Astonishing! (HP psc 2210)

Member Name: crazy.food

Product:	HP psc 2210
Date:	10/04/03 (1414 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: 6-colour photo printing, de-clutters your desktop (no card reader, scanner, fax & printer; just one device), So quite!

Disadvantages: Only small capacity ink cartriages (soon to change?), Not great software, Price

I wanted to take my dad to PC qorld to get him to buy me an iPod - no such luck, however he did decide that a new Printer was on the cards so being one of those caring sorts I decided to make him buy the best!

When we got out brand new printer home with extra black, colour and photo cartriages and some photo paper (totaling £310!) I couldn't wait to rip open my fathers new toy... But I (being the mature person that I am) decided to take my time, read the instructions and approach this task from the 'I know nothing' aspect, which of course is untrue when dealing with electronics.

We were greeted by a double sided poster, one side telling PC users how to get going, the other for Macintosh users. One good thing about the printer is that it is fully compatible with Windows XP and Mac OS X - something that seems to be lacking. I followed the instructions on the poster, which told me how to do everything from the very simple requred assemble (attaching the input panel cover) to setting up basic fax settings. Everything went well.

I got to the step that required the software to be installed, and this unfortuatly seemed to take rather a long time. This, however, is not suprising considering the fact that it has to set up not only for printing but also scanning and media-card reading as well (it takes Smart-Media, compact flash and three others which I dont have the names for off-hand)

When the software was installed the whole thing was up and running, and the interface was fairly self-explanatory, without much help at all needed (although if at any point you do need help you can refer to the fully comprehensive PRINTED manual - another thing that most product today lack)

My first task was to print off our Florida holiday photos - from April 2002. I inserted the card into the appropriate slot, to be greeted by the friendly message "Photo card is in backwards" - oh well... When I got that sorted out I w
as able to use one of the most intuitive features on the printer - photo proof sheets. I have never before seen anything like it! What the printer does (and this reqires no connection to a computer what-so-ever) is reads all of the photos on the card and prints a sheet or sheets of thubnail photos on an A4 sheet of paper. You can then highlight, with a black pen, the photos you want printed and select whether you want them printed: Singe or Double; 6x8, 9x13, 10x15, 13x18 or 20x25; 10x15 paper or A4 paper and finaly one of 4 borders (or none). I selected the options to print on my lovely new 10x15 HP photo paper an followed step 3 - "Place sheet on scanner glass at front right corner. Press proof sheet, then 2."

I followed the instructions and short time later (I say short but of course photo printing takes time on any ink-jet printer) I had lovely 10x15 borderless brints sitting on my tray! I was delighted; my first success! One other thing about the first print that suprised me was the noise - I could hardly hear a thing, this printer runs very smoothly indeed!

From then on it has been plain sailing. My parents have allready used the fax feature to fax company orders off to head-office (which even my techologically 'dumb' mother can handle!) and printed, copied and scanned many other documents - all after on a week!

The software supplied is very good, although I have not been able to work out the ORC software supplied - ReadIris pro. This has been the products only downfall (besides the speedy loss of ink - due in no short part to the fact we have printed many photos, and that because the printer is new HP have only release 19, 17 & 17ml cartriages for the Black, colour and photo cartiages respectivly)

All in all the HP psc 2210 all-in-one seems to do exactly what is says on the lid - Print, Fax, Scan and Copy! (and more!) I would recomend this product to anyone who can afford it (and wants quality p
rinting from an ink-jet printer).

Summary: