Epson PictureMate PM-520 Review

In the current digital world, we capture hundreds or even more photos and memories and store them digitally. Photo printing is a kind of old-school fashion that has gone still the printed photos have their own charm. But no one wants to take the picture to the studio to get a printed copy. Having a portable and easy-to-connect printer could be the solution. Epson brings PictureMate PM-520 that can connect wirelessly to print photos instantly.

Portability

We have seen printers of different types, but the PictureMate is entirely different. It’s a small and portable photo printer that you can carry along when traveling. It comes with a carry handle and a built-in rechargeable battery, enabling you to print photos anywhere, anytime. Its not a regular photo printer and can’t print on regular A4-sized paper, it’s a photo printer with a limited paper size of 5 x 7 inches.

Having a typical printer design, the input tray is at the back whereas the output tray is at the front. You can fold these trays when not in use. The control panel has a 2.-7-inch LCD display with a few buttons for navigation, and power among others. The USB port is at the front along with two LED indicators. It has an SD card slot on the side of the printer. The USB port also supports PictBridge, enabling you to connect compatible cameras to it using a cable and print out your photos.

Smart connectivity and app

PM-520 has built-in Wi-Fi and supports various wireless printing technologies such as Wi-Fi Direct, Apple AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, and Epson’s own Connect. Meaning you can also print directly from your smartphone as well.

Epson PictureMate PM 520 Review app

Using the Epson smartphone apps - Epson iPrint and Epson Creative Print (available on both Android and iOS) one can trigger the print process directly from the phone. The app lets you set printing quality, specific paper size, and type, and set other printer parameters before firing off a print.

Performance

The PictureMate printer boasts piezoelectric tech that piezoelectric tech to print out sharp, vibrant-looking images. We printed a bunch of photos using different print settings and the print quality of all the images was impressive. All the photos come with clarity and sharpness.

The print speed is a bit slow, which can take over a minute or more depending on your chosen print quality. So be a bit patient if you wish to get the highest quality print.