Canon PIXMA iP90 Portable Printer

When you about to strike a deal with a client, you never want to say, "I'll print it out as soon as I get back to the office." You'll make a much better impression if you pull Canon's PIXMA iP90 out of your bag and spit out the document right then and there. Even if you don't work in the field, having this printer at your side means never having to wait to see if your vacation photos look as good on paper as they do on your digital camera's screen.

As the replacement to the iP80, the iP90 has all the features we love in its predecessor and more. The attractive silver-cased printer weighs 4 pounds and is roughly the same size as a large hardcover book, which means it will fit comfortably in many laptop cases. Just as important, the printer churns out attractive text pages, business graphics, and even photos.

While designed as a portable printer, the iP90 has desktop printer resolution. A 1,088-nozzle print head can produce droplets as small as 2 picoliters. Because of size constraints, this portable uses a two-cartridge, four-color printing system, and the tri-color tank ($21.95) must be replaced when it runs out of one ink color. On the plus side, Canon claims a life of up to 100 years when the print is stored correctly in a photo album.

We also like the iP90's ability to print composite black (using a mixture of cyan, magenta, and yellow) when the black ink tank runs dry, which can be a lifesaver when you have to print out a report. A Save Black Ink Mode helps stretch your budget further by using less ink on the page, which can increase the life of the black ink cartridge by as much as 66 percent when you're printing text.

The iP90's small stature doesn't prevent it from making great-looking photos in the most popular sizes. A sliding paper guide lets you use 4 x 6-inch, 5 x 7-inch, and 8.5 x 11-inch borderless paper. We showed identical images printed on Photo Pro paper from both the iP80 and iP90 to several judges, who said there was no discernable difference in print quality. All agreed, however, that the print quality was very good, especially for a four-color printer.

The Canon iP90 is faster than the iP80, but not by much. We printed several images and documents, and the iP90 bested its predecessor on most tasks by two to ten seconds. The most dramatic difference was on the PowerPoint test, in which the iP90 finished three an a half minutes faster.

The iP90 lacks a memory card reader, but it does have a PictBridge connector, so you can print directly from newer digital cameras. If you want to go completely wireless, pick up the $139 CK-51 cradle kit with its rechargeable lithium battery and the $79 Bluetooth adapter for printing from certain laptops, PDAs, and cell phones.

At $249, the Canon Pixma iP90 Portable Printer is a bit pricey, but with its svelte silver case, great print quality, and excellent connectivity, it's worth the extra cash.