HP OfficeJet Pro 1150C

Multifunction devices that combine scanner, printer and often a modem in the same package have a chequered history. Usually, you're better off with the individual pieces of kit.

HP might have cracked the problem with the OfficeJet Pro 1150C though. Throwing out the modem component of the traditional multifunction device, you're left with a printer and scanner, which combine into a fairly functional colour photocopier that connects to your PC via the parallel port.

Looks-wise, the 1150C is quite bulky and takes up a fair amount of desk space. It resembles a traditional desktop photocopier instead of a PC peripheral; the printer is contained in the bottom and the flatbed scanner is on top. The paper input tray is at the bottom front of the unit and holds 150 sheets. The output tray is directly above the input tray and can hold up to 50 sheets.

Colour photocopying is very simple with the 1150C. Just like a normal copier, you place the original face down and press the Start Copy Color button on the control panel. It takes around two minutes to produce a full-colour A4 copy, and although this isn't particularly fast it's much quicker than scanning an image into your PC and then printing it out. The copier can be set to produce a maximum of 50 copies of an original in one go. Helpfully, the 1150C can work independently of your PC; if all you want to do is copy, you don't need to have it plugged into the parallel port.

You can reduce or enlarge the copies in fixed stages from 50 to 400 per cent, and the contrast and colour intensity are adjustable, too. There are three quality settings: normal, draft, and best. Four paper types are also selectable: plain, transparency, glossy or premium inkjet. The lid can be removed if you need to copy or scan thick documents such as books.

When used as a printer, the 1150C behaves and performs much like the HP DeskJet 850C (Value award, issue 22, p86). It manages 600 x 600dpi in black and white and 600 x 300dpi in colour. The printing quality is pretty impressive, thanks to HP's colour resolution enhancement technology (CREt), which lets the 1150C reproduce up to 16.7 million colours. Overall, the print quality is excellent, with strong blacks and vibrant, accurate colours. The 1150C's speed ranges from 8ppm in EconoFast mode for black text to 1ppm in Best mode when printing full-colour graphics or photographs.

The OfficeJet Pro 1150C uses separate black and tricolour ink cartridges, which cost £22.20 and £24.20, respectively. Assuming a typical page has 75 per cent black text and 25 per cent colour graphics, with an overall print coverage of five per cent, it costs in the region of 2.09p per page. This cost is fairly average for this quality of inkjet printer.

As a scanner, the 1150C gets 300dpi out of its flatbed mechanism, although software interpolation can boost this to a maximum of 1,200dpi. The scanner runs in 24-bit colour, which means it's capable of recognising 16.7 million colours - conveniently the exact printing capabilities of the 1150C, which makes for accurate colour copies.

The 1150C is TWAIN-compliant, so you can perform scanning operations from directly within any TWAIN-aware application. In addition, HP supplies several utilities designed to help you get the most out of the 1150C, including PictureLink which adds scanning options to your favourite applications menu, and PictureScan which sets scanning options. Limited editions of Caere's OmniPage OCR software and Adobe's PhotoDeluxe are also included. These are both useful packages, especially for DTP work.