I find with Printers in my house they have a limited life span partially because of my pets and also due to little relatives so seem to be able to find them and they use them as toys.

I was given a discounted printer recently which was a HP Photosmart C4680 all in one printer and yet again I have found a great printer for a super price.

The printer itself has a great design the front of the printer has got the pop up 1.5inch screen which enables you to look at photos you are printing and this is where the huge power button is located.

You press the power button it lights up green to let you know it is on and above that is where you place the many types of memory cards this printer lets you use to print items from.

On the back of the printer is where the mains are connected and this is where you have two options to print from. You can plug a printer USB cable into the back to send a direct link to the printer or you could use a wired method which is done directly from a camera.

On top of the printer is the lovely and shiny HP logo and lid which hides away the scanner very nicely and makes everything look sophisticated and smart.

When it comes to printing I love this printer because it does suggest it can print 29 pages per minute in mono and I managed to get 31 recently so it can definitely print quick amounts if it wants to so that accurate sum is totally correct.

The colour printing is quick but offers around 20 sheets per minute so it is not to bad and obviously better printers out there which offer a much better all round speed.

What I do like with this printer is the amount of technology it has such as the red eye reduction which is great for the photos of pets I have when they always seem to be demon pets with problems and yet this printer has the capability to remove that problem.

You also have many other types of software which help you print selected items on webpages and much more.

The printing is quick and very good and the end results are quite good. The ink dries quickly and if you do a big image on paper sadly that can sometimes come out soaking wet but after five minutes this then dries and the image is not fantastic but it will pass.

The photo quality on photo paper is fantastic and faultless. You have images coming out to a crisp print finish and they look amazing and the ink is always dry when the image comes out and you get every detail you want.

The scanner is pretty good and that is one of the areas I was actually most impressed with. The scanner has a dpi resolution of 1200 x 2400 and it offers quality results when I view the scanned items on my pc. All items have got all the right colours and right amount of depth in terms of sharpness and shadowing.

The scanner does take a small while to get started but once it is in a rhythm the speed is good and the results superb.

The tray can hold 80 sheets going in but only 15 coming out the actual tray you have at the end is pretty small and doesn't rise like some printers do so that is something people should be aware off otherwise there paperwork will go on the floor.

The size of the printer might also put people off because I have struggled to find a location to store this printer due to the fact the amount of features it has.

The size is 15.5 inches in height, 17.5 inches in width and 24 inches in depth which shows how big it is when you think about it. The good part is that although it is big it does a lot of things well.

The other problem is the fact the ink is expensive for this printer. I found I had to pay out nearly £35 for a black ink cartridge recently because the printer tends to not like the replica ones so you have to use the HP official inks which costs a lot more money.

This printer I am certain does not run on Windows 7 but people might need to test this out first because I have this running on a Vista machine and it works perfectly.

In my overall assessment the printing quality is excellent when it comes to photos being printed on the correct surface and never misses out any details. The size for me is a bit too big but I can understand why it is so big for.

The ink prices are insane in terms of price which is the biggest drawback from this printer but overall it offers everything you need from a printer and the price I got this for was £25 so it shows if you look around bargains are there.