Sony DPP-EX50 Digital Photo Printer

Sony created a fantastic printer. The results are even better than the typical local chain drug store's services. However, Sony has DROPPED THE BALL and will no longer supply printer paper and their proprietary SVM series ribbons, so anyone with a printer of this series now owns a very expensive paperweight. Consequently, I recommend that nobody buy the new printer advertised here. Only Sony's proprietary ribbons and paper will work in the unit. I think we should flood Sony with angry calls, so they make the supplies available. Their number is 212-833-8000. Press 3 to dial by name, and key in "Stringer" (Howard Stringer is the President of Sony). Unfortunately, they will connect you to their Customer Relations team in Fort Meyers, FL but if they get enough complaints, maybe they will do something about it.

It's been discontinued.Before it was discontinued I loved it.

Good product; consumables are VERY expensive...

If you're going to a wedding or birthday party and want to leave some prints for the celebrants, the EX50 is a great toy to have. You can print up to 4x6 with very high quality on smudge-free paper - and for its intended use, that's important. You can print directly from Memory Stick or Compact Flash, or you can strap it to your laptop and work that way. You can use the video out jack to view the images on a TV. All this in a compact little package for about $180 - not cheap but this is a good quality tool.

I am partial to Sony, I had bought the same printer in 2004, still working, but I bought this one of the same, new so now I have two. I don't want to be without, makes the best pictures, even after 10 years, no fading! Too bad they are not staying in business.

After struggling with the reliability of several Epson InkJet printers, I decided it was worth investing in what I thought was the high-end picture printer- the Sony dye-sub. After a couple weeks it wouldn't print and had to go back to Sony for a 6 week repair job. Now it works, but the print quality is horrible. The pictures are dull and the color is horrible. Background scenese are just blobs of color and there is no contrast whatsoever. If have since bought a Canon i560, which I intended to just use for day to day document printing. But I've compared the same picture coming from both and it is night and day -- the bubble jet that costs less and does more functions prints 2-3 times better. The pictures are sharp, the contrast is great, and the dullness does not exist. I'd suggest staying as far away from this Sony as possible -- it's a rip off and you can do MUCH better with a good Inkjet or Bubblejet.

We received this printer Christmas 2004 from my parents, presumably as a hint that they wanted loads of pictures printed of their new granddaughter. We had just retired an old HP/Kodak printer that was pretty good but not photo-lab quality. We were blindsided by the amazing quality of this Sony printer and went crazy with printing pictures.Then the ugly truth about this printer reared its head: It's not always easy to find supplies for this machine. As other reviewers noted, you have to replace the ribbion/ink cartridge with every new pack of paper. We live in a small town, so we have to re-order our supplies online. The closest reseller that stocks this stuff is Circuit City, about 35 miles away. (Wal-Mart and Best Buy do not carry the packs.) And it's pretty expensive, too. We worked it out that it costs us 57 cents per print on our PictureStation. We can get them printed elsewhere for 19 to 25 cents a print.The fact that Sony offers ZERO support, drivers, etc. for this printer on its website is ominous as well. If we had bought this printer ourselves we definitely would have returned it and bought something that was easier to re-supply and find support for.

Nice quality prints and good features. Paper and ribbons are expensive and can be hard to find. Shipped drivers have problems with some usb cards, no newer drivers are available. In fact, there are NO drivers available for download from Sony's web site. They just don't seem to have any support online for this printer, period.