Canon Selphy CP1500 Wireless Compact Photo Printer Review

Today’s pocket or portable photo printers can only produce one size of print, whether it is mini-prints of 2-by-2 inches or snapshots of 4-by-6 inches. Canon’s $139.99 Selphy CP1500 Wireless Compact Photo Printer—the fourth iteration of the Selphy CP series we’ve seen since March 2014—can (with an inexpensive optional adapter) deliver up to four different sizes, some with adhesive backing and some without. Selphy CP1500 has the same speed and quality as its Editors’ Choice award-winning predecessors CP1200 & CP1300. It also produces high-quality prints at very affordable running costs. We are pleased to announce that it is our third choice compact photo printer.

It’s more than an incremental upgrade

Although I’m not sure why Canon didn’t include the model number “CP1400”, this year’s Selphy has many new and improved features that we’ll discuss in a moment. Let’s first talk about the overall design. The U.S. has two options for the printer: black or white.

Two Selphy color options
(Credit: Canon)

You can also get it in pink from other places around the globe. The CP1300 was also available in all three colors. And while the CP1500’s size and heft—2.5 by 7 by 5.4 inches (HWD) and 2.5 pounds loaded with paper and ink—is nearly identical, the old and new models don’t much resemble one another.

The Selphy CP1500 (right), isn’t as complicated-looking than the CP1300 (left).
(Credit: Canon)

The optional $90 battery, which can be used to produce approximately 54 prints per charge, adds 0.6 pounds to the printer’s weight. This is not including its AC adapter and power cord.

The battery can take just 50 prints.
(Credit: Canon)

The control panel consists of a few buttons—Menu, Back, OK (Enter), and Power—anchored by a 3.5-inch LCD touch screen (a bit bigger than the 3.2-inch display of the CP1300). Navigation is done via a four-way pad, with the OK button at the center. The rest of the buttons have been reduced from eight to three.

The control panel’s streamlined design has five fewer buttons that the previous model.
(Credit: Canon)

The HP Sprocket Studio, Kodak Photo Printer Dock and the Liene 4×6 Instant Photo Printer are all competing 4-by-6-inch dye sublimation compact photo printers (commonly known as dye-subs). The control panels of these printers are stripped-down compared to the Selphy Cp series’s simple controls.

We will explain why the onboard controls are necessary. The Selphy can print from a variety of USB and SD flash memory cards. The compartment on the right side houses the dye-sub dry ink cartridge.

You can load ink cartridges into the compartment on the right side of the chassis.
(Credit: Canon)

About 18 sheets of photopaper can be loaded into a removable tray that slides into front of the printer. The finished prints will land on top.

A front compartment can hold paper input trays.
(Credit: Canon)

The CP1500 prints postcard photos that measure 4×6 inches out of its box. An additional paper cassette can be purchased for $13, adding three additional sizes: L (3.5 by 4.7inches), card (2.1 by 3.4inches), and square (2.1 by 2.0inches). Each size of media (except the 4-by-6-inch stock), is available with or sans adhesive backing.

The adapter for $13 PCC-CP400 supports three additional sizes.
(Credit: Canon)

Bundled software allows you to specify print size and provides templates for creating collages or other layouts from images from your smartphone, cloud sites of choice, or both.

The Selphy is a dye sub printer. The CP1500 is faster than portable photo printers using Zink (zero ink) that use special paper infused by heat to produce images. The first three passes are used to apply yellow, magenta, cyan inks. Finally, the clear coat is applied. This protects the image from dust and fingerprints and makes colors stand out. Canon claims that images taken with the Selphy will last for over 100 years if stored properly.

Use the Selphy CP1500 for Connectivity and Software

The standard interfaces of the CP1500 include USB 2.0, 802.11 b/g WiFi, and Apple AirPrint. There are also ports for USB-C flash drives, SD and microSD cards. The SD card slot can be found in the upper left corner, where the paper cassette is kept. The USB-C port is at the rear.

