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Epson PictureMate PM-400 Color Photo Printer Review
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May 30, 2025
Ever wish you could print 4x6 or 5x7 photos at the push of a button on paper that'll last 200 years? That's just what the compact Epson PictureMate PM-400 offers, and it's a terrific little printer. Except for one little issue, as Dave Taylor of http://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ explains...
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[Music]
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[Music]
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hi this is Dave Taylor again and this
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time I want to talk about the Epson
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PictureMate
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pm400 that's this guy and honestly as
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color printers go this is pretty darn
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small and light so let's open it up and
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have a look so it's all very nicely
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self-contained I'm going to flip it
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around and it does need power so let's
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plug it
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in power plug on the side here somewhere
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there it is I'll tilt up the screen so
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you can see what's going on and let's
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Power It
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Up and while it's powering up I'm going
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to go ahead and put a piece of paper in
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so let's grab a piece of 4x7 glossy
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print
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paper
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um and I'll talk about the price of all
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this stuff in a minute but let's just
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get this ready to go cuz I want you to
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see see it actually
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printing okay so we're ready to go and
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now what I want to do is off my phone
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and this actually I'm using the um air
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print here but it also does WiFi um it
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does Wi-Fi Direct it does Epson connect
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which is epson's own system where you
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can actually submit print jobs from
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around the world not sure why you'd want
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to do that but you can um it reads SD
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cards on the side here and of course you
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can directly plug it into a computer Mac
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or PC but here's a picture off of the
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photo album and all I'm going to do is
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I'm going to tap on it oops and then on
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the bottom on iOS at least there's a
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print button and when I choose that the
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epson's already there so what I want you
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to see is how quickly it'll print this
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4x6 they say 36 seconds I'm not going to
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wall clock time it but you can if you
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want so I'm going to push the print
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button now
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Boop and okay so on here it says
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printing so now you should be starting
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your little stopwatch while that's
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happening it's a four color die printer
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and it prints at a maximum resolution of
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5760
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x440 which is a pretty good dent stuff
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Epson says these pictures will last 200
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years without fading or otherwise
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discoloring I don't really have the time
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to test that but hey if it lasts a year
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or two that's going to be great it's
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really for 4x6 and 5x7 and it can print
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borderless as you can see in these other
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pictures that I've printed um this one
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most recently just from a few minutes
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ago um various pictures we've been
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having a lot of fun with this because of
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course it gives you the ability to take
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pictures on a mobile device and
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immediately print them and now you have
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a nice little Montage for your wall if
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you are a montage sort of person um what
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else can I tell you it um
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they they now have what they call um
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what do they call them print packs and
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it's kind of a neat idea where you get
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paper and the ink cartridge cuz there's
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one ink cartridge that has all of the
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six colors that it's using and that
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whole thing ends up being a nice little
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package so that's 30 bucks for 100
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sheets of 4x6 glossy photo paper and an
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ink cartridge which runs to 29 cents a
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print you can do the math and X SS
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they're bigger so they sell them
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separately they don't sell it as a print
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pack not sure why but whatever um and
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those are 20 sheets of 5x7 from Epson
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runs you about $5.99 online so that's
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about 29 cents a print but of course
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then you also have to deal with the ink
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cartridge so here's the issue and and
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we're done okay and here's our print uh
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I hope you can see that it's done a very
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very nice job this is as good as I would
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get from a photo lab but the wrinkle is
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price so here's the sort of the what the
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rubber hits the road or something like
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that whatever the cliche is but here's
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the thing is that this printer runs
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about
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$250 now the good news is a $50 rebate
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right now at epson.com so it drops it
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down to
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$200 so really when we talk about how
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much is it per print and divide it out
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and it's 29 cents a print and everything
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you also have to factor in the cost of
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the printer itself so it might be a lot
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more than 29 cents a print unless you're
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going to print thousands and thousands
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of photos and here's the real sort of
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reality is that I can go to my local
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camera Place Mike's Camera and they have
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very very high quality printing systems
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I can submit it online and by the time I
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drive there it's printed and you know
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how much those cost for a 4x6 199 now a
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5 by7 gets up to a buck 79 but on the
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other hand if you're talking about maybe
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printing 50 100 of those total versus
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the cost of the printer this is really
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where I think Epson has a real challenge
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is that you any of these sort of Home
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color printer photo printing systems
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really have a challenge with you
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amortizing the cost of the printer
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itself so if the printer was free and
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then all the stuff that you had to get
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were licensed apps and supplies and
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everything then we could talk because
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then it would be like yeah you know it's
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a little bit cheaper or maybe it's
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around the same price but of course
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there's a huge convenience factor I
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really like this I mean I take this on
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the road and so you know if I'm with my
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kids we can be out and about and
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printing things and giving them to
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friends right there on the spot that's
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pretty cool but you know 200 bucks for
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the printer and then another 30 40 50 60
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bucks for supplies it adds up so here's
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the thing that you need to figure out
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for yourself is is the convenience of
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printing a really nice color print in 39
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seconds worth the
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cost I am sort of on the fence with this
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one myself now it's nice Epson sent me
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this printer so I didn't have to spend
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200 bucks on it but if I had to I'd
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really have to think very very carefully
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whether the convenience and really the
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fun of being able to print on demand is
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offset by the cost over time of all of
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this
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Hardware you can learn more at epson.com
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or of course you can go to amazon.com
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and read reviews people do love this
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thing except for the price and that's
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just again I mean I don't I want to have
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it be clear this isn't an Epson problem
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and this isn't a problem with the
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picture mate pm400 this is a problem
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with the whole world of color photo
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printers so Dave Taylor and I'll let you
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figure that out for yourself and I'll
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see you in my next video
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hey
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