HP Photosmart A646 Portable Photo Printer

The HP Photosmart A646 Printer is a good compact photo printer for every day small photo prints around the home. Notice the key word being GOOD, it is not GREAT but it does work and for what it is it works perfectly fine.

Whats Included:

• Printer
• Handy Padded Nylon Bag
• Documentation
• One packet of 5×7 Photo Paper (3 sheets)
• Introductory Printing Cartridge (Note: Introductory cartridges do not have as much capacity as a regular RETAIL cartridge, they are provided for test/play).
• Ac Adapter
• Stylus

Once the unit is plugged in you are prompted to select the language of choice followed by the country you are located in. Once completed, using the beautiful touch screen, you are prompted to load your cartridge and finally some paper to do a cartridge alignment. The beauty of this is that you need not manipulate any documentation as the screen has handy built in animations that describe the process…Pictures tell a thousand words and this implementation makes it a breeze to get started. The alignment takes about 30 seconds, but does waste one sheet of photo paper. Once completed, the unit says it is successful and we should recycle and or discard the printed page.

Bluetooth Printing: Now this was the fun part, since I have never used a printer via Bluetooth before. I have two devices which have simple 3.2mp autofocus camera’s built in. The blackberry 8900 and the iPhone. The printer detected the iPhone 3gs but the iPhone did not see this device at all. The Blackberry and Printer both saw each other and voila, I was able to select an image on my blackberry and send it to the printer. About 45 seconds later I had a decent 5×7 print of my picture and I was satisfied…all things considered this picture was taken on a cell phone and thus the quality will be of that. I was more then satisfied, with the exception of the iPhone not pairing.

Printing via Memory Card: More and more all photo printers now have the ability to read images directly from memory cards and naturally USB. This printer is no different. It has slots on the front for Memory Stick and Memory Stick Duo, SD and XD Cards, and finally a usb slot for a thumb drive etc. Simply insert your memory card and select images from the screen. (There is a blue LED that flashes when a card is inserted.) Simply hit VIEW/Print on the screen, select the image you want to print, confirm, and voila 60-90 seconds later a 5.7 image is presented. Naturally you can print on 4×6 sheets too.. The quality of the print is dependent on your image quality. For testing purposes the image printed was taken on a Canon SD 1100is (now replaced by the Canon SD1200is)  in super fine mode. The print was GREAT, it was not excellent but good enough to put in a frame and hang on the wall….in the end, what goes in is what comes out. While I am sure high end photo printers will give you a EXCELLENT print, portables gives you the next best thing.

Printing via Computer (PC/MAC) – Although no computer is required, some will prefer that they connect this printer to a pc or mac so that they can edit images and print them out. Not a problem at all.  Details are as follows:

• Windows 7 x64: Plug in a standard USB cable and the printer automatically prompts you to run the setup software to install the driver. Naturally a 64bit driver is not included and thus you are prompted to go to HP’s website and download the right driver. Click on the link and select your operating system (in my case I had to get the Vista x64 drivers). Start the installer, about a minute later the drivers are installed. However, there is a TRICK – once installed, unplug the printer, plug it back in, and run the SETUP on the printer itself…it will detect that you have new drivers loaded and set the printer up in Windows 7 x64. Printing from there on is seem less and quite easy. Prints take the same amount of time.
• MAC OS X Snow Leopard: The easier of the two, since no software is required. Plug the printer in and go to System Preferences. Click on Print & Fax and hit the plus sign to add a new printer. 20 seconds later you are ready to print pictures. Quality and time are the same as pc, direct from card.

Overall I like this printer and feel that it is a great portable device. I can see our family using this a lot more then a full size printer, simply because it is easy to use and has a beautiful touch screen interface. My only negative, which is Apple’s fault, is that it does not pair with an iPhone….therefore HP cannot be held responsible.  The printer earns a solid 4/5 from me…the missing one star for the quality of photos not being excellent, and the fact that a retail cartridge is not included. When spending on a device like this I feel the MFR should include a full cartridge and more then just one pack of 3-4 sheets of photo paper. It is a significant investment and should allow the user a full use right out of the box…not a trial size.