Product Reviews

Hewlett-Packard claims that this is the world's smallest flatbed multifunction peripheral (MFP). Although it's taller than the Brother DCP-310CN, it takes up less room on the desk than an open copy of Computer Shopper - and it looks almost as good.

Paper follows a U-path through the inkjet printer, entering and exiting at the front. This means the device can be moved back against a wall if desk space is at a premium. Ink cartridges are fitted through a front-facing hatch above the paper trays, which is more fiddly than usual but means that the scanner bed doesn't need to pivot. Running costs using

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the higher capacity cartridges are quite low, at 2.7p per mono and 4.7p per colour page.

The PSC 1215 comes with HP-branded software for tasks including creating photo CDs and simple image editing. There's no Custom option during the installation, so it's an all-or-nothing affair and takes several minutes. The driver is basic, but it's easy to use and nothing essential has been left out.

The quality of the HP's plain paper printing is good, but at any setting other than draft the output is quite slow. Our school letter test printed at three pages per minute. Photo printing was also leisurely, with the printer needing more than 24 minutes to print six images on 6x4" paper. Although we couldn't print our photos without borders, their quality was superb for a budget four-ink MFP.

Copy and scan quality is also remarkably high, and both functions are reasonably swift. At the standard Text setting an A4 copy took around a minute. Scanning the same document at 300dpi took 38 seconds.

The PSC 1215 won't satisfy advanced users, but its simplicity makes it ideal for beginners. Its low price and small size make it perfect for anyone who is short of money or space.