HP PhotoSmart 8050

Author's product rating:   

Picture quality	Excellent
Printing speed	Fast
Colour sensitivity	Excellent
Ease of use	Easy
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Good resolution, neat features
Disadvantages:	None found

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I usually use Epson Printers.

But decided that it was time for a change and get a printer that offered quality Photo Printing in one unit.

The overall size of the printer is quite large, and certainly made me re-think about where I was going to put it, as the usual printer shelf on my desk, like most desks, I was to long and bulky to fit. It noe resides on the 2 drawer filing cabinet anlong side my desk.

The whole thing folds down and closes up, which resists dust and objects beign accidentally dropped into the paperslots, which was a common problem I had with my previous printers.

The installation was not the quickest of printer software that I have had the pleasure of installing. I must add here that I have installed many different makes and models of printers for friends and family alike.

It opens cleanly and simply. The general looks in its smart silver finish with grey trim is great. The unit is fitted with a 2.5cm LCD screen for direct editting from the mutli-format card slots which are easily accessed from the front panel.
At this point I must say that I haven't used the LCD screen as yet, and probably won't as it's not big enough to see anything in detail on. At 2.5cm it wouldn't give you a good reproduction of anything that you wanted to print off.

Annoyingly you have to change the BLACK and PHOTO cartridge depending on what you are using the printer for.. Removing the BLACK cartridge after simple text work, and installing the PHOTO cartridge before using the printer for PHOTOGRAPHS. Saying that, the changing of cartridges is easy and a quick operation, with a socket built in the printer to store the un-used cartridge till next time.

There is a neat holder under the top cover for a tray which can hold many sheets of 4x6 photo cards. Which them easily slips into the papertray and locks in place ready for the printing of Photographs.

I mentioned earlier about there being card slots in the face panel. The cards slot accepts most formats of media and memory cards. Which you can print directly from without the use of a PC, or with the software installed allows up-loading to a file of your choice in MY DOCUMENTS on your PC.

I have also discovered that when you open MY COMPUTOR on the desktop of your PC, you can cut and paste item both from the card, which shows as a REMOVEABLE DRIVE, and you can write to the card as well. Handy if you want to quickly put photos onto a card for processing at a PROFESSIONAL PROCESSORS.

The text printing in extremely clear, and without changing cartridges pictures for leaflets, and the like are excellent.

Once the PHOTO cartridge in installed and you use quality paper. The printer springs to life, and the photographs I have produced so far have been excellent. Obviously a printer of this cost isn't up to professional printing processors quality, but you can't really expect that for less than £50:00 which is what I paid for it at my local COMET store.

But the photographs are very, very acceptable, and look really clear and colourful.

The software that comes with the printer for photoprinting I didn't like much after using CANON photo software that can with my camera, but the printer works happily with this camera software so not really much of a problem for me. It maybe worth taking a look at using any software you already have for photo printing, rather than the HP stuff that comes with the printer. (my opinion)

I would seriously recommend the printer, I have only had it for a few weeks so far, but am very pleased with the results its given me.

The cartridges are a little on the dearer side than other manufacturers. But I would recommend using the GENUINE ones rather than cheap after market type.

I haven't been able to use the printer on my LAN NETWORK, which was simple and easy to setup with other makes. This maybe because I haven't installed something by mistake. I know it does say not a network printer, but either was my last one.. lol.

I haven;t bothered to go into all the technical spec's like dpi etc... I'm sure if those things are important to you making a choice it would be better to look at the manufacturers website...

For those who can't understand all the technical mumbo-jumbo.
The spec's are on the higher end than most printers of the £50 price bracket. As for features this too is better than printers in a similar price range.