Travel Technology - Recomendations for portable printers

Since my travel business often has groups on the road I often find I need to print something so now I am looking for a light weight printer. It doesn't need to do photo quality but decent documents!!

Sometime passengers forget something or we need to reprint something that has beeen mislaid,lost etc. the list is endless. Even retreiving passport copies to repalce the passport at some embassy

I am currently eyeing the Canon IP 100.... but as usual I bet soem of you folks have comments that will help me.

If you have a better suggestion feel free to say so. Just bear in mind the I am EU based and that I have to keep the weight very firmly in my sights.

I've had two different versions of the Canon portable printers, and they've worked out quite well for me. The ink is small - you won't get a huge number of copies per page, but the price is generally inexpensive. I currently have the ip90.

The newer version is slightly larger (about 3/4 cm on each side) and slightly heavier (.2 kg) than the ip90. The resolution is better on the ip100; however, given your desire for documents, you won't notice too much of a difference. The ip100 is rated slightly faster than the ip90v.

Also something to note - the new printer takes different cartridges. The color are cheaper for the ip100, but I can't tell how many pages they print. For what it's worth:
ip90(v) - Black - $13, Color - $25
ip100 - Black - $13, Color - $18.

I mostly print black/white so I don't replace color nearly as often.

Hope this helps!

speechguy3 - how quickly do you find the colour ink runs out? I am asking because you mentioned that you do not print in colour very often.

I want to buy a travel printer, but I do not want to find myself drying out the cartridges all the time from not using colour ones often enough.

I've got the ip100 and think it's fantastic. It's a little larger and heavier than my venerable i70, but the cartridges last much longer. It's print quality is great -- I've printed out color presentations on photo paper with it. It's quite rugged and support a BlueTooth connection -- just plug a BlueTooth adapter in the provided USB port. When I travel for business, I wouldn't be without it.

If weight is at a premium, can I suggest something a little lateral and not using a printer at all?

I take a USB stick and have never yet failed to find a hotel/business office etc that will not print off the pages needed.

Even where there is a per page charge in some places, on the whole it will balance out the purchase/cartridges/ carriage etc. I understand internet cafes etc will also print out docs, but have never got to this stage.

If you are staying somewhere that will print incoming faxes free, but charge for outgoing faxes - then get the pages sent to you using an email-to-fax program.

For example I wanted some documents in pdf format to email to multiple recipients today. I did not have access to a scanner, but was able to get the documents faxed to my office fax number that gives me fax-to-email which arrives in pdf format in my email inbox a minute later. Job done!

I remember there used to be a Portable Cannon printer where you can swap the print cartridge with a scanner head. What a great idea but why did they stop making it?

Sorry... it's been a crazy few days.

speechguy3 - how quickly do you find the colour ink runs out? I am asking because you mentioned that you do not print in colour very often.

I want to buy a travel printer, but I do not want to find myself drying out the cartridges all the time from not using colour ones often enough.

I haven't had that issue come up for me - when I use it, I'll tend to go through 1 black cartridge at a time (I print lots of B&W). Like other ink jets, the ip90 will go through a cleaning cycle at startup, and thus, use a little bit of ink. I suspect that's where most of my color ink use has been. So, I haven't had to worry about the drying out effect.