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There are two types of snapshot printers: dye sublimation and inkjet. Inkjets spray ink drops onto a page in a single pass. Dye subs use heat to transfer cyan, magenta and yellow dyes over three separate passes and then seal in the color with a water-resistant coating. In general, dye subs cost less, are smaller, and produce sturdier prints. Since the dye is transferred from a sheet of color, you won't see speckling, or the individual drops of an inkjet. Dye subs use paper with perforated tabs on the edges, however, which leave ragged edges, and the prints are prone to fading more quickly. Be wary of no-name brands, especially with dye subs. They're bound to disappoint you with washed-out colors. Inkjet prints lack tabs but are often more susceptible to water damage and smudge if handled too soon.

Epson's PictureMate Deluxe and HP's PhotoSmart 475 are inkjets, and Sony's DPP-FP50 is a dye sub. All produced vivid yet natural-looking prints. Side by side, though, you could see that the Sony handled skies and other areas of continuous tone better, and the HP won out on sharpness, easily defining individual blades of grass.