Product Reviews

Inkjets just get better and better - you've only to look at the results of last month's group test. Even if you're a perfectionist you'd be hard-pushed to pick holes in the pictures and words a modern inkjet can put on paper. Can things get any better? Well, HP think so, and you won't have to pay through the nose either.

The 815C boasts features that until recently had only been bestowed on HP's more expensive printers. One is HP's PhotoRET II printing technology, a system that HP claims helps lower-resolution printers reproduce better photographic prints. In essence it allows the printer to vary the size of the ink droplets it fires, producing finer dots on lighter-coloured areas, so they appear less dotty.

As always with HP's lower-end printers, the resolution stats don't appear too high - just 600dpi in both black and colour. Epson's 660 boasts 1,440x720dpi, but don't be swayed by manufacturers shouting out big numbers - it's the quality of the results that counts.

Round the back of the printer you'll find that, like many other manufacturers, HP has hedged its bets by supplying both a USB socket and Parallel port, so you can choose your connection. Using the USB port will certainly make installation a breeze. Once you've slotted the cartridges into their requisite slots under the hood of the printer, and connected it to the mains, all you need to do is plug the USB cable in at both ends. Your PC (as long as it's running Windows 98 or a version of 95 that mentions USB on

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the CD) instantly detects the printer, asks for the driver disk, then goes away and does its business. Slick and simple, just how USB installation routines should be. As long as HP supplies the English version of the drivers and not the Polish ones we received in the box, you should be set up in under 15 minutes.

With everything up and running, you'll quickly find the 815C is a capable machine. I ran it through Computer Buyer's suite of inkjet tests, to see how it would have fared against the printers in last month's group test.

The HP uses pigmented black ink, which ensures dense, black, and very crisp text, even on plain copier paper. In this test it outperforms the Epson Color 660, although the edges of characters can't quite match the laser-like sharpness of more expensive printers like the Epson Stylus Color 760 or HP DeskJet 970CXi. Our business report challenge revealed that the 815C is just as comfortable printing colour on plain paper, with none of the banding and dithering that was apparent in the Epson Stylus 660's output.

The high quality photo tests, printed on standard photo-paper showed up less of a difference between the 815C and Epson's 660. If anything, I felt the 815C produced flesh tones and subtle shading better than the 660. The HP also balanced bright colours more capably, but the difference really is small. Our timings also showed there wasn't much between the two in terms of print speed either. The Epson was slightly faster at producing the high-quality documents and the business document, but slower to deliver the five page text document, which the 815C produced in 1min 52s.

Overall, I'm impressed with this latest offering from HP. Its specifications may not look particularly special, and it's not perfect, but it does offer better print quality than last month's Top 50 entry, the Epson Stylus Color 660. The major factor acting against the HP 815C is that it costs around £20 more than the Epson 660, which we think you'd do better buying, unless you anticipate heavy text printing. The HP may be better, but it's not £20 better.