Printers

Positioned second in HP's snapshot printer line-up, the Photosmart A626 is much more compact and portable than the top-of-the-range A826 Home Photo Centre. Weighing just over 1.5 kg, it has a pull-up carry handle and flip-down panels that act as input and output trays. Lowering the front panel reveals slots for CF, SD, xD and Memory Stick/Memory Stick Duo cards plus a USB port for connecting PictBridge-enabled cameras. The single, tri-colour ink cartridge fits behind a hatch on this panel as well.


Lowering the front panel raises the LCD touch-screen and displays the memory card slots, USB port and paper-out schute.


The single ink cartridge slots in behind a panel on the front of the printer.

The main user interface is a 4.8-inch colour touch-screen, which lifts up as the front panel is lowered. Its angle of view is adjustable when you hold in two light blue tabs at either end of the lower edge of the screen. Beside the panel is a well that holds the supplied stylus while you're using the printer and a slot that holds it neatly when the printer is packed. Unfortunately, the LCD panel faces upwards when the printer is packed for carrying, putting the screen at some risk.

The touch-screen has the standard Photosmart Express user interface with five buttons: View, Print, Create, Share and Save. Pressing the View button calls up a four-shot index view with arrows each side for scrolling through your shots four at a time. You can zoom in on a selected shot by tapping on it. This calls up two options: Edit and Get Creative or you can simply print the picture by tapping on the print icon on the right side panel.

Editing includes facilities for cropping, adjusting brightness and removing red-eye plus a 'slimming' tool that distorts the image parameters to make subjects look 'slimmer' (we know lots of adults who will appreciate this function). The Get Creative sub-menu provides tools for adding frames, captions, colour effects or clip are to shots, drawing on pictures and creating album pages. These are a big hit with teens and pre-teens.

Selecting Captions calls up a virtual keyboard and you can select from six colours and five fonts before tapping out your caption with the stylus. Captions can be resized and rotated and you can position them on the picture as you wish. Choosing the Scribble function allows you to draw directly on the picture with the stylus and you can select from the same six colours.

The Album function provides page templates that can be populated with your photos and you can choose from Seasonal, Kids, General and Special categories. The number of shots per page is restricted by the design template. You can insert shots into pages individually or as a batch. Unfortunately, the software won't allow you to re-position individual shots in the layout if you take the latter option. The only way to change shot positions is to re-shuffle the pictures through the available spaces.

Up to 20 sheets of paper can be loaded in the in tray at a time and you can opt to print your shots one by one, select shots for printing as a batch or print all shots on the memory card or in the camera. If you run out of ink mid-way through a printing run, the Photosmart A626 will prompt you to replace the ink cartridge. When this is done, ask you if you wish to reprint the last photo, which has been stored in the 64MB internal memory.

Like most inkjet printers, the Photosmart A626 notifies you the ink is low well before the ink actually runs out. The starter cartridge only includes 2.5 ml of ink, which is enough for approximately 10 snapshot-sized prints. However, we managed to obtain 23 prints before producing a 'dud' through lack of ink by simply over-riding the on-screen warnings that ink is running out.


Low ink warnings are unambiguous, but you will probably be able to print several additional pictures after the first warning appears.

According to HP's page yield figures, a new HP 110 Tri-colour Inkjet Print Cartridge should be enough for approximately 55 snapshot-sized prints. HP offers a 'Custom' Photo Pack for the Photosmart A626 containing 120 sheets of 10 x 15 cm paper plus a higher-capacity cartridge with enough ink to print them. When we checked online prices the cost of this Photo Pack ranged from around $40 to $65, which suggests it could be worth shopping around for consumables.

Ease of Use
HP's compact Photosmart printers are very simple to set up and use, thanks largely to their uncomplicated controls, straightforward on-screen menus and easy navigation. Images are displayed quickly once a memory card is inserted and the touch-screen buttons respond to pressure promptly, in both cases thanks to the 64MB of built-in memory.


The Photosmart Express user interface is straightforward and easy to use.

The editing functions, though basic, are easy to locate and use but only a little more sophisticated than some digicams offer in-camera. Once cropping is selected you can zoom in to enlarge the area that will be printed and move this selection by dragging it with a fingertip. Unfortunately, frame dragging can require several attempts before the frame actually moves.


Image cropping is achieved by selecting the + magnifier and then using a fingertip to move the frame across the screen.


Fingertip dragging is also used for image brightness adjustments.

