PMA 2009: Show wrap-up

We perused the PMA show floor on Wednesday afternoon, taking in the big name manufacturers booth displays which ranged from fun and interesting to just plain weird.  Samsung had a particularly noteworthy (scary?) display of animatronics globally diverse teddy bears (catch a video of this crazy display on our sister site, DigitalCameraReview.com).

Besides the handful of products from HP and Canon, there weren’t many new printing related products on display at PMA this year.  While Samsung and Xerox were in attendance at the show, none of the office lasers they released in the past month were on display given that it was a photo centric show.

There was no presence from Dell or Epson at PMA this year.  Understandable from Dell since they have just recently crossed into the photo printing market with the P703w and the new Wasabi handheld printer but I was surprised to see no sign of Epson, a major player in several imaging related market.

Kodak and Sony were in attendance but did not have much related to printing on display.  Kodak did have their ESP line of printers on the show floor – we’ve reviewed the ESP 5 and the ESP 9 if you’d like more information on those devices.

Sony had their line of SnapLab printers on display as well as two of their newer digital photo printers, including the DPP-FP67.  We reviewed the DPP-FP75 last year and the newer models seem very similar in design if not function ability.

Overall a good show, but like CES, the slow economy seemed to take its toll in both sheer size and product releases.

• PMA 2009: Canon presents Pixma Pro9500, Pro9000
• PMA 2009: First look with Canon
• PMA 2009: First look with HP
• PMA 2009: Printer News Headquarters
• PMA 2009: HP introduces an industry first
• PMA 2009: HP adds three consumer printer series