HP Photosmart 1315

There are several advantages to having a single, good all-round printer. The first is that you don't need to buy several printers for each task. Another is that you can print high-quality DTP documents on coated paper, with both crisp black text and clear photos and graphics. Our four-page DTP test was completed in just 11 minutes, 37 seconds - not bad for the printer's highest settings. However, the quality was again behind the Epson. The text quality was superb, but photos and graphics suffered from visible grain and banding that became more apparent with smaller graphics on lower resolution paper, although the colours were clear and bright. Likewise, our colour fade and image quality tests had beautiful, bright colours, but suffered from an easily visible composite colour make-up and, again, evident grain and banding.

The HP doesn't offer the best print quality, but its class across the board is unrivalled, meaning there's nothing it does really badly and, while its colour and photo print quality can't match the Epson's, it makes up for this in other areas. This is what made the A-Listed 990Cxi (see Labs, issue 77, p92) a great all-round business inkjet.

But you expect something more from a specific photo printer, especially when Epson and Canon's photo quality has reached new heights. HP has achieved its goal of offering more and better features - the TFT screen, intuitive control system and media slots all make standalone photo printing easier, plus you get the bonuses of automatic paper detection and cartridge alignment for the meagre sum of just £255. This is great, but the real digital photography enthusiast will be disappointed once they see what Epson and Canon can do. The HP Photosmart 1315 is a good all-round printer with some well thought-out features, but the print quality needs improvement to be taken seriously in the digital photography world.

Author: Ben Hardwidge