The Planon Printstik PS910 is a handy and very portable thermal printer for use on the go with its internal battery and self contained thermal paper for true small printer capabilities.
Ease of Use, Performance: 18/25
Look & Feel: 23/25
Features 20/25
How much I enjoy 20/25
Total: 81/100
The Planon Printstik PS910 is one of those truly unique and remarkable products that does everything you could ask for in a truly portable printer. The Printstik PS910 is a small printer using thermal paper and print technology to take printing anywhere you can go with a PC, laptop or handheld.
The Planon Printstik is a very interesting product and one that goes in so many directions that it is a truly different product to review. While it does print just about anywhere you can go using a wide range of devices that use an XP or Vista based computer system it only prints on the one type of thermal paper.
The Printstik PS910 will connect to a laptop or handheld device using an XP or Vista operating system as well as a Blackberry and Java based phones. I do not have a Blackberry or any Java based phones so could not tell you how this would work with one and I could not find a support section on their website either.
I found it odd for a site that has in the descriptions of their products as well as the manual that comes with the product that you should check back on their site for the latest devices it works with and yet the site has no support section or contact information. There is a contact us at the website as well as several answers to ordering questions but no help or support sections or pages.
The Printstik PS910 printer is about 11 inches long one inch tall and 2 inches wide and comes with the carry case, manual and CD with drivers, USB cable for charging and connection as well as a power adapter. The original package comes with three rolls of paper that can print about 20 full sized pages but this will vary according to what you’re printing.
Most emails that I printed did not take a full page so you save on paper but if you print a lot you will find the paper is a bit expensive, about $25 for three rolls or 9 rolls for $60. I printed other things like pages from a PDF document and pictures at varying sizes but paper use would varying according to what your printing.
The paper is on small rolls and comes with a cut corners to allow for easy threading when inserting the roll but it is very easy to just cut a wedge shape if you remove the cartridge at any time. Using the device is as simple as loading the print drivers for Windows Vista or XP and using it like any other printer for the Windows based systems.
You will have the Printstik show up under printer devices in device manager and everything about it is a regular printer except for some page options and of course ink. The thermal design of the Printstik means no ink cartridges and no buying them but you do have to buy the more expensive thermal paper.
The Printstik PS910 is very light weight and makes the perfect portable printer for quick rough drafts and emails on the road as well as rough pictures. Do not expect any medium or higher resolution graphics but you do get a decent word document and emails from the printer.
The lower dots per inch resolution from 200×100 to 200×400 dots per inch mean some low quality graphics for pictures but other things like words come out just fine for those rough on the road printings. I can see all kinds of uses for this like emails from a cell phone or Blackberry, on the road quotes from salesmen and real estate agents or travel information at the airport.
You can print off web pages and other mixed information pages but the graphics may not be that great but it is an extremely portable device so there are tradeoffs. The battery means you can truly be out on the road and print documents and other pages as well as at places that would not readily allow you to connect a power cord.
The battery is a nice lithium polymer for a long lasting charge and only takes a few hours to charge fully, it is listed as lasting for 30 minutes of continuous use. The rolls of paper will print out about 20 pages but that is for full pages and emails usually are not full pages but vary.
The carry case will fit the printer and a couple of extra rolls of paper at such a convenient size that it truly is a nice portable printer. The printer is a might slow as you could imagine at about three pages per minute and goes a bit slower with higher dots per inch content such as pictures and graphics.
The thermal printer does not cut the paper but you have small teeth at the ends of the paper and tear off each page as they come out when you need them. This kind of reminds me of using rolls of cellophane for food covering or aluminum foil but it works great as a portable printer.
The Printstik PS910 from Planon is a great portable printer and has a lot of uses for on the road and away from the office, I highly recommend it for a truly portable printer.
