Best Mobile Printers

Review & Comparison, Last Update September 25, 2024
The life today demands perpetual mobility from all of us. Traveling anywhere we carry mobile phones and portable computers to be ...Read more
PROS

The built-in battery boasts increased capacity, so it allows you to print a large number of copies from one full charge. It is worth noting that the full charge time is no more than 90 minutes.

CONS

The process of installing cartridges is very time-consuming.

OUR VERDICT

This mobile printer compares favorably with most analogs in its capacious paper tray and high printing speed (up to 20 pages per minute when powered from the network). It is ideal for people who need to print often and a lot. Suitable for most any settings.

detailed parameters
Prints

Documents, photos

Interfaces

USB, Wi-Fi

Print Speed

On AC: Up to 20 ppm

On Battery: Up to 18 ppm

Tray Capacity

50 sheets

Resolution

4800 x 1200 dpi

Compatibility

IOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS

Max Paper Format

8.5 x 14 inches

Power Source

Rechargeable battery, AC

Dimensions

14.3" x 7.3" x 2.7"

4.85 lbs (with battery)

Warranty

1 year

PROS

A powerful Wi-Fi module ensures a stable wireless connection overs quite a long distance. What's more, if there are any other wireless devices used nearby, they will no way affect the printer operation

CONS

Relatively low printing speed.

OUR VERDICT

Boasting one of the highest printing resolution possible (5760 x 1440 dpi) the Epson WorkForce WF-100 is the best option for printing documents and presentations containing text written in either medium or small font. Perfect for home and offices.

detailed parameters
Prints

Documents, photos

Interfaces
Hi-speed USB, Wi-Fi Direct
Print Speed
via AC Black: Up to 6.7 ipm; Color: Up to 3.8 ipm via Battery Black: Up to 3.5 ipm; Color: Up to 2.0 ipm 4" х 6" photo ~ 77 sec
Tray Capacity
20 sheets 1 envelope 5 photopaper sheets
Resolution

5760 x 1440 dpi

Compatibility
iOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS
Max Paper Format
8.5" x 14"
Power Source
AC adapter, Li-Ion rechargeable battery
Dimensions
12.2" x 6.1" x 2.4"; 3.5 pounds
Warranty

1 year

PROS

The presence of a 3.2" color LCD screen in combination with intuitive button labels allows you to quickly learn all the features of the device. The Zoom-In Feature will be indispensable if you want to print only a fragment of the picture.

CONS

To achieve natural color reproduction, you need to configure it in the application.

OUR VERDICT

The SELPHY CP1300 is a welcome gift to many professional photographers who are used to storing the best photos in print. So, it allows you to print photos not only from phones, laptops or computers, but also directly from memory cards and USB-flash drives.

detailed parameters
Prints

Photos

Interfaces

USB, Wi-Fi, microSD slot, slot for USB-flash drives

Print Speed

~47 seconds per 1 photo

Tray Capacity

18 sheets

Resolution

300 x 300 dpi

Compatibility

IOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS

Max Paper Format

4" x 6"

Power Source

AC

Dimensions

7.1" x 5.4" x 2.5"

1.9 lbs

Warranty

1 year

PROS

A set of cartridges is supplied with the printer, the capacity of which is very impressive: for example, a black cartridge will last up to 125 pages, and a color cartridge up to 110 pages. By the way, the application will remind you when to replace cartridges and help you order them online.

CONS

The light body gets dirty very easily.

OUR VERDICT

Although the HP Tanga does not have a built-in scanner, it can still be easily used to scan and copy any documents and photos: install the HP Smart App on your smartphone or tablet, and this printer will turn into a full-fledged MFP (using the smartphone camera).

detailed parameters
Prints

Documents, photos

Interfaces

Wi-Fi

Print Speed

Up to 11 ppm

Tray Capacity

50 sheets

Resolution

4800 x 1200 dpi

Compatibility

IOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS

Max Paper Format

8.5 x 14 inches

Power Source

AC

Dimensions

14.8" x 8.1" x 3.6"

6.8 lbs

Warranty

1 year

PROS

The design provides an Android Dock Pin so that you can connect your smartphone and directly print photos stored in it - this is very convenient if the phone’s charge is not enough for wireless printing (Lightning Adapter included for iOS devices).

