Olympus Camedia P400

Staff Writers | Jun 1, 2001 3:56 PM
Olympus |
RRP: $3000 (time of review)
A titanic photo printer, with plenty of features, although below average quality and a high price.
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Underneath the behemoths rough exterior is a friendlier beast. Along the front of the machine is a series of large buttons and dials, with each function clearly labelled.
This is without doubt the Godzilla of digital photo printers. Weighing in at a massive twelve kilograms, the Camedia P400 is a black monstrosity that demands a lot of desk space. The black finish and high level of noise the machine generates is intimidating. Opening the front panel and installing thermal print cartridges is equally daunting. The foldout setup guide makes little attempt to allay your fears that the printer could be destroyed at any moment.

Underneath the behemoths rough exterior is a friendlier beast. Along the front of the machine is a series of large buttons and dials, with each function clearly labelled. With them you can select your input method, paper size and print style. A small LCD screen keeps you informed of print progress and displays previews of images stored on removable media.

Without using the P400 in conjunction with a PC, the device can print images directly from SmartMedia or PC Cards. The manual states that CompactFlash and Memorysticks can also be used but an adaptor is needed. Both parallel and USB connections are supported, though you need to be sure which you are using since different installation and general use procedures are required for each method.

No matter how big the casing and attractive the flashing lights are, the real value of a photo printer lies with the finished images. The flower photo initially impressed with true rendition of the originals colours but edges were blurred considerably. Results of the printer test image were more worrying, with composite colour being used to substitute for black, spots of colours appearing randomly across the page and some faint lines not appearing at all. Although it uses conventional A4 size paper, the Olympus also has trouble fitting everything onto a single page and crops at its own discretion. Adding insult to injury is the extremely long time each print job takes to finish. Overall, photo prints are good, but not enough to justify the price.
This article appeared in the June, 2001 issue of PC Authority.