Dan Littman

Hewlett-Packard Photosmart 7150

The Photosmart 7150, at only $149, is the least expensive photo printer PC World tested for our January 2003 review. It uses six inks, and as we've seen from other six-ink models, its photos showed great detail and color, though HP's more expensive Photosmart 7550 produced better shading and texture. On the other hand, the 7150 delivered better text--black, clean, and very attractive.
The 7150 is painfully slow, squeezing out text documents at only 1.8 pages per minute--the slowest of all the printers we reviewed for our roundup. Its black and color ink cartridges run a pricey $35. Also, like the Photosmart 7550, the 7150 has three ink cartridges--but only two can be installed together, so when you switch between photos and text documents you have to swap cartridges.
The 7150 has a USB port on the front for connecting to an HP digital camera with direct-printing capability, such as the HP Photosmart 320; however, because the 7150 has no on-board control panel for managing jobs, that's the only way you can print without a PC. For paper-conserving types, HP's optional $80 duplexer pops into the back.
If a bargain price is your determining factor in selecting a photo printer, the Photosmart 7150 is a good choice.

Buying Information

Hewlett-Packard Photosmart 7150 Rated 14 ppm for text/11 ppm for graphics (draft mode), 8MB of RAM standard, 1200-by-1200-dpi maximum resolution black/4800-by-1200-dpi maximum resolution color, 100 sheets input, 50 output $ 149 Rated 14 ppm for text/11 ppm for graphics (draft mode), 8MB of RAM standard, 1200-by-1200-dpi maximum resolution black/4800-by-1200-dpi maximum resolution color, 100 sheets input, 50 output http://www.hp.com 800/752-0900