Untitled Document

Digital photo print services review (part 1)
[Home] -- [review part 2 - June 2004]

Introduction -- Test photos -- Cost -- Ease of use -- Delivery time -- Image quality -- Compare scans -- Cropping -- Final results

Costs

Below are the prices for 6x4 and 7x5 prints for each of the online print services together with the p&p costs per order. Some companies offer a discount for larger orders, as shown in the table for 5, 20 and 50 prints.

		6x4			7x5
	p&p	5 prints	20 prints	50 prints	5 prints	20 prints	50 prints
Bonusprint	90	15	15	15	20	20	20
Boots	150	30	30	30	35	35	35
Canon i850	0	32	32	32	39	39	39
Colab	222	12	12	12	20	20	20
digi-prints	145	10	10	10	20	20	20
Peak Imaging	180	62	53	36	107	92	61
Photobox	150	27	24	24	49	35	35
Photobox prepay*	150	19	19	19	-	-	-
Photodeal	150	24	19	19	49	39	34
Pixum	190	14	14	14	24	24	24

[* Note that there are two sets of prices for Photobox for 6x4 prints. The price is 19p per print when you prepay for a block of 105 prints.]

The cost per print is calculated below for orders of 5, 10 and 50 prints with the p&p charge distributed between the prints.

	6x4			7x5
	5 prints	20 prints	50 prints	5 prints	20 prints	50 prints
Bonusprint	33	20	17	38	25	22
Boots	60	38	33	65	43	38
Canon i850	32	32	32	39	39	39
Colab	56	23	16	64	31	24
digi-prints	39	17	13	49	27	23
Peak Imaging	98	62	40	143	101	65
Photobox	57	32	27	79	43	38
Photobox prepay	49	27	22	-	-	-
Photodeal	54	27	22	79	47	37
Pixum	52	24	18	62	34	28

The cost of inkjet prints from the Canon i850 printer was calculated assuming 45p per A4 page for ink only (see link). Canon Photo Paper Plus 6x4 paper is around £3.99 for 20 sheets from 7dayshop.com, and 7x5 photos were assumed to be printed on half an A4 sheet of Canon Photo Paper Plus - £8.79 for 20 sheets from 7dayshop.com. The test prints were made with Canon ink and Canon Photo Paper Plus paper but compatible inks are cheaper, as is generic photo paper. This link says that a 6x4 photo costs €0.34/~23p if printed on one quarter of A4 paper, which agrees with the calculation above. Note that other inkjet printers may have higher running costs.

--> Ease of use

Bonusprint -- Boots -- Canon i850 inkjet -- Colab -- Digi-prints -- Peak Imaging -- Photobox -- Photodeal -- Pixum