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Despite the switch to digital most people still want prints of their snaps. Which printer should you choose? Ursula Seymour, who writes for PC Advisor, Mac World, Computer Buyer and The Sunday Times among others, picks the very best Click to view Top 5 Photo Printers.
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Best prosumer (HP Photosmart 8750) |
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 The aficionado's choice. If you want professional-quality poster-sized prints for framing and hanging round your home or office the HP Photosmart 8750 is the one for you. Designed to appeal to demanding users it's the only one of our selection that does A3 size prints. (Compare Prices) |
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It uses nine different inks to provide incredibly realistic prints in both black-and-white and colour. These inks include the standard cyan, magenta and yellow, plus a blue photo cartridge and a high-capacity tri-grey ink cartridge to reproduce vivid colours and accurate skin tones, one of the hardest jobs a photo printer has to do.
The use of these nine ink colours "provide extraordinary printed image detail in contrasting colours and shadows, an extensive range of light and dark shades in every colour, and truly neutral greys and blacks", according to digital photography website Photo-i.
Another benefit of the Photosmart 8750's ink system is that each cartridge includes a new print head, which helps to avoid blocking and clogging found in printers with built in print heads. But perhaps the best thing about it is that despite using nine inks the printer is actually relatively cheap to run, something that can't be said about many high-end photo printers. PC Format magazine says: "Running costs are less than some of the competition – no mean feat." It gave the printer a Top Gear award as a result.
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 Another extra that makes the Photosmart 8750 really great value for money is the addition of Ethernet, so you can share it over a network of computers if you want to - perfect if you plan to use it in an office setting. It comes with a built-in memory card reader in the front, although one drawback of choosing a near-professional level printer is that you have to do without novice-friendly features like a colour preview screen. Instead the Photosmart 8750 features a small black and white LCD display, so you have to print out a contact sheet of thumbnails to choose which shots to print.
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Outstanding print quality |
Another thing to bear in mind is that you will have to have patience to get the best from the Photosmart 8750 as it's slow in action, taking almost five minutes to print out an A3 image. And these prints do take a long time to dry.
However, this is a small price to pay for print quality that PC Pro magazine describes as "outstanding", with "natural skin tones [and] superb mono photos … retaining excellent detail in highlights and shadows". It chose the printer as its Recommended model in its A3 printer Labs test last year.
This award-winning printer is our top choice for the prosumer thanks to its unbeatable combination of fantastic image quality and great value for money.
(Compare Prices) |
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Pros - Professional quality and abilities; Ideal for home, hobby or small office; Superb quality A3 printing
Cons - Not the fastest output
To buy this product try one of the following retailers. They are competitively priced and reliable:
Amazon.co.uk - The UK arm of the giant online retailer
Amazon.com - The US arm of the giant online retailer
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