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Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart 100 Printer

Don Bradbury tests out a diddy colour printer not that much bigger than some digicams

Those who want to ditch film photography and a regular trip to the processor’s will probably be considering a digital camera coupled with a dedicated printer. The latter could take the form of the Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart 100 printer, a device little bigger than some digicams that can be used either stand-alone or attached to your PC.

In stand-alone mode you simply insert your digital camera’s memory card – CompactFlash (CF), SmartMedia (SM), or Memory Stick (MS) – and take prints directly from that. Incidentally, HP says the IBM Microdrive isn’t supported, but the P100 didn’t appear to have any problem printing from mine.

CF, SM, and MS cards can all be inserted the wrong way up without restriction. A flashing light warns about this, but surely the traditional blocking mechanism could have been implemented to prevent the annoyance?

As an alternative to operating in stand-alone mode, you can hook up the printer to your PC via a USB port (1.0 protocol). While the latter mode gives you more options by way of tweaking the image to your liking before printing, running this printer in stand-alone mode means you can have a single print within minutes, or multiple prints (same image or different) taken in auto mode while you do something else.

Controls

An array of control buttons on the top, coupled with an LCD panel, provide the user controls. These extend to choosing the picture size, up to 10 x 15cm borderless, but including 6 x 8cm or 1.5 x 2cm. With these latter, adding a border is optional, as is taking multiple prints.

One icon shows the number of pieces of paper required to complete the job (up to six), and that’s supplemented with a ‘more paper’ icon if more than six sheets will be needed.

The number of images read from the memory card is shown, as is your chosen image or range of images. The problem is, there’s no LDC view showing the actual image you’ve chosen to print. Since the P100 does not read the images from your memory card in the same sequence as your digicam, you’ll probably have to take an index print first if not all of the images are to be printed.

Aspect ratio

Somewhat unfortunately, if you choose 10 x 15cm borderless prints, around 20% of your image width is trimmed away to make HP’s chosen paper format accept the whole length of the image. That, in this age of accurate subject framing via an LCD or SLR style viewfinder, might prove unsatisfactory for those of us who want to preserve maximum image quality by framing very tightly in the camera so they don’t have to crop the image later.

Thus, as an example, if you start with:

You’ll finish up with a 10 x 15cm borderless print looking like this:

The smaller print sizes don’t do that to your subjects, preserving the correct image proportions, but surely most P100 users will want maximum size, borderless prints?

In other respects the prints are very good, with acceptable colour balance from the tri-colour cartridge, very little by way of grain, and no visible banding. Most digicam users who employ a device like the P100 will be entirely happy with its output in terms of print quality.

Shame about the aspect ratio though (print length divided by width). That’s where a PC comes in useful, of course, coupled with a conventional printer, as you can crop the image to your heart’s content and then crop the finished print on a guillotine to suit the aspect ratio of the subject.

The P100 won’t give you that level of control because it accepts only one size of paper, with just the number of images per sheet as control factors. But for good quality, knock-off hardcopy from your digicam, the P100 might just suit you.

Software is provided for PC communication, as are multi-language setup guides, sample photo paper (a rather miserable half dozen sheets), and index print cards, plus a neat dual UK/US mains adapter for the power supply unit.

In conclusion

The PhotoSmart 100 printer is a brave attempt by Hewlett Packard to satisfy the dedicated-printer-for-holiday-snaps brigade. There’ll be plenty of those among computer users, and at the price this printer could be a good buy. Perhaps those with a conventional printer as well could just use that when greater control is required; that is, for those special shots – and where preserving the correct aspect ratio is rather critical! 

Don Bradbury

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