HP PhotoSmart 8450

This printer produces wonderful results up to A4 size. I bought mine for £99, and am delighted by the prints it produces. I resell my photographs and have found that I can now produce my own quality prints at less than the cost of going to to a proffesional
lab, and when using HP's premium plus photo paper, the results are much better too. I always use mine to print through photoshop, but there are card slots available for all types of media, and it is pictbridge compatible.

You can print exceptional colour rendition straight out of the box using HP's own print profiles without resorting to changing the colour casts in the software. Personally I have changed the settings and use Abode RGB 1998 profile rather than the sRGB that the printer reverts to, but thats just a matter of person taste.

The printer itself is quite bulky, about 22 inches across 17 inches deep with the front tray fully extended and about 8 inches high, but as long as you have the space I can recommend this printer. It is considerably quieter, and has less vibration that the Epson and Canon printers that I use for other applications.

The cartridges are relatively expensive, but by shopping around you can get them considerably cheaper than the RRP. Each cartridge has it's own print head, rather than being in the printer, so you do not need to worry about blocked print heads, and this means that the printer doesn't try and clean the print heads, using up ink in the bargain, each time it is turned on.

If I was to be picky, I would say it gets through ink pretty quickly, the HP100 grey ink cartridge needs replacing after approximately 14 A4 prints at best quality. Most probably most people wouldn't get through as many prints as I do a week though. Other than that, I now wish that it printed A3 prints, which I still have to send away to get printed. It looks like the 8750 will be next on my shopping list.