Although dye-sublimation as a printer technology has been around for many years, it's still emerging as a viable option. Earlier this year, Canon introduced a small photo printer using dye-sub and now Samsung has gone the same way with the SPP-2020.

This printer comes in at around £120 and is aimed specifically at people wanting to print 6 by 4-inch photos, like many of the miniature 'appliance' inkjets launched by Epson and more particularly HP. About the size of a thick paperback, the printer needs around six inches of clear desk behind it and another six in front for the paper feed tray. The tray is supplied with just 10 sheets of photo paper and a film cartridge in a 'starter' pack of consumables. You'll need more pretty quickly.

On the left-hand side of the printer are sockets for a USB 2 connection and a separate mains power block: even though the SPP-2020 is portable, there's no battery option. A third socket enables you to connect any PictBridge camera for direct printing of shots from its memory. Working with your camera's controls, you can select which images to print, without having the printer connected to a PC.

Alternatively, you can use any of the seven memory card readers set into the front panel, behind anther hinged cover. All the common types are supported, including Fujifilm's xD card, but not IBM/Hitachi's MicroDrive.

On the right-hand side, under a flip-down cover, is a slot to take the ribbon cartridge. The solid dye used in the dye sublimation process is coated in bands on the thin plastic film used by the printer. The cartridge slides in and clips in place very easily. As you print, the paper passes back and forth through the printer and the yellow, magenta and cyan areas of the image are added in turn. A fourth pass coats the print with a clear cover layer, to protect it and add a gloss finish.

Printing a photo takes around a minute, which is similar to typical inkjet speeds. Print quality is pretty good, with natural, well-balanced tones and sufficient detail to compete with traditional photography. Dye sublimation is a continuous tone technology, meaning prints are not made up from millions of coloured dots as they are with inkjets.

If you install the Windows driver, you can print to the SPP-2020 from a PC in the conventional way. The Samsung software copes with sizing images to the printer paper and the photo management application provides basic editing functions.

Costs work out at around 27p per 6 by 4 print, which is competitive with inkjet photos, and Samsung sells film cartridge and paper together in packs for 40 or 120 prints.

Dye sublimation prints from the SPP-2020 look good and, although this is a simple machine, it's easy to use and fairly cheap to run. It's a shame it's not a true battery portable, though, nor as compact as it first looks. But the dye-sublimation technique is a valid alternative to inkjet printing for photographs.