Otaku Gadgets

Catering to the needs of today’s amateur photo enthusiast and the users discovery of more and more creative ways of getting their photos on and off the screen, HP has come up with the recently rolled out HP Photosmart Premium fax all in one. HP is fully aware of the transition and has come up with a device that combines an inkjet printer, fax machine, scanner and copier all packaged into a single device costing around $270. The HP’s all in one has features from all its bases along with an integrated auto document feeder, wireless networked printing, double sided printing, and comes with an interactive control panel for direct editing. The device doesn’t miss out on any thing, though lacks on the cost factor as it comes with higher than average cost for refilling the black ink cartridge, and is fully recommended for students, photographers, professionals and any person who is looking for all in one printer.

Design and Features

The HP all in one comes with rounded corners and smooth indentations. The design defies the traditional boxy shape of older inkjet printers and comes with a glossy white and grey palette on side handles. The chassis weighs around 23 pounds and measures 19X18X23 inches and is small enough to fit comfortably in your home office. The built in auto document feeder lets you load around 50 sheets of paper in varying sizes and then perform scanning or copying to the memory or transfer to your computer. The control panel is placed underneath the scanner at an angle that you need to look down on the controls, though there is a provision to adjust the position of the 2.4 inch color LCD screen. The HP all in one’s comprehensive panel comes with almost everything you would need to operate it independently from your computer. The only thing one can feel is missing is the set of auto dial buttons for favorite faxing recipients. You would find at the center of control panel a button “quick forms” that is unique to the HP series and using the button you can print a number of blank documents including calendars, fax coversheets, to-do lists and lined paper.

Performance

The HP all in one printer’s capability to outperform the competitors in output speed test impresses one and all. Excepting Epson Artisan 800 it ended up printing one page faster per minute than the rest of competition. Also in terms of quality of printing the HP all in one passes the tests on standard text, graphics and photographs. It delivers crisp lines and smooth transitions between varying colors. While some of the other photo specific printers suffer from chronic line banding and lack of sharpness, this HP consistently produces images which are sharp and hardly contain any trace of muddy or jagged graphics.

Overall the HP Photosmart fax all in one has the advantage of high quality color photo and document prints, impressive output speed along with attractive design, extra features like the quick forms, and an integrated CD drive for custom prints. The only few flaws include the higher than average cost for black ink cartridge and minor omissions like speed dial fax buttons.