Why you can trust TechRadar
We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.
Liene PixCut S1 : 30-second review
The Liene PixCut S1 is a 4×6 photo printer and sticker creator in one, at a size that will sit perfectly on your desk or shelf. The printer itself works solely through an app connection from your mobile device, so there’s no need to plug it into a machine, with all files transferring via Bluetooth.
What marks the S1 out is that it utilises a dye sublimation print process, laying a yellow, Magenta and cyan layer with a protective laminate over the top that gives a professional clarity. The printer is designed as a dual-use machine, enabling photo prints but also producing stickers, again with that dye-sub process and lamination that gives the stickers a look and quality that matches those that have been professionally produced.
Unlike most printers, there’s a built-in cutter that then cuts out the stickers once printed, ready for use. Depending on the complexity of the sticker shape, it takes around 2-3 minutes per 4×7 sheet.
Different paper stocks are used for the two different processes, but aside from the material, the same hardware and carrier are used. The system has also been designed to be easily packable, so if this is an occasional-use item, it will pack away easily, while if you’re using it every day for your business, the design and quality are simple, stylish, and incredibly well made. It’s not the best photo printer we’ve tested, but for a compact, easy-to-use option, it ticks a lot of boxes.
The only real issue is the software and the free templates that ship with it. Everything runs through the Liene app on iOS or Android, and there’s no desktop option at all, which, if you’re used to designing on a computer, does feel like a real sticking point.
While there is plenty you can do within the app, it does feel a little limited; however, you can work around this by laying out stickers at the correct print size in Photoshop or InDesign, especially to ensure it cuts a straight edge on some designs. The app also ships with what feels like hundreds of sticker templates, but those templates are craft-themed rather than more business-focused, although there are a few.
The materials are all proprietary; however, packs of paper and the ink cartridges are well priced with 4 x 7in sticker and 4 x 6in photo sizes. If you’re looking to create short runs of stickers, especially for gifts, labels, and event stock or postage, this is a genuinely excellent machine. For volume production or larger formats, you’ll need to take a step up to something bigger.
Liene PixCut S1 : Price and availability
- How much does it cost? From $299.99 / £349.99
- When is it out? Available now
- Where can you get it? Directly from Liene, Amazon, and other online retailers
The PixCut S1 starter kit is $299.99 and is available directly from Liene and Amazon.com, with a larger Inspire Kit including 36 photo and 144 sticker sheets available for $346.99 on Amazon US. UK pricing is £350 from Amazon.co.uk. I’m also seeing available from other online retailers including Best Buy.
Paper, Ink and occasionally cutting blades are another cost to factor in, with 72 sticker sheets and two cartridges at $42.99. The Photo paper is also reasonable at $24.99 for 40 sheets with an ink cartridge and $36.99 for 80 sheets and two ink cartridges. Each cartridge enables around 36 prints.
Liene PixCut S1: Specs
Printing: four-layer D2T2 thermal dye sublimation with laminate pass
Resolution: 300 x 300dpi, 256 shades per colour
Sticker media: 4 x 7in (printable 3.9 x 6.7in)
Photo media: 4 x 6in (printable 3.94 x 5.83in)
Supported files: JPEG, PNG, HEIC
Print speed: 59 seconds quoted; approx. 2 minutes print, laminate and cut
Cutting: kiss cut, up to 2in/sec single axis, 45-degree carbide blade
Blade life: approx. 800 sticker sheets (Liene figure)
Capacity: 36 sheets
Connectivity: Bluetooth 5.0, up to three paired devices
Control: Liene app (iOS and Android only; no desktop support)
Power: up to 60W printing, 1.2W sleep
Size / weight: 281 x 196 x 104.5mm / 2.9kg
Liene PixCut S1: Design
The PixCut S1 is a relatively compact white rectangular box with a black printing and cutting bay across the front, and measures 281 x 196 x 104.5 mm. Hence, it’s smaller than a normal photo printer or craft cutter, which is the usual approach. The small footprint of the machine means that it can essentially sit on your desk or anywhere it will fit, and there’s a power point to it.
Unlike most printer and cutter machines, the PixCut S1 only operates through the iOS or Android app, which also means that if you want to take it out on site, then you can, as long as you have AC power to plug it into.
When it comes to the weight, at 6.4lb / 2.9kg, it doesn’t weigh much, so carrying it between rooms or out to an event, as long as there’s mains power, or you have a small power station, isn’t an issue. In this review, I matched it with the DJI Power 1000 V2, which worked perfectly when no mains power was available.
When the printer arrives, there is a small setup procedure with the loading of the ink cartridge on the side and paper into the loadable carrier. What I liked here was that the paper tray, which takes either the sticker paper or the photo paper, can be stored neatly in the machine. Then when it’s needed, you pull it out from its storage slot at the back top, and load it into the back lower slot.
