printer23.com

HP Photosmart A646 Compact Photo Printer (CC001A#B1H) Review from Schwartz. Fun but disappointing and not very useful., Where to begin, this printer has a lot to cover and I’m not going to hit everything.

I think foremost of importance is how does the print quality look. I have 2 other printers to compare the prints with. One is a full size HP D7560 and the other is a Epson PictureMate Dash. I printed the same test picture right from a memory card on each. Comparing the three both HP’s look better than the Epson. The HPs were sharper and more colorful than the Epson. Comparing the HPs to each other I’d say the D7560 wins but not by a lot. The 646 picture had more color saturation and the D7560 had less color saturation and a little bit more detail making it look more natural. Between 646 and PictureMate I am going to keep the 646 and sell the PictureMate. The pics aren’t perfect with the color saturation but they are good.

I know I could probably tweak the color on the PC of what I send to the Picturemate and make them match but I’m not all about doing that. The Picturemate did print a little bit faster but both are fast enough that it doesn’t really matter. The 646 can do 5×7 and the PictureMate can’t. Another plus the 646 has over the Picturemate is print head is in the ink cartridge. The Picturemate has built in heads that if you don’t print for a while will clog up. At least with the HP if that happens and it can’t be unclogged a new cartridge will fix it whereas the Picturemate would probably be shot.

The 646 has built-in Bluetooth which worked well with my Blackberry Tour. The touch screen seems to work well. When you turn on the printer for the first time it will walk you through setup right on the screen which is nice. Interacting through the screen with the printer seems to work well and is nice. You can do all kinds of editing and card making right on the printer if that is what you want to do. That is not my cup of tea but I saw the wife playing with it and she said she liked it and would use it to make quick cards for different things.

My printer came with a quick instructions, padded carry case, power adapter, ink cartridge, some paper, and a stylus. What they did with the padded carry case is pretty cool. It is what the printer comes in. They wrap a cardboard sleeve around it and fasten the zipper together for in the store. Less waste is nice.

There were no software discs. The printer has software built into it for 32-bit Vista and XP. Oh it has MAC OS 10.4 and 10.5 software on it too but I know nobody cares about that. None of the built in software did me any good as I run 64-bit Vista and Windows 7 RC. I went to the HP website and got the 64-bit Vista drivers to install in Windows 7 and it works fine.

So overall I liked this enough to ditch the PictureMate and although its not perfect print wise I would say if you are looking for a compact 4×6 or 5×7 photo printer with Bluetooth this one should work well enough for what it is.

To see full story, check price or purchase HP Photosmart A646 Compact Photo Printer (CC001A#B1H).

Related posts with HP Photosmart A646 Compact Photo Printer (CC001A#B1H) Review