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Entered CNET Catalog: 08/14/2002
SKU: Q1604A#ABA
Manufacturer: HP
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Manufacturer description
The HP PhotoSmart 7150 color inkjet printer offers true-to-life photo-quality results with up to 4800 x 1200 optimized color dpi (on premium photo papers and 1200 x 1200 input dpi when printing from a computer) or up to six-ink color printing. You can easily connect select HP Digital Camera (812 Digital Camera) with direct-printing capability to the front USB port, and then print your photos - without using a computer. In addition, HP PhotoSmart 7150 prints borderless 4" x 6" photos using convenient 4" x 6" paper tray and HP Premium Plus photo paper.Product summary
The good: Decent-quality photo prints; easy installation; direct connection to HP digital cameras; solid phone support.
The bad: Mediocre text output; can't read removable media cards; USB cable not included.
The bottom line: This low-cost printer supplies sharp photo prints but loses focus when it comes to text.
Average user rating: from 5 users
2.5 stars
CNET editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 11/19/2002
 Sturdy paper trays. |
 Conveniently located USB port. |
As with similar printers, the 7150 has one posterior USB port (cable not included) for connecting to your computer. Another USB port lies directly beneath the handy Cancel, Resume, and Power buttons on the right-hand side of the front panel and connects directly to an HP Photosmart camera. Since the printer has no LCD, you'll need to adjust your preprint photos on the camera's display. This model also works with both PCs (Windows Me, 98, 2000, and XP) and Macs (OS 9 or OS X 10.1 or above on a G3 processor or greater).
The Photosmart 7150 uses three different cartridges; a tricolor cartridge installs in the left-hand cradle, and the right holds either a photo-print cartridge (for higher-quality color photos) or a black cartridge (for text), which lets you save on ink when you're not printing photos. To use either the black or photo inks, you must swap the cartridges; although the process is quick and simple, you'll have to twiddle your thumbs while the printer runs through its checking procedure. At $20 per cartridge, black ink costs 4.5 cents per page, but color prints cost a sky-high 54 cents per page, thanks to the $34.99 cartridge. The Canon S530D Color Bubble Jet comes in at 2.6 cents per page for black ink and 15 cents for color.
 Extra photo-print cartridge. |
 Pricey ink replacement. |
For those who need to edit and store their digital photos, the driver CD includes a few basic, image-related programs. HP Photo Printing software, for example, creates albums and helps with basic photo tweaking. HP Memories Disc Creator will serve those who have writable CD drives. Lastly, HP Imaging Director provides basic photo-tweaking features and offers a single interface for other HP imaging devices (digital cameras or scanners, for instance) you may own.
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 Mixed test results. |
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As for output quality, our jury found that the 7150 generated fuzzy or smudged black text on both plain and coated paper when using regular black ink. In our unofficial tests, we tried printing the same text page using first the photo-print cartridge, then the standard black tank. Interestingly, the latter came out darker, but the lettering bled more visibly. While the less expensive black cartridge is acceptable for day-to-day text, we'd employ the photo-print module for more important text documents.
Photo prints, on the other hand, appeared crisp and bright in our informal tests, particularly on coated paper. Although we found some redness in its official test photo, our unofficial printouts looked normal. As for our presentation-graphics test, the CNET jury found that, although color gradients left something to be desired, plain-paper color matching appeared accurate, and graphics on coated paper were also satisfactory, though somewhat undersaturated.
| Inkjet printer text speed Pages per minute (longer bars indicate better performance) | ||||||||
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| Inkjet printer color photo speed Minutes to print a color photograph (shorter bars indicate better performance) | ||||||||
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Inkjet printer quality
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By default, HP provides a one-year limited hardware warranty (a three-year extended plan costs $69.99) and a 90-day term for software. HP's Web site includes FAQs, downloads, troubleshooting info, and e-mail support. If you need to resort to the free phone support (5 a.m. to 9 p.m. weekdays and 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturdays PT), you'll be well served. When we called, the courteous, savvy technician spent as much time with us as we needed and was quite willing to ship us a new printer, if necessary.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 User Rating: 
3/10
You get what you pay for
Pros: low price, ease of initial set up, simplistic sleek design
Cons: photo paper jams, re-installation of software, tech support
Review: Well, you get what you pay for. I liked the hp brand and this was my second hp printer in three years. I bought mine new and it was great (at first). The 7150 photosmart was okay for "2002" technology. Photo quality was excellent. One shortfall was the inkjet icons showed low levels of ink cartridge when they were at about 10-15% capacity. Forget about using the smaller photo trays; they're too complicated. Twenty months later, I took my computer to Best Buy and had to zero out and clean up my hard drive due to a virus. After that was done, I proceeded to load up all my software and guess which one didn't take well? Yup, after countless attempts to reload from the original CD, I downloaded the software from the hp website and tried unsuccessfully to install it. Tech support was no help either. I think a printer should reasonably last at least three years wehn used properly. I'm trying a different company for a change.
User Rating: 
9/10
Great color printer, fantastic value,
Pros: Great color quality, especially with the photo cartridge. The text quality has been good. Good software interface.
Cons: Slow color printing speed, but I didn't need it fast and only paid $85.
Review:
User Rating: 
7/10
Perfect for home use!
Pros: Great job printing photos or any other image. It's exactly what is needed at home for nice photo prints and quite acceptable text.
Cons: Haven't found any yet!
Review:
User Rating: 
1/10
won't last
Pros: good looking photos.
Cons: This printer worked okay at first, but now I must reload the software almost every day to use.
Review:
User Rating: 7/10
Great pics, quirky
Pros:
Cons:
Review: I spent a long time searching for a reasonably price photo printer. I am an amateur who shoots mostly my kids. I just needed a printer to print 4x6's, some 8x11's. After reading all the reviews, I decided on HP. Then I went to the local Staples store. They had HP 7550, 7350, 7150 & 5550. I learned from the store manager that HP 7550, 7350 & 7150 essentially had same printing mechanism. More money=more feature. I didn't need the ability to directly print from flash media to printer, so I got the 7150. Setup was very easy, I got it up and running in less than an hour. The included sortware is adequate but not great. One problem I ran into was using other photo editing programs such as Adobe PS Elements. It left a white unprinted area in the 4x6 prints. HP support suggested using the included software to print the pictures. It is inconvenient but since I am happy with the pictures, it's a reasonable compromise. Another inconvenience for people interested in using this printer as multi-function printer is that, if you are not printing photos, you need to swap out the ink catridge. HP 7550 has extra catridge holder so you don't need to swap. For the price, I am okay with this inconvenience. Also I only print photos with this printer. In summary, this is a reasonably priced photo printer with great photo output. There are some inconveniences that you need to consider before going with this printer.
