Geekcorps Mali’s LMI Blog

The Epson PictureMate Deluxe printer arrived in the mail on Tuesday at the office. What a treat. We had been eagerly awaiting its arrival since the order was placed to see if it held up to the high praise it has received in reviews. Since the printer will play such an important role in the project it is essential that we have a piece of hardware that can perform the way we need it to. From our research the Epson seemed like the strongest lead, at least on paper.

During the course of the project we hope to use the photo printer in a variety of ways. Of course we will be printing photos taken with the Canon PowerShot A410 (yet to arrive), that’s a given. Additionally, we hope to corner the markets of ID cards, wedding and baptism prints (very big culturally here), badges, and myriad other similar services. The photo printer had to be well built and durable, develop high quality prints, and be efficient enough for us to be able to find a margin between the cost of the print and the sale price.

No fewer than 5 minutes after arrival the Epson PictureMate Deluxe was put through its paces. We needed to see what it could do for ourselves. We approached the unit as objectively as possible. As expected, we found the printer easy enough to get set up and ready for the first round of prints. Good. Simplicity is exactly what we’re looking for. Next came printing the pictures. Of course we had to christen the unit by starting with just the right picture. Total printing time took under 2 minutes and we were very pleased with the LCD display and the ease of use of the control panel. The one drawback we noticed was that we aren’t able to switch the language of the display into French, somewhat unfortunate since Mali is Francophone not Anglophone. But since our Cyber-tigi agent will be familiar with how to operate the machine this isn’t too great a drawback.

We started the hands-on part of the test by taking the picture outside and throwing dirt, dust and sand on it and generally just getting it good and dirty. No problem. With a good shake and a wipe the picture was back to normal with no scratches on the page.

Next we took it inside, poured water on it, let it sit for 2 minutes or so, and then wiped it off. Again, no problem. The photo held up without so much as a dribble of ink out of place.

Lastly we took it up to the roof for its real test. We wanted to see how the ink and paper would fare against the intense sun we get here. There is no hotter place we could think of than on the roof where there is no shade all day long. Taped to the ground our shot of Gizmo went 7 days straight exposed to the scorching sun. When we looked at it 7 days later we saw no visible difference compared to a week ago. We understand a week is hardly enough time to judge it fairly, so we’re going to leave him up there for a while longer. We’ll keep you updated if there is any significant loss of quality.

So far we are very pleased with the purchase. The Epson PictureMate Deluxe is more than holding its own in our view. It’s always refreshing to walk away from an investment in a piece of hardware knowing you received value for your dollar.

Next test: how it holds up in the field.

-BC

** Post script: This past weekend Matt and I had the opportunity to grill a PCV, Paul Keljik, who began a photo-printing venture similar to ours in his remote village of Dogofry. We found that among the most important elements of his printing project was the weight Malians would put on having exceptionally vibrant colors in their photos. In some cases people refused to pay for the photo when the colors were not deemed of high enough quality – a surprising statement because of how difficult it is to even find photos in these areas. Additionally, there is a significant competitive advantage to having prints immediately available, or delivered before the 2-3 week average time period it takes for traditional photos to be processed. Paul also gave advice for training the photographer and some cautions on how to manage the operation. Thank you Paul for your input.