We Recommend

Check out our monthly product and service picks for your home-based business.

We Recommend

Our Picks:

Every month we pick our "Hmm..er of the Month", one product or service in a specific category (telecommunications services, printers, networking equipment, etc.) that best meets our criteria for:

Simplicity
Cost Effectiveness
Productivity Gain
Usability
Compatibility
Durability
Features and Functions.

We also choose a product or service that we call the "Undiscovered Gem", a product or service that does a great job meeting the criteria we've outlined above, but is new or has as yet gained limited market awareness.

For February, 2008, we've picked:

Hmmmm...er of the Month:

Selphy ES2 - Canon

Your digital camera is great, and viewing photos online is fun, but sometimes you just want to hold a printed photo in your hand! Canon's Selphy ES2 is one of the best home photo printers we've found to do the job.

Priced at $199.99, the Selphy ES2 can print credit card (2.13x3.39"), credit card label sheet (2.13x3.39") and post card (4x6" photos). It includes:

Print speed - 4x6" borderless color photo in around 69 seconds
300x300 dpi color printing with 256 levels per color
USB, IrDA version 1.1 interfaces with PictBridge support (optional Bluetooth connectivity with adapter priced at $49.99)
Support for SD Memory Card, SDHC Memory Card, MultiMediaCard, miniSD Card, miniSDHC Card, MMC plus Card, HC MMCplus Card, HC MMCmobile Card, CF Card (with adapter microSD Card, microSDHC M Card, xD-Picture Card, MMCmobile Card, MMCmicro Card, RS-MMC Card)
Easy-PhotoPrint (Windows), ZoomBrowser (Windows), ImageBrowser (Macintosh), EOS Utility (Windows and Macintosh), Ulead PhotoExpress LE (Windows) software.

The Selphy ES2 is compatible with Windows 2000, XP and Vista as well as Macintosh OS X 10.3 to 10.4.x. and is 8.4x7.5x5.2" and weights 4.31 lbs. Coming with a 1 year warranty, the Selphy ES2 is a nice little photo printer for the home office.

For more information see: http://www.usa.canon.com

(For our complete photo printer reviews, see our Photo Printers page.)

Undiscovered Gem:

Photosmart 8750 Professional Photo Printer - HP

Our Undiscovered Gem for February comes from HP. For home-based business owners who need to produce professional photographs, the Photosmart 8750 Professional Photo Printer is a good solution. It's a 9-ink color printer that can also produce black-and-white photos with pure grays, neutral grays and deep blacks. And the photos produced by this printer are fade resistant for 100 years under glass and 200 years in a photo album. Designed for Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP or Macintosh OS X 10.1.5, 10.2, and 10.3, the printer includes:

Up to 1200x1200 dpi -rendered black and white print resolution, 4800-optimized dpi color and 1200 input dpi using HP's PhotoREt Pro print resolution technology.
5 print cartridges in 9 colors, dye-based
Direct Adobe RGB and sRGB support, ICC color management, application-based color management, sliders for manual color adjustment.
Up 19ppm black and white print speed, 4x6" color photo in 29 seconds, 13x19" photo in 3.5 minutes.
USB 2.0, Ethernet interfaces with PictBridge support.
4 memory card slots supporting CompactFlash Types I and II, Secure Digital, MultiMedia Card, Memory Stick, xD, and USB Flash Drives
Photo proofsheet support
Monochrome display, COG with backlight, 2 lines of text + 2 lines of icons
Control panel with layout, menu, print, cancel, and select photos buttons
80 sheet input tray, 5 sheet bypass tray, single sheet rear feed slot
Supports paper (plain, inkjet, photo, banner), envelopes, transparencies, labels, cards (index, greeting), iron-on transfers, media sizes of 13x19" photo, 8x10" photo, 5x7" photo, 4x6" photo, panorama, letter, legal, executive, No. 10 envelopes, index cards, banner and media weights of 16 to 24 lb letter, 20 to 24 lb legal, 16 to 24 lb banner, 20 to 24 lb envelopes, cards up to 100 lb index and photo paper up to 130 lb index.
64MB internal memory.