The Canon i70 Color Bubble Jet Printer ($300 street) combines mobility and speed in a portable printer that produces clear text and fine color photo output for general use.

The i70 operates with a USB connection to a PC, or you can print directly to Bubble Jet Direct–compatible Canon digital cameras and camcorders. The 4-pound i70 fits into a standard-size briefcase when the 2.0- by 12.3- by 6.5-inch (HWD) case is closed. With its input tray extended (there's no output tray), the i70 measures 6.6 by 12.3 by 12 inches. You can stack 30 sheets of standard paper or five envelopes in the input tray. The i70 also handles a variety of media, including transparencies, matte and glossy photo paper, high-resolution paper, and legal-size paper. It supports borderless printing in three sizes: 4-by-6, 5-by-7, and 8.5-by-11, which adds to its photo printing versatility.

You can run the i70 with the included AC power adapter or buy the optional Portable Kit ($100 street), which includes a lithium ion battery rated for 450 pages per 2-hour charge and a battery holder to charge the battery while attached to the printer. Extra batteries are available for $90. An optional Cradle Kit ($140) includes a spare battery, battery holder, and charging cradle. The i70's replacement cartridges cost $11.95 for black (about 6 cents per page) and $21.95 for color (about 22 cents per page).

Rated at 13 ppm for black text and 9 ppm for color output, the i70 lived up to its speed ratings on our tests. It delivered a single text page (in normal mode) in 13 seconds. A full-page color photo printed in Adobe Photoshop 7.0 on Canon's Photo Paper Pro in high-quality mode took 4 minutes 32 seconds.

Compared with Hewlett-Packard's latest mobile printer, the HP Deskjet 450cbi ($350 street), the i70 is less expensive and lighter. The Canon portable is also much faster: The HP unit took 23 seconds to print our text page and 8:11 for the photo.

The 450cbi, however, has additional connection choices, including a parallel port and a CompactFlash Type II slot that accepts memory or even Bluetooth wireless cards. We were as impressed with the quality of the i70's photo output as with the 450cbi's output, although the HP printer's color photos were slightly more vivid than the i70's.

The i70 includes six photo-management applications, including Easy-WebPrint, which is for formatting Web pages and eliminating the right-margin cut-offs, and Easy-PhotoPrint, which adds photo printing support in 5-by-7 format.

All things considered, we'd put our money down for the Canon i70 Color Bubble Jet Printer for a fast and versatile color mobile printer.