CONS

The cost of printing one photo is quite high.

OUR VERDICT

Kodak knows a lot about printing photos, and therefore this printer will pleasantly surprise you with the quality of the finished pictures: D2T2 Thermal Transfer Technology makes the image clear with high contrast, and the photos will not fade even after many years.

detailed parameters
Prints

Photos

Interfaces

Wi-Fi, Android Dock Pin (iOS Lightning Adapter included), slot for USB-flash drives

Print Speed

~55 seconds per 1 photo

Tray Capacity

~20 sheets

Resolution

300 x 300 dpi

Compatibility

IOS, Android

Max Paper Format

4" x 6"

Power Source

AC

Dimensions

6.7" x 3.9" x 2.7"

1.7 lbs

Warranty

1 year

Heavy Duty Printing

Mobile printers typically aren't known for being workhorses for good reason, as in they are usually designed only for the occasional printing of photos or documents. Many of them are focused much more on portability than anything else, which means they just aren't well-suited for handling large printing jobs, or for being used constantly. While this is fine for many people who don't really need to do any heavy printing from their mobile printer, those that do tend to find themselves with very few options, with most models simply not being up to the task of meeting their needs.

The HP OfficeJet 200 CZ993A Portable Printer is exactly what those who need to do lots of printing from a mobile printer need. This mobile printer compares favorably with most analogs in its capacious paper tray and high printing speed (up to 20 pages per minute when powered from the AC adapter). It is ideal for people who need to print often and a lot, as it was designed to handle much heavier printing loads than what most other mobile printers can handle. It also doesn't need to make any concessions to its portability either, as its small footprint and light weight will make it easy to take with you virtually anywhere you go.

Long Battery Life

Another great advantage that this printer has over many of its competitors is that your long printing jobs won't be hampered by its battery life. The built-in battery boasts increased capacity, so it allows you to print a large number of copies from one full charge. It is worth noting that the full charge time is no more than 90 minutes, so even if you need to recharge it will still needing to finish some more printing, you won't have to wait all day for it to be ready to go again.

Not only is this mobile printer designed to be a mobile printing workhorse, it is also quite easy to use. The control panel on the printer makes it easy to change whatever settings you need for your specific print jobs, and installing the required software on your computer or mobile device is also as easy as it gets. About the only thing that may be a problem for some people is that changing the print cartridges tends to be time consuming, so it is best to check their levels before doing a large print job that needs to be finished soon.

All told, this mobile printer is certain to please many users who require a model that is able to handle large print jobs and often, making it the sure-fire choice for those with larger printing needs.

Additional Info

User Manual     Manufacturer

Last updated price $329.99
Stock In stock
ASIN B01HGD8T9M

What customers say about this product

Key Specs(4.8)

The speed and quality of printing is fine.

Printing / Scanning(4.8)

Print quality is excellent and it is extremely fast for a little unit like this.

Cartridges(4.7)

This 200 model is such a pleasure to use. Very fast, color is excellent.

Features(4.8)

I was able to easily turn off the wireless feature and add a printer connection when I'm using the printer at home.

The Most Compact A4 Printer

This printer has the size only a little bigger than a box of paper tissues. But it is a fully functional ink-jet printer capable of printing documents, contracts, photos and many other things. Many frequent travelers that regularly have to prepare and print out documents on the standard A4 sheets of paper would probably choose this model. Potential buyers might be the real estate agents desiring to print a contract promptly or the engineers working on a customer’s site and needing to make changes in designs printed on paper. It should be mentioned that this printer is foldable, i.e. you can easily fold its tray and put it into a travel bag or a carrying case after having finished the job. The downside is that the small size has slightly affected the printing speed. Though minor inconveniences are definitely outweighed by the pluses like light weight and portability. We would like to mention also that the built-in battery ensures reliable printing of up to 100 sheets of monochrome documents or 50 pages with color pictures.

