HP tops out its range for consumer printers with the Photosmart 7550

 

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By Alun Williams

Posted on 24 Sep 2002 at 17:30

Quality photo and text output - without cartridge change - is the brief for HP's first consumer-oriented seven-ink printing system.

'Lab quality printing for photo enthusiasts' is HP's tag for its new Photosmart 7550 printer.

Enabling you to mix the printing of high-quality photos with text-based documents without the need to change ink cartridges, it is HP's first consumer seven ink printing system. What this means is that a tri-colour inkjet cartridge (cyan, magenta and yellow) is combined with a 'PhotoREt IV' cartridge (light cyan, light magenta and a dye-based black) and also a separate pigment-based black ink cartridge for text output.

Its paper sensor system will automatically detect when to print in text mode.

Given that there are four built-in memory card slots - allowing access to CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Memory Stick and Secure Digital and MultiMedia memory cards formats - you can work 'offline' as well as working through a PC. A button can automatically upload photos to the computer.

There is also a little LCD screen for basic image manipulation. As well previewing and selecting images to print, you can modify colours, add borders and crop and rotate images.

According to its spec, the 7550 prints up to 13 pages per minute in colour and 17 pages per minute in black.

With an RRP of £299 (including VAT), you can buy the printer through the usual retailers such as Dixons, Comet and John Lewis. It includes HP Photo and Imaging software.

What does 'PhotoREt IV' add to the party? This is a technology developed by HP to help speed the printing process by using less ink without a visible sacrifice in quality.

John Duckworth, the HP UK Inkjet category manager, explained the process to us in more detail. Where a more traditional dpi-mode of printing may use a high number of dots per inch to achieve an image, PhotoREt is intended to optimise the printing. It seems specific algorithms are used to calculate the best placement of the coloured dots within an image, as opposed to the rote placement of dots over multiple tries.

Duckworth draws the analogy that the PhotoREt system combines dots like mixing colour on a palette, rather than sequentially re-applying separate colours. It seems that the human eye sees only continuous colour below a certain level of detail, anyway, a level already surpassed by 4,800 dpi images.

Essentially, the net result is that less ink is used - saving money on cartridges - and printing is faster. HP claims speed improvements of up to 50 per cent, for A4 output, compared with equivalent 4,800 dpi printing.

For those who wish to compare the quality and times of the two approaches, the Photosmart 7550 also has an optimised 4,800 dpi mode.