A great printer for the road with a microscopic footprint, but average performance holds it back from greatness.

Lacklustre colour quality, but good speed and value for money make the K8600 a contender if you like blowing things up to A3 size

Canon continues the good work and delivers another winner with the MP610.

An interesting new technology, but cheap running costs are let down by poor quality.

An excellent all-in-one, particularly when it comes to photo quality, but it’s possible to get more features elsewhere.

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.

With a lightning-fast scanner and high-quality photo printing, it’s only hampered by speed and running costs. CD printing and transparency scanning are bonuses, though.

The best home-office choice with an ADF and fax, plus good text speeds and quality. Those looking for a photo printer should look elsewhere, though.

The MP500 is a great all-rounder. It’s capable of excellent print quality at high speeds, plus CD printing, has an automatic duplex module and a tempting price.

A Lexmark multi-function device, the P6250, won our last photo printer roundup, so the expectations were high for its big brother, the X7170. Unlike our Labs Winner, this machine is definitely targeted at the business market. For an extra $100 premium, the machine adds office-oriented functions such as faxing, a copy feeder and a better scanner. It's also noticeably larger than its brethren.

With a performance reflecting its relatively lower price, the Brother didn't score as well in most printing tests. The photo print in particular took over four times longer than many of the other printers, and its quality was inferior in comparison. Text quality was also poor, particularly on the smaller 6pt font where visible banding occurred.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Lexmark P6250 is a not just a photo printer as such, it's also an all in one multifunction device: printer/scanner/copier and media reader. You might be nodding to yourself with the obviousness of an all in one printer winning out over tiny single use photo printers in this roundup, but to be honest the distinction is not just made because of the broad functionality and applicability of the Lexmark P6250.

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.

The 5250 is a compact unit that combines a good quality scanner with an average printer, efficient photocopy function and basic fax, all controlled from a simple to use software control centre.

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.