HP Photosmart Plus

The HP Photosmart Plus is a multifunction printer that's closely related to the Photosmart Wireless.  The main difference is the touchscreen interface, which is bigger, easier to use and more attractive.

Apart from that though, both printers are essentially the same, both printers use the same cartridges and offer identical printing quality and running costs, and print at almost exactly the same speed too.  The Photosmart Plus doesn't take up too much from and comes with Windows, Mac and Linux drivers.

The larger screen means that the Photosmart Plus often costs a lot more than the Wireless.  If you do spot them on sale for roughly the same price though, don't hesitate to go for the Plus.

Handling

What's new?

With a larger screen, measuring 2.4'' instead of the 1.4'' on the Wireless, the printer is not just more attractive, but also easier to use because the whole surface of the display is touch-sensitive this time around.


Speeds

We measured speeds that are close to the Photosmart itself and the Photosmart Wireless edition, which means it's somewhat faster than average.  There are faster printers out there, but do you really need to print documents at more than 12 pages per minute?  Using our test document, we didn't spot much of a difference between black-and-white and colour printing.


You'll need 39 seconds to produce a borderless 4 x 6'' photo print, or two minutes on A4 on average. 

Quality


The printing quality is exactly the same as on both the Photosmart and Photosmart Wireless , and is also comparable to what all of HP's multifunction printers have produced since the manufacturer moved over to separate cyan, yellow and magenta cartridges.  Our four star rating in this section cover office documents, as well as colour and black and white photos.  The colours are accurate, but the ink drops are visible, both in graphics (especially large areas of colour) and in some photos. 


Energy and noise consumption

Our energy consumption measurements revealed a very economic printer: it requires 13 W while working, and 2 W on standby.  It's also quiet, producing 49 dB while working.


Scanner and copier

Scanning a 4 x 6'' photo at 300 dpi is fast, and takes just 9 seconds.  However, you'll need to set aside 21 s for the pre-scan, which is longer than average.

As usual, the scanner that HP has included is more of a fallback than an everyday model.  We can't really see professionals using it because of the rather pronounced colour discrepancies and the noticeable sharpening of lines within photos, as this example shows well.

For copying, choosing colour doubles the time it takes from 9 s in black-and-white to 19 s.  If you're copying a longer document, you can reach speeds of 11 ppm.




Cost per page

Two types of cartridges are available: standard and XL.  XL cartridges cost more to buy, but last longer and are a worthwhile investment if you print a lot.

Cartridge	Price	ISO Lifespan	Cost per page
364 (black)	£11	250	4.4 p
364 (cyan)	£9	300	3 p
364 (magenta)	£9	300	3 p
364 (yellow)	£9	300	3 p

That means you can expect to pay around 13 p per page using the standard cartridges.  That's a lot more expensive than using XL cartridges, which bring that down to 7.4 p per page.  That's pretty standard for HP's latest generation of printers.  For the time being, only the Canon MP620 and Kodak ESP 7 can do better.

Cartridge	Price	ISO Lifespan	Cost per page
364 XL (black)	£28	800	3.5 p
364 XL (cyan)	£17	750	2.3 p
364 XL (magenta)	£17	750	2.3 p
364 XL (yellow)	£17	750	2.3 p