Portability has been talked about a lot recently, and people are starting to get used to the fact that their printer can be just as portable as the rest of their equipment. Canon has been offering portable laptop printers for several years and selling just enough of them to persevere, however, with the digital camera boom they are starting to come into their own.

The new i80 includes PictBridge printing, which means not only can you print your documents from your laptop but you can quickly whip up some glossy prints as well. While in its base form the i80 requires a mains power supply, Canon also offers an optional Lithium-Ion battery pack to make it truly portable.

Apart from PictBridge it also has efficient infrared connectivity and an optional Bluetooth module. However, the latter suffers the usual Bluetooth compatibility problems and you need to make sure that it is going to work with any existing Bluetooth devices you have before purchasing.

The i80 is sleek, stylish and lightweight, weighing in at just 1.8kg, and it is surprisingly fast. In fact, it will print an A4 glossy print in less time than most desktop inkjet printers, and the quality is not too bad considering it relies on a single tricolour and a standard black cartridge.

Prints tend to have a slight reddish tinge to them compared to prints of identical photos produced on a true photo printer such as the Canon i990. However, for the average road warrior that is not going to be a major problem.

The biggest problem is the size of the ink cartridges which limits the amount of printing you can do before they have to be replaced. However, that's the trade off for portability.

The i80 is small enough to fit into the same bag as most laptops and with the battery pack installed there are few limitations to where you can use it, making it ideal for the business person who has to produce documents on the road and on the run.

The Canon 180 Bubble Jet is a neat package that's smaller and weighs less that the ream of paper you will carry with it.