Birth of the First Printer

The office staff today do not even think who stood at the roots of routine office equipment and tools. The story of printers started back in 1822, when the famous British mathematician, philosopher, and inventor Charles Babbage had designed a device that should have printed out texts for his difference engine. The difference engine was his prototype of a computer, it could multiply and divide numbers independently. The idea was to simplify the job of banking clerks. But he got no external funding and had no own resources to finance the manufacturing process in 1834. Only in 2000 the London Science Museum completed the assembly of the printer designed by Babbage in the XIX century. More common ink-jet printers were invented only in the second half of the XX century. In 1953 Remington-Rand succeeded in designing a device capable of printing up to 600 text lines continuously. The race was picked up by Seiko-Epson, which has developed a matrix printer. Finally, since 1975 several companies proposed laser printers to the market. This was a breakthrough leading to the booming expansion of laser printers to the mass market. Currently, all manufacturers constantly improve the printing quality and attempt to introduce new technologies in this field. We can mention the wireless printing, mobile printing and printing from the cloud resources as the most recent examples.

Additional Info

User Manual     Manufacturer

Last updated price $429.99
Stock In stock
ASIN B00NR1GW5Q

VIDEO

What customers say about this product

Key Specs(4.1)

Speed is good but not lightning-fast (faster when plugged into a wall outlet than when running on battery) but I am so happy to have a portable printer I gladly put up with what I consider to be this minor inconvenience.

Features(3.9)

Another thing I like, is that to my knowledge, unlike another mobile printer - this printer has access to online printing cloud service like Google CloudPrint, Apple AirPrint and EpsonConnect (available when connected to WiFi). For me, this is huge

Printing / Scanning(4.2)

We probably print 5-10 sheets per Week. Quality is excellent.

Cartridges(3.9)

The printer ink tanks look small - and they are! But don't let that deceive you. So far, I've printers nearly 35 pages the first day of use (initial ink tanks) and barely placed a dent in the cartridge.

Control With Ease

Ask many people what one of the most complicated pieces of computer equipment are, and many of them will point immediately to their printer. This is with very good reason, as printers have always seemingly been one of the most difficult pieces of equipment to configure and setup properly. Furthermore, they often have a bevy of features that most users just can't use because they are too complicated to take advantage of, even with companion software that often promises to help make things easier but rarely delivers. If there is one area that printers can be improved in, it would definitely be ease of use.

The Canon SELPHY CP1300 Compact Photo Printer is definite a huge step in the right direction by being a printer made from the ground up to be easy to configure and use. The presence of a 3.2" color LCD screen in combination with intuitive button labels allows you to quickly learn all the features of the device, making it much easier to take advantage of them than with many contemporary models. The Zoom-In Feature will be indispensable if you want to print only a fragment of the picture, a much needed feature for people who often want to print a photo of one person in a photo of many people crowded together.

Print From Any Device

The SELPHY CP1300 is a welcome gift to many professional photographers who are used to putting their best photos in print. On top of that, the flexibility in use of this device lets you print photos from virtually any source. So, it allows you to print photos not only from phones, laptops or computers, but also directly from memory cards and USB-flash drives, something that many photographers will find to be extremely convenient when they want to print a photo directly after their photo shoot.

This particular model is made specifically for printing photos, which will sit well with many people who often find multi-purpose printers to be less than ideal with the quality of their photo printing. This model, however, doesn't take any shortcuts with the quality of the prints. The only negative that users may run into is in regard to natural color reproduction, which will need to be configured through the application. Regardless, most photographers of any level will be more than pleased with the quality of prints created by this printer. If you need a mobile printer that you can take with you and immediately print out high-quality prints on demand, then this model is definitely the right choice.

