Planon Printstik PS905 Portable Printer

If you absolutely need to print something when you're on the go, and having a decent print is not important, then you're going to like the Printstik portable printer. Once it's set up, it can print directly from a phone or other device using Bluetooth, and it's small enough to fit inside a briefcase. But be prepared to have your prints come out looking like they were printed off an old fax machine.

There's not much to be said for or against this very small, battery-powered printer from Planon: either you need a printer that can fit in your briefcase, no matter what the prints look like, or you don't. If you're in the former category, for about $300 the Printstik PS905 will get you a direct-thermal printer that uses fax-machine technology to give you prints that look, well, like they were printed on a fax machine. Even at the highest quality, the text is fairly light, the paper is curled, and the fonts look fuzzy. If there are graphics on the page, beware--images don't look very good at all, and the print on images was nearly illegible.

A 8x11 page took about 45 seconds to print on the 'normal' setting, and exactly twice that time at the high-quality setting. To be honest, the higher quality setting is not quite worth the time--I could barely tell the difference between the two prints, except the higher quality prints were somewhat darker.

Setting up the printer to work via Bluetooth was quite easy, and printing via Bluetooth didn't slow down the printing process at all. The battery charges in a few hours and the printer automatically shuts itself off when you don't use it for a while, so it seems like it would be a good deal if you're on the road and need to print directions, or receipts, and it doesn't require you to lug around a ream of paper just in case you decide to print something. And it is quite portable, only about an inch-and-a-half thick and less than a foot long. The handy carrying case zips shut, and the AC adapter is quite cleverly configured to work in a number of countries.