printing, or to squeeze more than one photo on a single 4×6 page using the Layout mode. The ‘Color Mode’ option allows the selection of black and white printing, as well as some other modes to make your prints appear a little warmer or cooler looking.

Of course, once you are ready to print, there is only one button you need to familiarize yourself with.

Dye Diffusion Thermal Transfer Printing

Dye Diffusion Thermal Transfer or DDTT (or sometimes D2T2) is not a terribly new technology. It was first introduced back in 1986, however it has never been available to the average consumer until recently. DDTT does not use traditional inks or toners, but rather thin poly-films dyed with varying colours (Cyan, Magenta and Yellow namely). The printer will lay this film, one colour at a time, onto the paper. As is lays each colour down, it uses heat to produce the image (hence, the ‘thermal’ in DDTT). Unlike ink-jet printers, black film is not required to produce a true-to-life colour image. The final piece of film that is put onto the paper (after Cyan) is a clear protective coating that will keep the print looking fresh for many years. When the print is complete, it is totally dry and looks absolutely stunning.

As you can see above, the paper makes its way through the printer three times (automatically) until all three coloured films are placed onto the paper.

Once the final protective coating is put onto the paper, the pictures look fantastic. The colour is incredibly accurate, and the detail is very evident. In the next section, I will take a much closer look at print quality. The last step is to break off the end tabs of the print, which are pre-cut to make it an easy task.

Print Quality

To do some print quality testing, I decided to go out and enjoy the nice spring weather. I took along my Canon Powershot A520 digital camera, and snapped some shots of some colourful crocus flowers blooming. All photos were taken at maximum (4MP) resolution, and focused to the best of my ability. Click the below thumbnails to view the original JPEG images. Please note, the images are very large and may take a few moments to download.

Click any of the above to view full size images

I decided to take the three images I took and get them printed professionally at my local 1-hour photo-lab. I also took the same three images and printed them out on my inkjet photo printer. It is a slightly older model (2004 lineup) so I will leave it unnamed. I did, however, use high-quality gloss photo paper, fresh ink and cleaned the print head prior to printing.

Print time took just a tad longer than 60 seconds on the SPP-2040, and about double that for the inkjet in the ‘high-quality’ print mode.

Once I had all of the images, I scanned each set using an HP Scanjet 3500c flatbed scanner at its maximum resolution. None of the images have been doctored, with the exception of mirroring and cropping to correct the orientation and remove the white space. The topmost print in each is the inkjet, the centre one is the Samsung SPP-2040, and the lowest—the photo-lab print. Click any of the below three thumbnails to view the full size scan of the prints.

Click any of the above to view full size scans

I always considered my ink-jet to be top-notch, and indeed, the prints do look quite good in person. When comparing them side-by-side with the Samsung SPP-2040’s prints though, there is no comparison. The inkjet had great difficulty reproducing the deep blacks and the colours are not nearly as vibrant. If you look closely, it is pretty evident that the ink-jet dithers the image, producing it with numerous ‘dots’, as opposed to the continuous nature of the DDTT Samsung. Although not visible in the above scans, the ink-jet prints also have many small visible lines from the print head when viewed at an angle in high lighting. The SPP-2040 and professional prints had no such visible lines.

In regards to the professional prints, I would actually consider the SPP-2040s prints to have a more accurate representation of colour and slightly better detail. The professional prints appear to be overly bright, and as a result, some detail is lost. This is especially evident when looking at the green leaf to the right of the purple flower in the third print. If you look at the white flowers, you’ll also notice that they are more of an ‘off-white’ in the original pictures, and the Samsung did a better job accurately reproducing them.

When closely examining the professional prints, they seemed to have a very similar finish to them, and I suspect that the photo-lab uses some type of DDTT printer for their digital prints as well.

Overall, I was very pleased with the print quality of the Samsung SPP-2040. In my case, the prints were superior to those printed by the photo-lab. Every printout looked incredible and, if you are looking for high-quality digital 4×6 printing, the SPP-2040 delivers.

Cost Analysis

Anyone who has owned a photo printer knows that the cost of the consumables quickly accumulates to more than the cost of the printer. Knowing the ‘price per page’ can help when making a buying decision. Because the consumable cost for ink-jet printing can vary greatly depending on the colours regularly used, I won’t attempt to weigh it against the DDTT based SPP-2040—especially considering how much better the SPP-2040s prints look. For this analysis, I will be comparing the price of professionally printed 4×6 photos.

As mentioned earlier, Samsung offers two consumable packs—a 40 page kit and a 120 page kit. The 40-page kit is priced at about 50% that of the 120 page kit, even though it only has 1/3 the number of sheets. Clearly, it makes the most sense to pay a little more and stock-up with the 120 page kit. For the purposes of this analysis, I’ll base the pricing on the IPP-46120G 120 page consumable kit.

The 120 page kit can be had for about $50US/$60CDN. I noticed that the consumable pack pricing seems to vary quite a bit online, so be sure to shop around for the best price. Since all the consumables are included in the kit, that brings the cost per page to about $0.42USD/$0.50CDN per page.

The professional prints I purchased cost $1.11CDN for all three, bringing the price per page to $0.37CDN or about $0.32USD (Using a currency conversion of $1.00USD = $0.87CDN).

If your time is worth nothing and you don’t care about quality, this would be a fair comparison. Being able to print any picture you want within 60 seconds in the comfort of your own home is worth something in my humble opinion. Let’s not forget that the SPP-2040 photos looked even better than the photo-lab prints I had done. When you take this into account, I think that the $0.13CDN delta is more than made up for.

The printer itself is very reasonably priced. I have seen it online at some locations for under $100USD.

Conclusions

Overall, I was very impressed by the SPP-2040. Today, I can confidently say that you can have photo-lab quality 4×6 prints in the comfort and convenience of your own home. The print-quality of the SPP-2040 is top-notch and being able to output a print in about sixty seconds is a real plus. The convenience of the built-in LCD and card reader is great, and eliminates the need to connect this printer to your PC. All of the printer’s functions are very simple to use, and just about anyone can successfully operate it.

Although the prints will cost a little more than photo lab work, the quality and convenience more than make up the difference in my opinion. I would not hesitate to recommend this product to anyone looking for an easy to use, high quality photo printer.

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