Additional Info

User Manual     Manufacturer

Last updated price $127.99
Stock In stock
ASIN B073YHRPV5

What customers say about this product

Key Specs(4.8)

Really fast. I like this and recommend.

Printing / Scanning(4.8)

I can't believe the print quality. Excellent!

Cartridges(4.6)

Printing detailed photos with (mostly) nice color accuracy.

Features(4.8)

So far everyone has loved the photo strip feature, it's a fun little printer that is easy to use and is quick to print.

Impressive Page Count

One of the criticisms that is often leveled against mobile printers is that they often have to make too many compromises in order to be sufficiently portable. While most models have plenty of portability in them, with a small, lightweight design, this often necessitates cutting down on many of the other features of the printer, which often makes them less than ideal for certain circumstances. One of the biggest areas that mobile printers struggle with is in their small capacity ink cartridges, which are often not able to print very many pages before needing to be replaced. Considering the expense of most ink cartridges, this is often a pretty big problem.

The HP Tango 2RY54A Mobile Printer is one model that doesn't have to compromise on areas while still being quite portable. A set of cartridges is supplied with the printer, the capacity of which is very impressive: for example, a black cartridge will last up to 125 pages, and a color cartridge up to 110 pages. By the way, the application will remind you when to replace cartridges and help you order them online, making the whole process of dealing with cartridges much more pleasant than it is with most other printers, whether they be stationary or portable.

Multifunctional Printer

Another problem with many portable printers, when compared to their stationary counterparts, is that most models are strictly printers, and just don't have the capabilities of doing other important things like scanning documents or making copies. Although the HP Tanga does not have a built-in scanner, it can still be easily used to scan and copy any documents and photos: install the HP Smart App on your smartphone or tablet, and this printer will turn into a full-fledged MFP (using the smartphone camera). This lets you scan and copy documents just like with a normal stationary multifunction printer, giving this model a level of flexibility that most other portable printers can't match.

Plenty of other features are packed into this portable printer as well. For one, the large capacity tray will be perfect for those who often need to print out very large documents. The printer is quite easy to connect to your computer or mobile devices, as it strictly uses Wi-Fi for connecting, which means you can easily connect multiple devices to it at a time. The printer is even compatible with many voice assistants such as Alexa and Google Home, letting you perform hands-free printing. With its high performance and wide range of printers, this mobile printer is one of the most well-rounded models available.

Additional Info

    Manufacturer

Last updated price $199.95
Stock In stock
ASIN B07GG7NCW1

The Best in Digital Imaging

When thinking of brand names that have to do with photography, Kodak is usually one of the first names that many people think of. After all, they were basically the kinds of photography for many, many years, providing both high quality film and cameras to the public. WIth the advent of digital photography, Kodak's strangehold on the market definitely loosened, but even so, they still remain one of the best known brands. Their impressive array of digital imaging devices still makes them quite relevant in today's digital market, with their products often carrying the same high quality and reliability that they were always known for.

The Kodak PD - 450 Portable Photo Printer carries on this tradition by providing extremely high quality photo prints. Kodak knows a lot about printing photos, and therefore this printer will pleasantly surprise you with the quality of the finished pictures: the D2T2 Thermal Transfer Technology included in this printer makes the image clear with high contrast, and the photos will not fade even after many years. This technology helps put this printer on another level when compared to many other mobile printers, even those that are made specifically for photo printing.

Integrated Phone Dock

With the race between the makers of high end smartphone manufacturers in including the best quality cameras in their top-range smartphones, it only makes sense that more and more smartphones are being used for professional digital photography. As such, it makes a lot of sense for a printer to heavily support direct printing from such smartphones, and that is exactly what this model does. The design provides an Android Dock Pin so that you can connect your smartphone and directly print photos stored in it - this is very convenient if the phone’s charge is not enough for wireless printing (Lightning Adapter included for iOS devices). No longer do you need to worry about configuring settings just to get it to print from your smartphone.

