I recently bought a Sony FP 85 photo printer from Bahdarabad (Karachi). The printer cost me Rs. 14K without the cartridge. A cartridge with paper to take 40 snaps was bought for an additional Rs. 1,200/-
But the more interesting thing is the shopping experience. Firstly the guy there was knowledgeable about the gadget but he didn't have any other model to compare. He compensated that by quickly taking a snap of me with a nearby Cybershot and printed it through the printer. The print quality, however, was not good enough. Any ways, when I decided to buy it, that's where surprises started to happen.
"After" creating the invoice, they told me that they didn't have the model readily available in the inventory---despite the fact that I confirmed its availability just before making the decision. Then I was told that this could be arranged from the Zamzama outlet but I'd have to wait for 2 hours. Another option given to me was that they would deliver the thing at my home. Since I had to give that as a gift to my wife, I opted for this choice. The next surprise was that they charged 2.1% extra on my credit card.
The delivery time given to me was 9pm. Before leaving I insisted upon punctuality and the response from the manager was that "the delivery guy won't come before 9pm" but for late arrival he couldn't set an upper limit.
What an interesting country!
PS: The results of this printer are good enough for an amateur photographer, and the printer itself has some excellent value-added features.
PS 2: The cost of printing a snap is around Rs. 30 (includes paper and cartridge), which is quite expensive in my opinion.
The ink and the proper photo paper is really expensive. Its actually much higher than photos printed on professional machines. I also bought a Canon MP510 printer but found that the prints were good only on Canon photo paper which costs much more than others such as Fuji, etc. The other issue is the ink cartridges which cost a fortune. A black colour cartridge for e.g. costs £10.
ReplyDeleteI am assuming you bought the printer out of concern for your privacy. When that is not an issue I have found regular photo shops to be a very reasonable (Rs. 12 per pic) alternative for getting digital photos printed.
ReplyDeleteI even offered my photo-wala to have a web interface set up for him so that I and other customers could upload their pictures for printing and collect them later but I guess it was too hi tech for him.