This adequate graphics printer offers only mediocre speed and print quality; you'd get better results from the Canon S900. But if you want to print directly from your camera or media card, try the 7550 for PC-free printing.

The Hewlett-Packard Photosmart 7550 color photo inkjet printer provides small or home-office users and photo enthusiasts with excellent results in plain-paper graphics and photo-paper printing. Plus, it features a USB connection, an integrated full- color LCD, and support for a wide variety of media. However, the 7550's print quality doesn't make up for the machine's mediocre printing speed. Unless you really want to bypass your PC when you preview and print photos from your camera, opt for other printers, such as the Canon S900, that deliver faster, less expensive, better prints.

Five-minute setup
The HP Photosmart 7550 comes preassembled, so it's out of the box and onto your desk in a matter of seconds. The same goes for unpacking the power cord, power module, ink cartridges, software CD, and some brief printed documentation. The printer's single-page setup guide helps you through this lightweight process in less than five minutes. You simply need to connect the power module, load paper into the 100-sheet paper-input tray, install the print cartridges, connect a USB cable between the printer and PC, and install the appropriate drivers. The CD contains drivers for Windows 98, 2000, Me, XP, as well as Mac OS 9.x, X, 10.1, plus photo and imaging software for Windows. Although the 7550 fully supports the USB 2.0 interface, HP's package includes no USB cable. That's a frustrating omission, particularly because this printer is USB only. We know that this is becoming a common industry practice, but it's a pain to bring home a new printer and find that you can't connect it to your PC. In fact, it stinks.

This printer takes an interesting approach to ink cartridges. While traditional ink printers use a CMYK cartridge scheme, the 7550 comes with three distinct cartridges: Black, Regular Color, and Photo Color, with nozzles that are designed for much finer firing, allowing for higher resolutions. You engage the photo color cartridge only when you're printing a color photo, usually via the Print dialog box. So, depending on your printing habits, you may be able replace some of your ink less often. For example, if you primarily print photos, you'll most likely replace the photo color cartridge more frequently than the others. Fewer cartridge changes equals less cash outflow, although the 7550 negates any savings by using more ink than most other printers--more on that below.

In addition to printing images from your PC, the 7550 prints directly from camera media, such as CompactFlash Type I & II, SmartMedia, Secure Digital, Sony Memory Stick, and MultiMedia cards. Plus, the 7550 includes an integrated LCD, which, though it measures only slightly more than 1 inch diagonally, lets you preview, zoom, and crop images for printing without accessing software on your PC.

Mixed performance
When it comes to output, the 7550 offers crisp detail and color up to 4,800x1,200dpi on premium photo paper or 1,200x1,200dpi when printing to plain paper. However, the printer doesn't excel in any one area. In ZDNet Labs' tests, the 7550 churned out inkjet text at 3.83ppm, which is faster than the Canon S900's 3.64ppm but notably slower than the output of other printers, such as the Canon S530D's 5.9ppm. Text printing appeared sharp on both plain and coated papers, though fine detail tends to disappear at smaller font sizes.

And the 7550 printed photos in 5.3 minutes--certainly quicker than the 6.5 minutes its older cousin HP Photosmart 1215 needed but far slower than the Canon S900's 1.7 minutes per page. Plain-paper graphics and top-quality photo printing on photo paper appeared excellent, but graphics on coated paper had a bit of color banding, especially where color covered a large area. The HP Photosmart 1215 and the Canon S900 produced notably better jury results.

The price of printing
With an RRP of AU$799, the 7550 costs a bit more than other similar printers, and that cost increases, thanks to the printer's prodigious consumption of expensive inks. The AU$72.95 color cartridge used about AU$1 per page in ink in our tests. By comparison, the Canon S900 uses only around AU$0.75 per page, and other printers use even less ink per page. Black ink costs for the 7550 fared a bit better: the 7550's AU$43.95 black cartridge used about AU$0.85 per page, comparable to the competition's costs.

Recognized HP support
You won't have to shell out for tech support. HP offers free Web support, complete with FAQs, troubleshooting guidance, setup and installation assistance, software and driver updates, and online manuals. You also get a standard one-year limited warranty.

Nothing to write home about
Frankly, we've come to expect more from HP than what the Photosmart 7550 delivers. This strictly mediocre printer offers a few intriguing features, such as the integrated LCD and camera memory support but no compelling advantages in speed or print quality. You can get faster printing with comparable or better overall quality using other printers, such as the Canon S900.

HP Photosmart 7550
Company: HP Australia
Price: AU$799
Phone: 13 13 47

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