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SiPix Mobile

Portable printer

Review We've seen a number of small, portable printers before, but nothing quite like the SiPix Mobile. It has its roots in the belief that road warriors still like to work from hard copy. It can be connected up to a notebook or PDA via an infrared or serial connection, allowing you to print out from either.

Installation and use is easy because SiPix has sensibly kept features down to a bare minimum. The only confusion might lie in the separate paths for sheets of A6-sized paper or rolls. That said it only comes bundled with a roll of paper and the manual is fairly comprehensive about set up. We would, however, suggest getting sheets because the roll has to be ripped off which does not look professional. Users won't have any problems changing print cartridges because SiPix has opted for monochrome thermal print technology.

A resolution of 400dpi (dots per inch) is the only setting and it outputs up to 2ppm (pages per minute). You will need to bump the font size up to at least 18 for text because anything smaller is hard to read. PowerPoint presentations look good as long as there aren't too many dark colours, but graphics don't fare that well.

To put the size of the mobile printer in perspective consider that its weight is doubled by the addition of the roll of paper for printing and four AA batteries. You can invest in rechargeable batteries though, as the power adapter has a built-in charger.

If you need to print on the move this is a good solution, but for high quality, fast printing wait until you get back to the office. ®

Info

Price: £124
Contact: 0160 645 008
Website: www.sipix.com

Specs

Optical resolution: 400x400dpi
Speed: 2ppm
Connection: Serial and IrDA
Size: 150x109x22mm
Weight: 250g without batteries, 400g with batteries
Paper: roll of A6 paper supplied; six rolls cost £9.99
Requires: Win98/Me/2000 or Palm PDA with OS 3.0-4.0

Scoring

Build quality: 7
Features: 6
Value for Money: 5

All details correct at time of publication.

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