Using the A626 with computer connection provides a few more editing options via the bundled Photosmart Essential software. These are mainly confined to colour adjustments and a slightly wider range of cropping and tonal (brightness and contrast) controls. Adding captions is slightly easier via Photosmart Essential than via the touch-screen keyboard. Ink cartridge replacement was also very straightforward; you simply pull out the depleted cartridge and replace it with a new one.

Parents thinking of buying the Photosmart A626: this printer is a real hit with pre-teens. It's so easy to set up and operate that our almost-seven ease of use evaluator had it printing within minutes and very quickly discovered the Get Creative functions and chose her favourites. The only mistake she made was loading the paper the wrong way round (not advisable because the ink spreads and doesn't dry), which was quickly rectified.


Our junior tester working on a picture with the supplied stylus.

All this was accomplished without an instruction manual. Her four-year-old sister was also able to select pictures and locate and press the Print icon, despite being unable to read. However, she tended to tap the Print icon several times while waiting for printing to start – and this incremented the number of prints for output. Adult intervention was required to address the problem.


Pre-teens find the Photosmart A626 lots of fun to use.

Performance
The test printer was very quick to start, taking roughly three seconds to activate the LCD menu when power was switched on. With direct printing, selecting the Best setting for Print Quality in the Preferences menu produced noticeably better detail and colour density.  Standard snapshot prints in this mode took just over one and a half minutes to produce, while edited prints (including those with Get Creative adjustments) took roughly five seconds longer.

Choosing the Normal quality setting reduced printing times to one minute and five seconds, while the Fast Normal setting shaved a further ten seconds off printing times. Print speeds were slightly faster when the Photosmart A626 was connected to a computer. With the Best setting, snapshot-sized prints were delivered in roughly one minute and 20 seconds. The Normal setting was nine seconds faster, delivering prints in approximately 51 seconds. The Fast Normal setting could produce a snapshot print in as little as 39 seconds. Print quality deteriorated as printing speeds increased and prints made with the Fast Normal setting were comparatively flat and lacking in detail.

With the Best quality setting, overall print quality was acceptable, although not outstanding, and similar to the prints we have obtained from other three-ink printers. We observed a slight reddish cast in most shots printed directly from memory cards but this was correctable when printing via a PC. Greenish blues were not reproduced with full colour accuracy and saturation with either direct or PC-based printing.

The lack of a black ink cartridge meant that even with the Best setting prints were relatively flat when compared with similar prints from HP's Photosmart D7460 model, which uses six inks. Differences were most obvious in shadows, where detail and depth were absent in prints from the A626 model. Test prints made with the B&W and sepia modes were very flat and washed-out looking.

The various Get Creative functions were fun to use and some (particularly the frames and graphics) could be handy for scrapbookers. However, although our sub-teen testers loved the Scribble function, the stylus tip was too thick to provide any precision, particularly on 10 x 15 cm prints. An Erase function is provided for removing unwanted decorations before committing to a print.

Conclusion
If you're looking for vibrant, eye-catching prints with rich colours and deep, resonant blacks, the Photosmart A626 is likely to be a disappointment. However, this portable printer is both user-friendly and cost-effective and it does a good job for its technical limitations and is one of the few compact printers that can produce 5x7-inch prints.

Although print quality is not great, prints from the A626 are a match for the prints you can obtain from the cheaper photofinishers in both quality and cost. But they should last much longer and be more resilient to handling.

For cash-strapped scrapbookers, the convenience of having a printer at hand whenever you need it cannot be underestimated. Nor can the ability to add decorations to pictures before printing them. Most of the Get Creative templates are well-designed and suitable for a wide variety of themes.

Printer type: Thermal inkjet
Resolution: Up to 4800 x 1200-optimised dpi colour when printing from a computer and 1200 input dpi
Paper sizes: 10 x 15 cm, 13 x 18 cm, 10 x 30 cm
Max. paper weight: HP photo papers up to 280 g/m²
Ink cartridges: HP 110 Tri-colour Inkjet Print Cartridge

Printing speeds: Approx. 78 sec per 10 x 15 cm print, with border, direct connect, best quality on photo paper.
Interfaces: USB, PictBridge, 4x memory card slots, 4.8-inch touchscreen LCD (colour graphics)
Power consumption: 25 watts maximum
Acoustic noise: 5.5 B(A) (active, printing)
Dimensions (wxhxd): 252 x 132 x 117 mm
Weight: 1.52 kg