HP PhotoSmart 7960 Inkjet Printer 

The 7960 is a quality inkjet printer with the ability to print mono pages at a reasonable speed. It is described as an eight ink printer something it took me a while to get my head around. It has three cartridges two of three inks and the third of either three inks or a single ink. Now how on earth do you make eight, I can get seven or nine but eight seems not possible.

The answer is the make up of the cartridges, a normal colour with Cyan Magenta and Yellow, another colour with Cyan Magenta and Black and the third either Black or Black and two shades or grey to give excellent black and white images. So problem solved. Black for text, then replace the single the black for the Black and two greys for a possible eight inks. Lesson over, however all you really need to know it gives a whole new dimension to shades of Black.

Installation is straightforward, software first and then attach the hardware when instructed. The unit is not small at 49x36x17cm with cables inserted. Both the power adapter and USB lead fit back right of the unit. It also has the ability to act as a card reader for CompactFlash types I and II as well as Micro Drives, Multi Media, Secure Digital, SmartMedia, both Sony Memory Sticks and XD Cards. However it can only support one card type as a time so using it to move items from one card type to another would need the PC to act as an intermediary. The printer has an excellent 6x4cm front mounted display that can be used to print direct from the card without need to have a PC connected. There are a total of 17 buttons that work with the display to view and select images, size and quality. If used through the PC then let Windows take the strain.

I printed basic black pages at 12PPM, the quality was adequate even though this was fast draft, perfectly acceptable for memos. As for quality images I printed a range in excellent colour as well as black and white, both sets of images were excellent.

I do not think speed is king when printing images, quality is far more important especially when printing on photo paper. This – as far as I know – is the first HP printer able to print A4 borderless and while it naturally slows things down a bit it is not significantly slower. A5 borderless prints take around 140 seconds while A5 prints take around 110 seconds, this is in best mode using photo paper in the special slot that does not require removal of paper from the multiple paper size tray below.

Paper is stacked face down in the base of the printer and delivered face up on a shelf above this tray.

If I was looking for a quality inkjet printer this would certainly be on my shortlist. When I recently reviewed the HP 945 camera I noticed Jessops had a special offer where you could purchase both the 945 and 7960 together for £550, given their price for the camera that makes the printer £201. Dabs have the printer for £230 still a good price.

Link : http://h41100.www4.hp.com/uk/eng/consumer/photodirectprinters/q3020a.html