Of course, you aren't limited to just printing from your smartphone. This mobile photo printer supports connecting most computers through Wi-Fi. For those who use stand-alone cameras, you can even print directly from SD card, giving you plenty of flexibility in where to print from. The free companion app for this printer gives you a variety of different filters and effects that you can use for your printed photos. For anyone who requires nothing less than the best quality prints, this mobile photo printer from Kodak is exactly what you need.

Additional Info

    Manufacturer

Last updated price $119.99
Stock In stock
ASIN B06XS1D62L

What Is a Mobile Printer?

A lot of people got used to laptop computers, mobile phones, and tablets already. Availability of all these devices has removed the need to have a working place in an office or an apartment. Nevertheless, you still might arrive in a situation when you urgently need to print out something and have to look for a place to do that. In order to solve this problem, we advise you to consider buying a mobile printer.

A mobile printer has almost the same functions as desktop devices, though with lower output and printing speed. At the same time, it is portable and can be carried anywhere. The main task of mobile printers is to provide you with a possibility to make paper prints while on the go or out of the working place. It can be done using either a cable or wireless connection.

If you don't find a model that would satisfy all your demands in this review, we recommend you also take a look at our selection of wireless printers.

What Features to Compare

Compatibility Options

We would like to start our current review with compatibility options. In order so that your mobile printer could print out documents from various sources, it should feature Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or and NFC interfaces. In addition to wireless connectivity interfaces, it won't hurt if your mobile printer would also have at least one USB port, making it possible to directly hook it to your camera, for example, or other devices devoid of a wireless module.

Another thing to check out is the materials a printer can work with.

If you plan on printing photos most of the time, we recommend you to turn towards compact-size photo printers capable of reproducing 2 x 3-inch photocards within minutes. And if you mostly work with documents and presentations, it will be better to opt for ink-jet printers which can support the paper input of up to A4 size.

Finally, make sure to check that the software installed in the printer will support the applications which you are going to use as a printing source.

Performance

Even though mobile printers do not shine when it comes to performance, they still differ, so you may want to look at the tech specs as well. Take a look at the printing speed, resolution, and power source supported. On average, a typical mobile printer may take around 16-60 seconds to print out one postcard. In contrast, mobile ink-jets will get the same work done just as fast as your desktop printer device. In regard to the quality of print-outs, it will depend on the stated resolution. The more dots are put into one inch of surface, the better the quality of printing will be.

It's worth noting that the mobility of such printers hugely depends on the capacity of a rechargeable battery. And we don't mean size. What we mean is that, with a more capacious battery, you'll be able to use your printer for a longer time without recharging it, which is much more important for portable devices. Besides rechargeable batteries, some models can use alternative power sources and be connected to either the AC or DC adapter.

User-Friendliness

Last but not least, you should consider if the printer you chose is good at the "user-friendliness" front. Given that it will accompany you quite often, it should be rather compact and lightweight. The smaller the thing is, the better. You might be surprised to heat but there are printers so small they can easily fit even in a pocket!

Also important is the size of the input tray since it defines how often you'll need to refill paper. Smaller models usually allow loading up to 10 sheets of photo paper whereas most ink-jet printers can fit as many as 50 sheets of A4 size. So, you can choose a printer that will suit your needs best.

How to:

Sources:

1. Arun Kumar Tips On How To Choose A Mobile Printer, TheWindowsClub. June 4, 2012.

2. How Mobile Printing Works, HowStuffWorks.

3. Photo Printers: Choosing the Best One for Your Needs, Digital Photography School.

4. Printing Buying Guide, Сurrys.

5. Katie Waller How to Buy the Best Printer, Which?

6. Amit Agarwal How to Print Files from Any Mobile Phone Using the Dropbox, Digital Inspiration. August 13, 2012.

7. Tony Hoffman, M. David Stone How We Test Printers, PCMag. August 11, 2016.

8. Melissa Riofrio How to Print Anything From Anywhere, PCWorld. November 5, 2012.

9. Mobile Printing Features - 2014, About.

10. Mobile Printing, TechTarget.

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