When the printer arrives, the cutting head is already pre-installed at the front of the machine with a neat magnetic cover that covers the mechanism. When the print or print and cut process is started, the paper is drawn through the system with each colour layer applied, then laminated before the cutter is put into action; it’s a relatively fast process.
Through the process, the prints tended to go through the system in around a minute and a half, while stickers would take anything from 2 minutes to 3.5 minutes depending on the complexity.
Liene PixCut S1: Features
Unlike many inkjet or laser colour printers, the S1 utilises another technology that uses a four-pass dye-sublimation process that gives the output its photo processing lab quality.
Essentially, three colour layers are laid down onto the paper, one after the other, followed by a protective laminate pass. This lamination protects the photos, but also highlights why the finished stickers feel commercial rather than homemade, as they do if you use specialist paper in an inkjet.
Alongside the printing ability is the cutter, which, after the printing process, goes into action with what is known as a kiss cut, going through the sticker material but leaving the backing sheet intact. This means that the sheet stays flat and the stickers peel off individually, just as you would expect from a set of commercial stickers. The only difference between the two uses is the paper you put into the caddy and insert into the machine. With the slightly different size of the photo compared with the sticker paper, the machine automatically switches modes based on the paper installed.
Printing photos of stickers is all handled by the Liene Photo App, which is available for iOS and Android devices; however, unusually, there is no desktop version for Mac or PC.
In the app you can use the free sticker templates, most of which are gimmicks and more aimed at the craft market than business, although if you spend some time going through there are a few that are worth a look. In this test, I generally opted to use designs that I already owned, or downloaded additional sticker or logo examples from a stock website.
Once those images are downloaded and laid out onto the correct document size, they can then be loaded into the App, as this is all through the mobile device; you need to make sure these are uploaded to your photo app. Once in place, there are quick edit features such as automatic image recognition and background removal, and the cutting path around the subjects is automatically assigned; the process of getting the stickers correctly sized and positioned is actually extremely easy and once you note a few quirks which I’ll highlight in the performance section, everything from there on in is easy enough.
Once the print is complete, the border the cutter runs around each of the stickers and the size of that border is adjustable; by default, this is 1.4mm, and you can reduce that down to zero or below for a borderless cut, which also has a direct bearing on how tightly you can lay designs out on a sheet.
The app then does the rest, and if you want to add more to the designs, then there are additional templates, text tools, shape cutting, puzzles, labels and passport-photo layouts.
The connection method to the machine is through Bluetooth 5.0, and this enables you to connect up to three devices, which is something else that should appeal if you’re using this at events.
The paper cartridge will take up to 36 sheets, the ink cartridges last for 36, and Liene rates the blade at around 800 sticker sheets depending on how complex your cuts are.
Liene PixCut S1: Performance
Getting started with the printer and cutter is fast enough, and once the ink cartridge is slotted into the side, the paper of choice, either sticker or photo, is loaded into the cartridge and slotted into the base of the machine; you’re set to connect to the app.
The power button on the side needs to be held down for a few seconds to start up, then you can run through the connection option in the App interface. The in-app connection didn’t work; however, there’s a direct link button to your Bluetooth settings from within the app that takes you through to the phone’s settings, where the printer appears so you can connect. Once connected, pop back to the app and you can get started.
The app interface is quite busy with AI generative options for photos and craft stickers, and trying these out, they’re frankly a bit run of the mill and gimmicky. Really, this machine is a superb piece of hardware that is equally suited to craft and business, but the craft side seems to win out with tacky template images and AI photos.
As ever, an issue with the interactive, as with so many others, is the fact that it’s busy; however, at the bottom of the screen there are the Sticker, Label, Photo, Project and Me options. The Sticker section enables you to choose from all sorts of sticker templates, or click the Canvas button at the top, and you can import your own, which for the most part is what I chose to do through this review.
The next option along ‘Labels’ is a little more useful and may appeal to the artisan business owner, but again the designs are a little simplistic and childlike without the refined style you’d want for a serious business. Likewise, the photo option gives you the generative AI options, but again loading your own is definitely the best approach.
When you create your own sticker, for example, you can import your designs or use the generative AI options, including AI Image or Text to Image, which is actually quite useful, although again the AI model does appear to have been trained on the light cartoony rather than serious business.
That aside and falling back to your designs and images that you have created, the workflow once you’ve run through it a few times is straightforward, and the resulting prints for both Photo and stickers are excellent.
It is worth highlighting that the papers used for the two different types are different, and there is only a single caddy, and it doesn’t look like you can buy an additional caddy, which is a shame. This essentially means that you have to remove the photo paper and then install the sticker paper. I would have loved the design to have featured two caddies so that you only ever have to switch the caddies. It would also mean that the paper of either type would stay protected.
