Hewlett Packard Photosmart 8150 InkJet Printer

After three years of regular printing, my HP PhotoSmart 7150 is still operating at full strength and with no sign of giving up any time soon. With its excellent usage of ink and paper handling, HP 7150 is the most reliable and definitely dependable photo inkjet printer I have ever used. Early this year, around February or March 2005, the next generation of HP 7150 was introduced. It was HP PhotoSmart 8150.

A relative of mine was looking for a new photo printer. So I recommended HP 8150. We ordered HP 8150 from newegg.com for $140. This was back in June 2005...and this review is a bit long overdue...but it rightfully deserves to take time. Since then we have completely used up two ink cartridges including the ones that came with the printer. This will now provide an exact perspective of the projected cost of ink supply and usage, thus giving a clear idea whether this printer is worth the price, especially since the printer is still available online as well as in a local store at an attractively reduced price.

HP PhotoSmart 8150

With the exception of a USB2.0 cable, the retail package of HP 8150 is quite impressive and should provide the new owner a good and quick start. It includes:

HP 8150 printer
Ink cartridges (95 and 99 types, small size cartridges)
CD-ROM driver
Quick-Start sheet for quick installation
Printer Information sheet (ink cartridges, photo paper selections)
User manual (software and printer operation)
8.5x11-inch sheets (3)
4x6-inch sheets (5)

The HP PhotoSmart 8150 has quite a unique design. Even though it is mostly based on plastic, the design is very practical, well structured, and with an attractive appearance. Like most HP printer, HP 8150 features a front load with paper faced down. The printer takes in the paper, rolls it around a cylinder in the rear in a reverse upward direction, then prints it, and ejects the printed page out to the front on the tray atop the in-take tray at the bottom. The printer supports several paper size that includes the standard 8.5x11-inch, 4x6-inch special photo paper, envelope, etc. With its front paper tray design, the printer does not require a large base area which is good in terms of saving space.

Based on its specifications (outlined below), HP PhotoSmart 8150 supports a USB interface type 1.1 or 2.0. It features a card reader for CF, SD for digital-camera memory cards and XD.

At the front panel, there are a number of useful buttons and knob. A dial knob can be used to select a photo-print layout in: 8x10, 5x7(2), 4x6(3), 3.5x5(4), wallet(9). There is a view button to preview photo images from a CF or SD card, image by image on the 2.5-inch LCD panel; a menu selection for different preview page, etc. There is a zoom button for a closer view of an image as well as a rotation. In the advanced mode, an image can be edited (red-eye fix, frame adjustment, etc) and saved back in the CF/SD card. Its kiosk-style with direct print feature is quite impressive and very practical.

The printer can turn itself on automatically once a print queue is activated via the computer. Its card reader is also an excellent asset. With it, we can download photo images from a CF card and transfer them onto the hard drive through the very USB cable that connects between the printer and computer. With a CF card plugged in, the computer will recognize the card as a "Removable Disk" device.

Hardware/Software Compatibility

HP PhotoSmart 8150 is compatible with both PC and Mac system. The enclosed CD-ROM contains software driver for both platform:

Windows: 98/Me/2000/XP
Mac: OS X, 10.1.5-10.3

For interface connection, it requires a USB cable (purchased separately). If your PC system supports USB2.0 connection, I would recommend using it to connect to the printer. Print speed and CF/SD card accessing speed was found to improve greatly.

Installation

Installing the printer is quite straightforward which only requires an empty USB port at the rear of a PC. We used a USB2.0 to boost the speed. There is a quick startup sheet that provides a complete guide to connect the printer and install the software package. With the CD-ROM printer driver loaded in the CD/DVD-ROM drive we basically followed the procedure outlined in the program. HP made installation easier on this printer and with their new printer software HP Director version 2.0.

We installed this printer on a PC system with the following hardware/software:

OS: Windows XP Professional SP-2
Hardware RAM: 1024MB (DDR400 PC3200)
CPU: Pentium P4 2.8GHz
Hard Drive: Western Digital IDE 80GB, Seagate SATA 80GB

Print Software
Having been used to the print software HP Director 1.0 on my HP7150, the new version has been greatly improved, both print options and user-friendly interface. Its operation is strikingly similar to using a Windows XP's media interface, with most options self-explanatory.

The printer program is rich with options that allow a user to prepare a photo album without much effort. The software offers four (4) options on photo print management: Images, Edit, Projects and HP Instant Share.

PERFORMANCE

Printing...a Real-World Experience
Here is my real-world test on the printing speed on this HP8150. I used the HP Director driver print software to prepare the photo album (or layout) and print using "Best" quality option from the print selection. With four (4) 3.5x5-inch photo prints together laid on one 8.5x11-inch photo paper, HP8150 took exactly 3 minutes and 40 seconds to complete the print.

For a 4x6-inch print with 3 layouts on the same page of an 8.5x11-inch photo paper sheet, HP8150 took 4 minutes (give or take a few seconds). I did this with the timer on the computer with an accurate measurement. The printer took a couple of seconds to process before it started printing. I also did an 8x10-inch photo print, and it took 4 minutes and 15 seconds. If we average out the space on an 8.5x11-inch sheet, all three different prints (mentioned above) require more or less the same amount of ink and print coverage, except of course an 8x10-inch one requires a bit more time and ink.

Compared to my HP PhotoSmart 7150 that took an average of 18 minutes to print three (3) 4x6-inch photo images on a 8.5x11-inch photo paper, the HP PhotoSmart 8150 is incredibly fast! It is quiet during printing...very impressive.

It serves to mention that we have used HP Premium Plus Photo Paper (both Gloss and Matte) as well as Kodak Premium Photo Paper (Satin).

