This printer has always been a pain in the neck to use, since you needed to have sony memory sticks to make it work. Since I graduated several years ago to flash memory, I have to download the pictures to disc, then transfer them to the stick. Bad enough, but now the machine refuses to recognise the 4 - 6" prints. It will print the little 3 - 5", but when I put in the larger paper and cartridge, the same pictures come out blank. I am sooooo thrilled. Like I said, junk.
I used this printer for quite some time with my Pismo running OS 9.2. When I purchased a Powerbook G4 running OS X, this printer was obsolete, i.e. no drivers available. Sony was absolutely not interested in making a driver for this printer and could not care less about the customer STUCK with this pathetic piece of equipment.
If you are a mac user forget it. This printer is not worth a dime. If you already have one, find a PC user to sell it to. Shame on Sony for not working with Apple. If I could give it a rating lower than 1 I would.
This printer produces impressive output, although the colors have a little too much magenta. The resolution is specified as 403 dpi but to get a 1:1 pixel mapping from (say) photoshop you need to set the image resolution to 403.66 dpi.
It is correct that Sony do not officially make the Mac OS X drivers for this printer available for download. They do ship on the install CD though. A google search for "DPP-EX5_EX7" should locate the driver on the internet.
I was delighted when my then-new Sony Digital Photo Printer DPP-SV77 worked on my Mac as advertised: bright, true colours printing in a reasonable amount of time...but when I upgraded to Mac OS X from OS 9.2.2, can you imagine how I felt when I discovered that Sony DOES NOT provide a printer driver for any version of OS X? I am unable to coax it to print in Classic (OS X's emulator for OS 9.x), and so the printer now lies in state on my desktop.
Since Sony now only supports Windoze, I can only warn other Mac users to STAY AWAY from this printer; it is NOT compatible with the current version of the Macintosh.
7/2004
The print quality on this little printer is fantastic....you would not be able to distinguish it from proffessional digital photo lab grade I'm sure. It can be used by itself and a Memory Stick (or other media card via a 'PC card'), plugged into a tv monitor or via a computer. To utilise it's built in effects options (such as gretting card and other visual effects) it must be connected to a tv set. Unfortunately you can not do this with the computer (which seems strange and unnessessary).
Loading paper is very simple. 25 quantity paper packs come with printer cartridges that last for 25 prints.
Print speed is very fast (90 secs) and watching the printing is rather satisfying to watch!
It will only print 4x6 or 3x4.
This printer should get a hands down 5 stars but it doesn't....
The red colour output is oversaturated. You will notice this particulary when you snap people. The skin tones come out way too warm (red) and really are not acceptable unless you touch up the image first via a program. However, by reducing the red tint, you sacrifice the rest of the colours in the image to an extent. The picture you are getting still is better than a dot matrix or lazer print image but you think what could have been if they had addressed this problem when they made it!
Bottom line. If you can pick one up cheap (like I did) and are prepared for the 'red issue', this is still much better than basic printers, otherwise, best to see what the newer models are like.
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