The print quality for both stickers and photos is excellent, with the colours looking great, being rich and well saturated, although a little over-sharpened, and I couldn’t work out a way to reduce the option. The other point about the photos is the laminate finish, which just gives a high-quality look. Likewise for the stickers, these are essentially commercial quality and ones that you could put on a product and charge for. Against shop-bought stickers, I genuinely couldn’t tell which was which, and I ran some of the template sticker images through the machine, and these would be great for small production runs to attach to product.
In the app, there are a few processing quirks that are worth knowing about. As mentioned somewhere in the software, there’s a little over-sharpening applied, which you notice on images with fine detail or soft edges. It isn’t too bad, and for graphic artwork and logos it’s invisible or even flattering, but for photographic stickers it’s worth softening your source image slightly before importing to compensate.
This software is where I found myself experimenting with settings at first, but ultimately I found it easy to navigate. While the app does a lot, its logic isn’t always where you’d expect. My working method went as follows: lay the whole design out in Photoshop, export it, then import into the app and let the machine handle print, laminate and cut. That skips most of the app’s editing tools.
The most useful thing I learned in this test was about labels with white in the design. When making warning labels, I wanted clean, straight edges. Still, the cutter follows the colour rather than the sheet, so wherever white met the outer edge, the white background wandered, weaving in and out around the coloured areas instead of cutting the straight border I’d designed.
The app lets you set the border distance the cutter leaves around a sticker. Still, not the shape of the path itself, and the shape is the problem. What worked instead was adding a background colour behind the design, giving the software a defined edge to detect, at which point it cut the straight border perfectly. It’s a simple workaround once you know it, but it’s the difference between usable labels and wasted sheets.
Layout spacing is the other thing to get right before you print. By default, the cutter leaves a 1.4mm border around each sticker, so when you’re laying several out on a sheet, they need room; otherwise they’ll connect through the cut. I found 4mm between stickers is the minimum that works reliably, and 5mm is more comfortable. Any closer and the borders start to interfere with each other.
That border distance, however, is adjustable, though, and it’s worth knowing you can take it all the way down to zero, which cuts right up against the edge of the sticker itself. Set it that tight, and you can pack the designs much closer together on the sheet, maximising the value you get from each sheet, especially when you’re trying to get as many stickers out of it as possible.
Through the test, photos generally took a minute and a half to print with 36 prints per ink cartridge and a 100% success rate. When it came to stickers, again it’s 36 sheets per cartridge, but print times take between one and a half minutes to three and a half minutes depending on the complexity.
Liene PixCut S1: Final verdict
The Liene PixCut S1 is a surprising piece of kit and over the last month has been especially useful in the studio. At first, the photo printing that was reminiscent of the process sizes that we used to get with 35mm film really appealed, and once I worked out that a little softening was required for the image, the results of the pictures were outstanding.
The colours are bright and vibrant, and this is a crowd-pleasing photo printer that’s perfect for the home and workplace. It’s also smaller and cheaper than dedicated photo printers, which are hugely expensive to keep running.
But then the stickers started, and this is where this machine really comes into its own. It started with TechRadar Pro stickers and quickly progressed. Due to the laminate quality, I was able to start labelling all my kit, something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time, with my logo and QR details.
I then showed a friend who runs a local 3D print business, and a week later they have one running at shows and events creating custom stickers, and all postage product now gets a set of stickers in the box.
The stocker quality is excellent, and for small businesses this is a superb short run option and a great way to personalise your products or to give out freebies.
Initially I was a little disappointed that this was a mobile app-only product, but once I worked out a few workarounds the workflow was fine, the only real issue being the time it takes for Apple Photos to update so I could pull down the next design.
If you want to make stickers or print out high-quality 4 x 6 prints, then the Liene PixCut S1 is a superb option.
Should I buy the Liene PixCut S1?
|
Value |
The price reflects the quality, but it is expensive, and then you have the consumables on top |
4 |
|
Design |
Compact and will easily sit on a shelf if needed, also small enough to take to events if there’s mains power |
4.5 |
|
Features |
Decent 4 x 6 photo prints and sticker sets; would be good if there was an additional paper carrier as standard |
4.5 |
|
Performance |
Commercial-quality stickers and excellent colour; slight oversharpening and some workarounds are needed for cutting paths |
4.5 |
|
Overall |
A clever piece of kit that blends photo and sticker printing into one neat machine. |
4.5 |
Buy it if…
Don’t buy it if…
For more printing picks, we’ve tested the best home printers you can get.
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/3RLdPANMHPgJ9d5tqTQm4g-1200-80.jpg
Source link
