Printing colour images from a digital camera is usually the province of ink-jet printers. They're certainly pretty good at it, but there are other options, such as the special coating technology used in this Fujifilm printer. It takes just one consumable - paper.

About the size and shape of a small till, the CX-400 minilab takes a roll of special paper under a cover at the rear. Paper feeds from there under a thermal print head and comes out the front as a fully coloured, glossy print.

There's more than a touch of magic about the whole process, but the secret is in the coating on the paper. Heat from the head activates the different dyes to produce coloured images which are very close to photographic quality - certainly well up to the quality of ink-jet prints.

When you drop a roll of paper into the holder at the back - a 40-print roll costs around £12, giving an acceptable cost per print of about 30p - it feeds into position for the first print job. In use, we found this system a bit hit-or-miss and had to re-load the roll on occasions to get it to feed properly.

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The CX-400 minilab can be used with a PC (via a USB cable) or as a standalone device. On its own, it takes images from a memory card - there are slots for SmartMedia and PC Card - and comes with a PC Card adapter for Fujifilm's new xD format. Images from your card are displayed on a small, colour LCD, very similar to the type you'd find on a Fujifilm camera. The screen could do with being a bit bigger, as viewing thumbnails and even single shots for printing can be awkward.

You can print images as thumbnails, at identity card size or at a maximum of 150mm by 100mm. You can include various effects and borders, which can be selected using the printer's control buttons. Effects include printing greyscale or sepia tints from coloured images, while the borders vary from sedate to downright frivolous.

If you want to print nothing larger than 150mm by 100mm and want the minimum of fuss, this Fujifilm printer will be ideal. It only needs paper and power to produce stunning glossy prints. However, the LCD screen could usefully be bigger and the asking price is high compared with similar small-format ink-jet printers.