Various companies have been offering portable printers for a while and, although they have yet to become mainstream, they have been selling enough to persevere. Epson’s new PictureMate is certainly not the smallest on the market, but by virtue of its well thought-out carry handle, it may well be the most portable.

Looking similar to a retro portable radio, the PictureMate has a touch of style to it that is backed up by the overall quality of the product. At a buck under $400 it won’t appeal to everyone, particularly seeing as it’s a dedicated photoprinter, requires its own specialist photo pack and restricts you to postcard sized prints.

However, if you want to impress your friends or print your pictures as you go, there is not much on the market that comes near the PictureMate. While it still requires a mains power source, it does not require a PC, is compatible with just about every memory card around and will even transfer your images from memory card to a variety of USB connected storage devices.

The PictureMate uses a special 6-colour print cartridge similar in size and shape to a video cassette and it is sold with 100 sheets of photo paper, although the cartridge will last longer than 100 prints. Epson claims that in the right conditions your prints will last for 200 years -- three times that of the best traditional silver bromide prints.

Using the PictureMate is simple. You plug in your memory card, storage device or camera and it is detected immediately. If you are not using a PC, you may need to print an index of the shots if you are taking them direct from memory card, and then select the shots you want prints of using the LCD menu. Although restricted to 100 x 150 prints, PictureMate offers a choice of borderless or bordered prints, two prints per sheet, or up to 20 thumbnails on an index sheet.

While it has many good features, it can be slow and takes several minutes to warm up, but once it gets going it will churn out prints at a steady rate.

The colour accuracy is impressive with a very good balance of reds and yellows (two areas where a lot of printers fall down) and PictureMate even handles low resolution (72dpi) shots remarkably well so you can get reasonable prints from your mobile phone (using an optional Bluetooth connector).