Canon Selphy Layout 3.0, and Canon Print/Inkjet Selphy 3.0 are both mobile-friendly apps that allow you to print directly from your smartphone. While the first allows you to print using a variety of iOS or Android apps, Selphy Layout lets your perform all of the edits, corrections, enhancements such adding filters, overlaying text or using frames banners or collages.

Canon’s Selphy Photo Layout application allows you to print thumbnails, collages, and other layouts.
(Credit: Canon)

The latest version allows you to choose between a satin, semi-gloss or glossy final finish. You can also print patterns into the layer of overcoat that gives your images a slight texture. If scanned using a smartphone, tablet or computer camera, you can embed QR codes in your prints. This will direct the viewer to a particular URL.

Lab-Quality Prints – Prompt and Quality

Canon claims that printing postcard-size (4×6-inch) prints with the Selphy CP1500 takes about 41 seconds, and credit-card-size (22.1×3.4-inch), photos takes about 23 seconds. It’s a bit faster than average, as even the most photo-centric desktop printers don’t produce 4-by-6 prints as quickly. For example, the Canon Pixma G620 takes approximately 46 seconds.

The Selphy is not compatible with Windows software. However, you can print to it using most Windows programs as any other printer. I opted instead to print our test images wirelessly from my Samsung Galaxy Note smartphone. It runs the latest Android version and the Canon Print/Inkjet Selphy application. (I also printed several postcard-sized photos using thumb drives and SD card, which took on average 38 seconds.

The older Selphy CP1300 and 2022 Liene 4×6 printers both produce the same photos in around a minute each. The HP Sprocket Studio Plus took 2 minutes and 5 seconds, though that was in 2019, so it is possible that HP has updated their firmware or software. The Kodak mini 3 produces its borderless 3-by-3 inch images in 43 seconds, while the 2017 Photo Printer Dock takes almost two minutes. Bottom line: This compact photo printer, the Selphy CP1500, is among the most efficient.

While I don’t like the thinness and fragility of Canon’s photo papers for this unit (it is certainly not postcard stock), the quality of the prints is consistently excellent. Bright colors are vibrant with realistic-looking skin tones. Fine detail is evident, even in areas that have minimal ink coverage.

However, these comparisons are made between similar portable photo printers. Even dye-sub compacts can’t produce as vivid and detailed images as a desktop printer with six or five inks, such the Canon Pixma G620 and the Epson Expression Photo XP-8700. Desktop inkjets are more expensive, can print larger sizes, and are not as easy to transport, set up and use.

The Printing Costs: What You Will Pay

I came across a number of deals and bundles while searching for consumables to use with the Selphy CP1500. You can purchase consumables in both paper or dye-sub dry cartridges packages. Canon sells a pack that contains 108 postcard-sized prints for $35.99, or 33 cents per image. Smaller packs are a little more expensive at a few pennies per print.

Each package includes both paper and ink.
(Credit: Canon)

There are deals available on 4-by-6 inch consumables. I saw bundles on Amazon and eBay. A four-pack of Canon’s RP108 kit (432 total prints), for $124.99 (29 cents per print) is one example. Sticker media, particularly in smaller sizes, are not as attractive. Canon’s website will sell you a pack of 18 cards-sized (2.1-by-3.4-inch) stickers for 83 cents.

Prints from the Liene 4×6 are approximately 50 cents, while prints from the HP Sprocket Studio or Kodak Photo Dock will cost you 44 and 39 cents, respectively. A Kodak Mini’s 3-inch square prints cost only 30 cents each. This makes the CP1500 the cheapest 4-by-6 inch photo printer.

Verdict: Another Selphy winner

Canon has won another Editors Choice award for its Selphy CP1500. The printer’s many enhancement and embellishment capabilities make it stand apart from the rest. Also, its low cost and high quality consumables makes it very competitive. The Selphy, like its predecessors is an affordable way for your family to transform their phone photos into high-quality photos and stickers.