Hewlett Packard 7260

By Ian Urie

The kids needed a new printer for their schoolwork. I prowled the box shifters for a couple of weeks to see what I could find.

I have been constantly impressed with my HP as reviewed in the last issue.

I was very pleased, therefore, to find PC World selling the Photosmart 7260 for £50.

A decided bargain…………

Room is at a premium at the kids’ computer area, so the HP was ideal.

As opposed to the Epson, paper goes in the bottom of the printer as well the finished prints. This means it takes up very little space and also the paper feeders fold away neatly inside the printer if you aren’t going to use it.

The printer is USB connected and there are ports at front and back. The power lead goes in at the back as well. On the front of the unit, it also has a card reader system, which takes a variety of different memory cards. Software is supplied with the printer as usual, which enables you to print straight from card or simply to print a collage showing all pictures on the card as well as simple editing.

Print quality, as you might expect, is superb. The printer uses two cartridges, with the usual HP “swap cartridges” if you decide to print on photo paper.

Cartridges are easily changed, and appear to use very little ink as I’ve come to expect from my HP printer.

This little printer is quite speedy and prints out in low quality draft mode at around the 16-ppm mark.

Colour s is vibrant and exceptional quality.

I still prefer the 5600 DeskJet, but this is a very nice little printer as well.

Drawbacks are that the software conflicted with a part of the Nvidia drivers for my graphics card, but HP support kept coming back with suggestions until the problem was located and the printer worked as advertised.

For the price I paid, I find it hard to criticise this printer.

The sheet feeder holds about 100 sheets and the out tray is 50 sheets.

It can take up to A4 size paper, in common with most other home printers. It also comes with a very nice little holder for 6 X 4 photo paper to help load it properly. This stacks away in a compartment on top of the printer when not needed.

If you’re looking for a nice printer that won’t break the budget ………or eat up all your money on cartridges, this looks like something suitable.