Product Reviews

The Deskjet 1280 is a new A3+ printer from HP. It's touted as a tool for small businesses that need to produce large documents, such as point-of-sale material, notices for staff or large spreadsheets. It's not aimed at photographers, which we find a bit odd given that most printers these days tend to be geared towards that market, but still, it proves that HP is interested in other areas.

The Deskjet 1280 prints at 600 x 600dpi in black on plain paper and 4800 x 1200dpi in colour on photo paper. You can store 150 sheets in the input tray with the output tray limited to 50 sheets, and it connects to your Mac through a USB port.

The Deskjet 1280 takes one black and one tri-colour ink cartridge. Coverage is quoted for A4-size paper only, at 970 pages for the high-capacity colour tank and 833 for the high-capacity black ink. Smaller and cheaper tanks are available, both quoted at 450-page life spans.

At £54 for both the high-capacity tanks and £31 for the standard ink cartridges it's certainly not cheap to run.

There are just three buttons on the printer, and it seems as if HP is going for simplicity with this particular model. Power, cancel and a sheet-feed button are the only controls. A low-ink indicator flashes to tell you when it's time to fork out for the chemicals.

The paper path follows the normal HP up-and-over design but the rear of the printer can be removed so paper can pass straight through. This gives the added advantage that larger paper won't curl up, which it has a tendency to do if bent over backwards by the normal U-shaped paper path.

The HP driver software is easily understood. Options are clear and this all helps to make printing that little bit simpler. There are some useful extra options

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as well, such as tiling and banner printing available from the driver.

Print quality is a mixed bag and our tests showed up some flaws that might make you think twice about buying this printer. We tested the Deskjet 1280 with a range of documents, and as long as all you want is solid colours and text you'll be fine. We printed a spreadsheet with graphs and text on a range of background colours. The results were more than acceptable with excellent text definition and accurate colour reproduction. We also used an architect's plan of an office to see how the Deskjet 1280 could cope, and again the printer managed well. Lines were sharp and details at smaller sizes were retained. Text was well-defined and clear.

For our colour accuracy test we printed out a cover of MacUser. It printed at a good speed, with the images out and ready in a fraction under 7 minutes. Colour reproduction was fair, but this is certainly not a printer for outputting final proofs. HP isn't pushing the Deskjet 1280 as a proofing device, though. Photographic image quality isn't spectacular with images lacking depth and quality.

Without a specific photographic capability this printer is somewhat hobbled. There's something to be said for offering a wide range of printing solutions for various purposes, but even if you're only creating signage there's a chance you're still going to want images.

We were unsure of how to rate the Deskjet 1280. At £200 for A3+ printing it appears to be good value. The range of paper and printing options is good and print speeds are quick enough. With no photo-quality ink cartridge available, though, the Deskjet 1280 begins to lose its shine. We agree that not everyone will want to print photos all the time but the idea that this is a printer only for large spreadsheets and workplace posters does seem to be a bit of a narrow market.

This is a decent printer that does everything it's supposed to do, but the running costs mean we can't justify more than two mice. It would have scored higher had it performed with more skill when it came to colour accuracy and photographic output. If you need a printer to make text-based posters, print large spreadsheets or produce quick and fairly accurate proofs, this could be the one for you. If you're planning to do more, it's worth looking at the other printers available.