Product Reviews

The firm grip Epson has held on the Mac-compatible inkjet printer market is about to be loosened by a new device from Hewlett Packard. The DeskJet 970Cxi delivers print quality that's a match for any of Epson's personal inkjets, and a lot more besides.

The DeskJet's most striking initial feature is that, despite being a USB printer, it's not made of translucent coloured plastic. It is, however, compact and very well-designed. Its in and out trays are situated together, one above the other, on the front of the printer. This means it occupies less desk space; a simple point, but one all too often overlooked.

The other obvious feature is the additional unit fitted to the rear of the printer. Its function is to enable the DeskJet 970Cxi to print on both sides of a sheet of paper automatically - a function unique among printers of this type. Both the paper trays and the double-sided printing unit are easy to fit, requiring only a cursory glance at the supplied manual.

Setting up the printer is a simple matter of plugging it in, connecting the USB cable, and switching it on. Little room for improvement here, you may think, but you'd be wrong: the HP unit gets itself ready with far less fuss and much less noise than any inkjet printer we've tested.

The necessary driver software is supplied on CD and installed in the usual way. A useful feature of the driver is that the first time the Mac is re-started after installation, it automatically guides the user through the process of selecting the DeskJet 970Cxi from the Chooser. The software also places a printer icon on the desktop for easy access to control features during printing.

Selecting options

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from the driver before printing can be as simple or as involved as you want it to be. There are three quality options for all paper types, and an extra-high-quality 2400 x 1200 pixel option for use with photo-quality glossy paper. In addition to selecting print quality, users can adjust the ink saturation levels and colour intensity, and can select a pre-set ColorSync profile or use HP's ColorSmart colour matching.

All this sounds very promising, but it's after the printer is put into action that it really impresses. The DeskJet 970Cxi is remarkably quiet for an inkjet device, something which anyone who has to spend all day listening to the noise churned out by other printers will appreciate. The HP device is also pretty quick, given the quality of the output it produces. At seven minutes 14 seconds for a full-colour A4 page, and a minute for a page of text, it's quicker than Epson's six-colour PhotoStylus printers, although marginally slower than Epson's four-colour devices.

Print quality of photographs is outstanding. Detail is sharp and clear and colour is reproduced faithfully. HP uses a technology it calls PhotoREt III to deliver drop sizes of five picolitres and place up to 29 drops per dot. This means it can generate over 3500 colours per dot, and explains why it's able to produce such accurate colours. Text quality, so often the Achilles heel of inkjet printers, is also excellent.

The automatic double-sided printing works extremely well. The printer prints onone side of the paper and then waits for the ink to dry before pulling the paper back in and printing the next page on the other side. We did have problems getting the printer to line up both sides of the page properly, but this is difficult for any printer.

The Hewlett Packard DeskJet 970Cxi is a joy to use. Its simplicity, user-friendly features and excellent output give it the edge over its competitors. However, there are one or two complaints: you'll need a USB interface to use it, there's no Ethernet port, and it won't print on anything bigger than A4. However, these are minor points, and at £279 plus VAT, HP is entitled to leave a couple of things out. Despite fact that it doesn't come in five fruity flavours, there's no better printing companion for any iMac.