SmotoPhart anyone? (HP Photosmart 1000)

Member Name: theanarchistkid

Product:	HP Photosmart 1000
Date:	05/04/01 (1282 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy setup, nice design, good features.

Disadvantages: No printer cables, slightly overpriced.

Over the past few years, Hewlett Packard have survived on mainly one aspect of their business; Printers. Hewlett Packard do actually make PCs and Scanners as well but they are generally overpriced and underspecified. So, how do they manage to flog printers then? Well the printers have one good thing going for them and that's reliability. Here's a brief list of my experience of printers over the last few years and I think it speaks volumes.

Hewlett Packard Deskjet 540: Sure, everyone laughs at it now, but it's still working. The quality is limited to 300dpi but it was the first printer that I ever bought and it's still working to this day. It's never even brought up an error message.
Epson Stylus 500: On the purchase of my new PC a couple of years ago, I decided it was time for a new printer. I bought an Epson because I had seen the quality that it can produce. The only problem was that within 4 months it had gone wrong.
Epson Stylus 600: I got the 500 replaced with a 600 and to my horror, this one also went wrong within a few months.
Hewlett Packard Deskjet 690: I replaced the Epson with this. What it lacks in print quality it makes up for with reliability. It's still working even today.
Hewlett Packard Deskjet 1120: I bought this printer because I needed to be able to print on A3 paper. Decent quality printouts but not exceptional. It's never gone wrong.
Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart 1000: The latest addition to my collection and finally it appears that Hewlett Packard are being innovative and working on their print quality.

Whilst the list above may seem a bit off topic, I think that it indicates the main selling point of HP printers. They never go wrong. Having had several of them over the last few years, I am yet to have a Hewlett Packard printer fail on me, print out random characters or do anything wrong. Sure, they're a little bit more expensive but I certainly think it's worth it. Enough
about HP though, let's talk about this specific printer.

I bought this printer from Dabs Direct for about £170 and I have not been disappointed at all by it. The reasons that I bought this printer above its competitors is that it is from a reliable brand and also it has the ability to read Smartmedia cards and also Compact Flash cards. So what? Well, this means that instead of having to plug my digital camera into the back of my PC and wait ages for the pictures to upload every time I feel the need to print my photos, I can now just whip the memory card out of the camera and stick it in the printer. This saves time, effort and it's much easier than having to load up an image editing application just to print out a few photos. The implementation of this technology is fantastically simplistic. Just take the card out of your digital camera, stick it into the slot on the side of the printer and wait for the printer to prompt you on what to do next. This process doesn't need any drivers or even a PC so if you were on holiday, you could take this printer with you and print out photos whenever you felt the urge.

There are quite a few buttons on the printer, but don't be put off. They are all very clearly labelled and the printer has a little LCD screen which allows you to see what options you are selecting. Printing a phot direct from a memory card is simplicity personified. Just select what paper size you are using, select how big you want the photo to be, select how many copies you want and tell it to print. I've never come across a more intelligent way of printing out photographs. Once the photographs are printed, as long as they are printed on photographic paper, they look great. Results on normal paper aren't quite as impressive but they are more than acceptable.

One thing that I particularly like about this printer is the styling. Old Hewlett Packard printers used to be large clunky affairs that were incredibly nois
y and slow. Well all that has changed with this printer. A sleek black colourscheme makes the printer blend in perfectly with my desk and the buttons on the printer are logically coloured and labeled. The print button is green, the cancel button is red. It really is that simple. There is a tray at the back of the printer which can be removed to allow access to the printing mechanism. This should allow you to sort out any paper jams, although fortunately, I am yet to have any. The size of the printer is pretty small really and it sits nicely on the top of my desk. It feels quite well put together and also appears to be resistant to the odd knock that it may receive.

It has the facility to be connected to your PC via either a Parallel port or a USB cable. Having both options is nice because it means you can change whenever you like. Currently I have mine connected using the parallel port because I already had one of these cables lying around. One thing to note if this is your first printer is that as with most printer manufacturers, HP don't bother bundling the cable to connect it to your computer. PC World will try and charge you approximately £10 for one of these, but you can get them cheaper from a computer fair if you so wish. This is one of my main gripes about the printer manufacturing sector. They never include cables and I think this is appalling. Just imagine a buyer's horror as they get their shiny new printer home only to find that it doesn't have the right cables. Also, Hewlett Packard have cut corners by supplying their 'Light Use' ink cartridges. These are essentially the same as their proper cartridges except that they are only half filled with ink. I think that corner cutting like this isn't acceptable especially when you consider that a cartridge for a printer like this costs around £30. If I'm paying this much money for a printer, I expect it to come with proper cartridges and cables.

The printer driver i
s simple to install and set up although it does have one or two annoying quirks. Because I have more than one PC, occasionally I swap printers around for specific purposes. The driver for this printer however, likes to be in constant communication with the printer and if it isn't it brings up a little icon in the system tray. Whilst not critical, this is an annoyance because I couldn't really care less whether my printer is currently connected to this PC. The driver does have the bonus of being remarkably simple and intuitive to configure your printer and everything worked first time for me.

The quality of the printouts is something that Hewlett Packard have struggled with over the years. I have never been particularly pleased with the colour printing on their older printers although text has traditionally been perfect. This printer though, offers excellent quality for both photos and text. The resolution is 1200dpi (although this is using enhancement techniques) and pictures come out looking bright and colourful provided that it's on photographic paper. As with most inkjet printers, printout of pictures and graphics on plain photocopier paper is pretty substandard and not acceptable for presentation purposes. It would be very nice soon if a printer manufacturer could make a printer that prints out well even on cheap paper. The printer is very quick however and after an initial pause whilst all of the printing information is spooled, it races along at high speed. One thing that is very nice is that is is virtually silent. Old HP printers used to be noisy and clunky but this one just makes a nice quite purring noise.

Generally, I am very pleased with this printer and any criticisms that I have can be levelled at more or less all printer manufacturers. It would be nice if a printer company could bite the bullet and start including printer cables along with their printers, but to be honest I can't see that happening in today's comp
etitive market. Print quality, speed and ease of use are all excellent. The added feature of being able to print direct from memory cards will certainly sway a buyer's decision greatly and I would certainly recommend this printer to anyone with an interest in ameteur digital photography. One final aspect of the printer is the price. At a RRP of £200 it is more than you would pay for a standard printer but it also has more features and better quality.

One thing that I should add is that this printer isn't designed solely for photos like some other; it will print on A4 paper as well and act as a standard printer.

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