HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One – Highly Functional All-In-One

Pros

HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One offers good print speed despite maintaining the print quality for color documents and photos. To make it even more luring there is its eye-catching design some added features like Quick Forms, an incorporated CD drive for custom prints and an ADF.

Cons

The cost for black ink cartridges for HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One is slightly higher than the average price and some minor upsetting omissions include a speed-dial fax buttons and connected scanner hood.

Introduction

It’s hard for a single-function inkjet photo printer to satisfy the need of modern day’s amateur photo buff. As the users constantly develop new ways of getting their photos on and off the screen, it’s imperative for their printers as well to match the need of these changing trends and HP seems to be reading the need very well. At least this is what the HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One suggests.

HP introduced its Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One which is a printer that brings an inkjet printer, scanner, copier and fax machine in one machine priced at $270. The Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One targets the work-at-home professionals and casual photographer and is being developed to match all their essential needs. The base of All-in-One is covered by an integrated auto-document feeder, wireless networked printing, double-sided printing and an interactional control panel which permits direct editing and allows your printer to work independently with the digital camera.

The all-in-one printer doesn’t lack too many things and regardless of the increased price of higher than average price of its black ink cartridge, we completely recommend this printer for the students, photographers, professionals, or anyone who is looking for a printer that can do it all.

Design

The Photosmart Premium Fax All-In-One with its curved corners and silky grooves looks like as if was carved from a single block of plastic. The design for the printer separates it from the boxy shape that we have seen in the other printers such as Kodak ESP 5. The Photosmart Premium Fax All-In-One dons a glossy white-and-gray coating with elusive affects of blue on its side handles. Measuring 19 by 18 by 23 inches (H x W x D) (along with built-in duplexer) and weighing around 23 pounds the printer is compact enough to fit into any home or office comfortably, but in comparison to Kodak, which retains a simpler foot print, it is a more hefty printer.

Located at the top of the HP printer is its inherent ADF (Auto Document Feeder) which allows you to load up to 50 paper sheets of different sizes for scanning or copying to the memory and transferring to your computer. Lifting up the cover reveals the scanner bay for the computer, but the absence of built in hinge was a disappointment for us as you will have trouble in scanning thick books and documents.

The primary control panel is located under the scanner at a permanent angle, which requires you to look down at the controls. Luckily, the 2.4 inch color LCD screen’s position can be adjusted. The in comparison to Epson Artisan 800′s enormous 3.5 inch monstrous display it is a bit small, but the HP’s widespread control panel features all the essential controls that you need to operate the printer independently from your computer.

The photos or prints can be transferred directly to the printer from your MS, xD, SD, USB or CF key with the help of HP’s onboard card reader, and the USB port here is also PictBridge attuned for permitting simple one-touch printing from the digital cameras compatible to it. A separate collection of buttons on the control panel controls the generally used settings such as two-sided print, auto answer, photo reprints and others like red-eye removal, fax dialing, and photo zoom with retouches. The one thing that we thought was missing from here was the auto-redial button for the favorite faxing recipients. Located right at the centre of the control panel is a “Quick Forms” button which is a trademark with HP printers, and allows you to choose between a number of white documents to print adding calendars, fax coversheets, to-do lists, and lined paper.

System Configuration

Manufacturer: HP
Weight: 22.9 lbs
Dimensions (W x D x H): 18.4 x 18.6 x 11.1 in
Printing Technology: Ink-jet – Color
Inkjet Technology: HP Thermal Inkjet

Office Machine Features: Print from memory card
Supported Flash Memory: Memory Stick, CompactFlash, MultiMediaCard, IBM Microdrive, xD-Picture Card, SD Memory Card, Memory Stick Pro, Memory Stick Duo, SDHC Memory Card

Media Type: Labels, Cards, Photo paper, Envelopes, Greeting cards, Plain paper, Printable CD/DVD disk, Transparencies
OS Supported: Microsoft Windows XP, Microsoft Windows Vista, Apple Mac OS X 10.5, Apple Mac OS X 10.4, Microsoft Windows Vista (64-bit versions)
PC Connection: IEEE 802.11b, Hi-Speed USB, IEEE 802.11g, Ethernet 10 Base-T
Software Included: HP Photosmart Essential 3.5

Performance

It was nice to see HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One outperform the competition in our output print speed test. With only elision of the Epson Artisan 800, our HP was one page faster than all the competitions we subjected it to, beating the Canon MX700 and Kodak EP5. The HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One even outperformed its older and expensive sibling HP Photosmart C8180, in the color text speed. But still the Epson Artisan 800 remains one of the fastest inkjet printers with an astounding photo print speed of three photos per minute.

Just like the print speed the print quality of HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One was also impressive and in our test with standard text, photos and graphics, the HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One gave clear printing with smooth transitions between the varying colors. Though, we did found some light quality debasement in the letters that were smaller than four-point, but the overall color gradient in photos appeared evenly murky with proper level of accuracy and saturation. Also as this is a photo-specific printer, we focused on its capability for developing dynamic range of contrast amongst the colors. Though, there was a slight lack of sharpness in the photos, but the overall quality of the photos was pretty good and the HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One succeeded in printing good photo quality on a constant basis.

Support

HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One is backed by a standard one-year warranty from HP, which includes a 24 hour toll-free telephonic support and you can upgrade to two year by paying the specific amount of fee. In addition to this, HP also offers an added Pick Up and Return program and Accidental Damage Protection. The Pick UP and Return program involves sending of HP’s authorized courier and delivering it straight to an HP-designated fixing facility. There are online classes; driver downloads, troubleshooting tips, along with a new shopping buddy which will take you directly to the HP sales rep for getting answers to your questions, prior to buying the printer.

Word from the Experts

The HP Photosmart Premium Fax All-in-One printer enhances the productivity of any home or office with its updated user interface. With plenty of modern features such as fax, print, copy, scanning and double-sided printing, separate photo trays and wireless connectivity we highly recommend this printer to anyone who can utilize its multi-functionality.