Over the last few years there is no doubt mainstream PCs have leant increasingly towards visual applications. The power of visually communicating has grown in acceptance as more and more products and applications reach fruition.

The Kodak EasyShare Printer Dock 6000 is a tiny photo printer-cum-camera dock for Kodak EasyShare CX/DX 6000 and LS600-series cameras. Although it's designed to print 4 x 6in borderless prints, the dock is capable of a lot more. The abundance of functions this dock can perform boggles the mind. Ranging from slide show streaming, three-hour camera Li-Ion battery charging, multiple print runs and PC file-synching, this printer does it all.

The market for specialised compact photo printers remains relatively small, but as prices come down for printers and digital cameras, they are becoming more popular. As digital camera prices come down and more cameras have direct printer connectivity, a small photo printer becomes a viable accessory.

Epson has two current specialist photo printers and the model which takes care of the lower end is the $399 Stylus Photo 810.

Placing last overall and in each of the tests we conducted during the roundup, Kodak's Printer Dock Plus, while incredibly handy had some real issues reproducing our test image as it was originally taken. The dock itself is fantastic idea, allowing you to charge and hold your camera and using the LCD on your camera to preview your prints rather than printing an index sheet.

The PhotoSmart 8150 boasts Compact Flash Type I and II, SmartMedia, Secure Digital, MultiMedia Card, Memory Stick, xD, USB flash drive support as well as PictBridge and an optional Bluetooth adaptor. Such a wide range of supported formats should leave you hassle free when it comes to plugging in and printing off those precious moments you've stored on your camera or other device.

Webcams have been around for some time and they are now emerging as a truly accessible and useful device.

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.

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.

This isn't the first time we've looked at the tiny Esky-esque PictureMate from Epson and at the time as a standalone product it garnered a Recommended award. It's good to see it do the same in a comparative environment, walking off with a second recommendation from the Labs team.

Good photo quality and a large touchscreen make this the A4 inkjet to buy.

Packed with features like network capability and transparency scanning, it also has the best scanner by far, with great print quality too.

Great design, great photos and some clever features, but it struggles to justify the high price.

Narrowly missing out on an award, much effort has gone into the aesthetics of this unit as it has into the feature set.

A decent LCD in its own right, but the speakers are poor and the dock isn’t much more than an expensive gimmick.

Finishing a point above average overall, Canon's PIXMA iP5000 was unlucky to miss out on our coveted recommended award, pipped at the finishing line by Epson's PictureMate small format printer. Canon's five individual ink cartridges is a great system that allows you to replace only the inks you need without needing to replace a whole colour cartridge as is the case with the HP PhotoSmart 8150 printer.