HP Photosmart 3310 All-in-One - Reviews - Hardware - Printers/Scanners

The HP Photosmart 3310 shares many features with earlier all-in-ones from HP, but this model ups the ante in a couple of important areas. Like the HP Photosmart 2710, the 3310 features stand-alone copying, faxing, scanning, and printing, plus wired and wireless networking, built-in camera card slots and a PictBridge port. The 3310's individual ink tank system, featuring two dedicated photo inks, is superior to the 2710's dual cartridge system, plus the 3310 adds scanning for negatives and slides. If you like the scanning adapter but don't require networking or faxing, check out the sibling HP Photosmart 3210 or the rival Canon Pixma MP760. But if you need an automatic document feeder for frequent photocopying, check out the pricier HP 7410 or the Canon Pixma MP780, which better fit small offices.

Design
The shiny grey HP Photosmart 3310 measures a compact 457mm by 508mm by 508mm (WDH) with the scanner lid open and the paper trays extended. This machine weighs 12 kilograms, heavier than its slim body may appear yet easy to lift. Unlike more business-oriented all-in-ones, the HP Photosmart 3310 lacks an automatic document feeder; instead, the detachable flatbed scanner lid houses a built-in adapter for film, negatives and slides to serve photo hobbyists.

A large, 2.5-by-3-inch colour display dominates the centre of the HP 3310's elegant control panel, which you can tilt for the best view. Dedicated buttons cover Photo, Video, Copy, Scan, HP Instant Share and Fax functions, alongside an alphanumeric keypad, a target-style menu, and a blue-glowing wireless radio icon. Four camera card slots and a PictBridge digital camera port are also in front. Lift up the control panel from underneath to access the six pop-out ink tanks, which include an extra-large black module and smaller cartridges for yellow, light cyan, cyan, light magenta and magenta.

The HP Photosmart 3310 includes a 50-sheet output tray; a photo paper tray that holds up to 20 sheets of snapshot paper; and a main, bottom paper tray that holds 100 sheets of paper from 7x12.7 cm to 21.6x35.6 cm in size. To load photos, you must remove the underside of the output tray, which is easy. But because the photo tray doesn't move, you'll have to grope around to load pages into it. At the back, the HP Photosmart 3310 conveniently locates a USB 2.0 port, an Ethernet port and an indicator light, as well as two fax ports (1-line and 2-EXT) in one area.

Features
The HP Photosmart 3310 prints, copies, scans and faxes in greyscale and colour, with or without a computer. You can print photos or frames from digital videos directly from a camera card or connected PictBridge digital camera. The LCD on the control panel lets you preview and print images from your camera, digital storage card, hard drive or scans. You can also use the control panel and LCD to change brightness, remove red-eye, add a border and make passport photos with your digital pictures.

The HP Photosmart 3310 is easy to set up and install. You can choose from three connection options: direct to your PC or Mac via USB 2.0, straight to a wired network via Ethernet or wirelessly to a network via 802.11b or g. Plentiful setup documentation includes a four-colour, large-format setup guide, a 200-page user guide with a chapter on networking and a help guide on the included software CD-ROM.

You can choose either the 1,133MB full install with HP's Image Zone Photo and Imaging software or the slimmer, 395MB express install. We recommend the express install unless you need photo-editing software, because Image Zone can eat up a lot of your computer's resources. Although we didn't encounter problems with Image Zone in our tests of the 3310, we have suffered through clunky installation of the same software when we've tested other HP all-in-ones, such as the HP OfficeJet 7410.

Performance
Inkjet multifunctions are less than speedy, and the HP Photosmart 3310 is no exception. In CNET Labs' performance tests, this printer produced 5.26 pages per minute (ppm) of normal quality black text, slower than the 6.45ppm of the Canon Pixma MP760 but faster than the 2.10ppm of the Epson Stylus RX620. On the other hand, HP 3310 dawdled by printing a letter-size photo in 81 seconds; the Epson RX620 took just 41 seconds and the Canon MP 760 did the same in 57 seconds.

CNET Labs all-in-one speed tests (page per minute)
(Longer bars indicate better performance)

Copy

Colour scan

Grayscale scan

Photo

Text

HP Photosmart 3310

2.17

6.11

6.22

1.21

5.26

Canon Pixma MP760

3.93

5.23

5.25

0.57

6.45

Epson Stylus Photo RX620

1.49

3.08

4.15

0.41

2.1

The HP Photosmart 3310's text print quality on HP Premium paper was great for an inkjet, on a par with that of the Canon Pixma MP760. Letters looked dark black and easily legible, even at 2-point size. The 3310's colour graphics enjoyed smooth gradients and excellent details but suffered from inaccurate colour matching due to an overdose of cyan. Printed on HP Photo paper, CNET Labs' letter-size test photo looked good, with bright colours and accurate details. However, dots were visible up close, especially in skin tones. The quality of the HP Photosmart 3310's greyscale and colour scan was only fair, suffering from washed-out or absent light greys as well as halolike bright spots around bold black text. The colour scan had a similarly overexposed-looking appearance.

The HP Photosmart 3310 comes with a one-year limited warranty; 90 days only for the software. Free technical assistance is available at HP's Web site in the form of software updates, software and driver downloads, setup help, manuals, answers to FAQs and e-mail chat.