What I really like about HP 8150 is that it has a quick startup and shut down time, very responsive indeed. With HP 8150, no need to hit the ON button; the printer will turn itself on when a print queue is requested (unless, of course, HP 8150 is not the default printer and there are several printers connected to your PC).

Print Quality
HP PhotoSmart 8150 uses a different ink cartridge and slightly in different combination (but still uses 6-color ink) compared to my PhotoSmart 7150. The color on the photo prints are vibrant, overall slightly better than my HP7150. Ultimately, the quality of the original photo image (such as, color characteristics, tonality, exposure, density, etc) has a lot to do with the final print images. Photo prints made from my scanned images (from slides) reveal excellent result overall: color, sharpness, brightness. In short, HP PhotoSmart 8150 produces excellent photo prints, putting it among the top inkjet photo printers out there.

In the default mode, images or graphics type prints show some banding. Thus, it is recommended to print using best or normal mode.

Its quality on standard text prints is equally outstanding. This is excellent, considering that print texts were made using the tri-color and photo print ink cartridge rather than the dedicated black ink. Even in draft mode, text print is quite good. A half-page print (that is, a half page text) took less than 2 seconds, which is fast.

Ink Usage
Personally, ink usage is perhaps the most important category in a printer. This is one reason why I still hold on to my HP 7150 for its excellent management of ink, in spite of the fact it is now the slowest printer there is (and that's why there is HP 8150 to boost print speed!).

The retail package of HP 8150 includes two ink cartridges: HP 95 Tri-Color 7 ml (HP part no. C8766W) and HP 97 Photo Print 14 ml (HP part no. C9363W).

We have conducted a complete test on photo prints (well, with a few text prints also). For HP 95 7ml ink cartridge, we could produce 21 photo sheets of 8.5x11-inch fill with photo prints using "Best" print option in the HP Director print software. Apparently, the HP 99 Photo Print ink cartridge was used up more than the HP 95 during a photo print. Its 14ml cartridge got depleted after 28 sheets of 8.5x11-inch photo prints. With a second set of ink cartridges, we managed to squeeze a little more ink out, producing 23 photo sheets with the HP 95.

In terms of price, HP 95 costs $24.99. HP 97 costs $34.99; it contains twice the Tri-Color ink than HP 95. The Photo Print cartridge, HP 99, has a street price of $24.99.

If my calculation is correct, this means that I spend about $1.19 on one 8.5x11-inch photo sheet with HP 95 and $0.89 per sheet with HP 99. Currently photo papers are rather cheap, costing less than $0.25 a sheet (I paid about $0.19 per sheet). This yields about $2.28 to produce a high quality photo print on 8.5x11-inch sheet. With an output result in most case much better than a photo print done at most retail stores that could cost $2.50-$5.50 for an 8x10 print, I think the HP 8150 is doing a great job!

The HP Director print software displays an empty ink alert with perhaps 2-3 sheet left. Take my advice. Don't try to "squeeze" every drop of ink from the cartridge, especially with photo printing, or it will run out of ink in the middle of printing which could result wasting a photo paper, costing more than you'd try to save in the first place. It has happened to me a couple of times. The display status of ink is quite accurate.

I always replace ink cartridges with the corresponding HP cartridges. I have never attempted to use an ink re-fill technique. I believe that trying to save a few dollars is not worth jeopardizing the print quality or full operation of the printer.

Replacing ink cartridges is not much more difficult than refilling papers. Simply lift up the top cover. Then, in the ink compartment (on the right), lift up the cartridge clip holder, take the out empty ink cartridges. Installing new ink cartridges only require the above steps done in reverse order. When HP 8150 senses new cartridges installed, the software will update with new status, and everything is working like new again.

Paper Handling
As usual, HP printer does an excellent job with the handling of paper. I have seen two paper jams. HP specifies that the tray can hold up to 100 sheet (plain papers), but we found that HP 8150 sometimes had problems detecting the paper when the tray was too full. I found it best to put the papers somewhere between 30-40 sheets. For a 4x6-inch print, its 4x6-inch tray (also used for envelope printing) performs exceptionally well.

Warranty/Service

HP PhotoSmart 8150 carries a one-year warranty which includes customer care and technical support.

Conclusion

HP 8150 is definitely the fastest inkjet photo printer out there. Its direct-print features on the unit makes photo printing task a loved exercise rather than a complicated one. Supporting a load of advanced features like borderless prints, duplexing, photo or standard text prints, HP 8150 should be an excellent printer for most general-purpose applications. However, I would strongly recommend that it be used solely for photo prints, because ink can be expensive and most importantly HP 8150 produces darn excellent photo prints!

For price, quality and performance, this printer should earn no less than 5 stars for a rating. The price is right and the quality is superior.

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Specifications: HP PhotoSmart 8150
Type: Inkjet photo printer
Platform: Windows 98/Me/2000/XP; Mac OS X v 10.1.5, 10.2, 10.3
Interface: USB
Buffer: Built-in 16MB
Ink Cartridges: HP 95/97 Tri-color, HP 99 Photo, HP 94 Black, HP 100 Gray
Resolution: Up to 4,800 x 1,200 optimized dpi color, 1,200 x 1,200 dpi black
Print speed: Up to 20 ppm black and color speed, 4-by-6 photo as fast as 27 second
Print Size: up to 8x10 on 8.5x11-inch paper
Feature: 2.5-inch LCD to rotate, crop, zoom, and remove red-eye before printing; Frame-by-frame printing of digital video
Dimension: 6.8"(h) x 18.4"(w) x 15.4"(d)
Weight: 15.5 lbs.