HP Photosmart 2575 Review

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HP Photosmart 2575 Review

Computers and Accessories

Monday, 06 February 2006 00:00

The HP 2575 is a very capable all in one unit for the home or small office. HP has packed a lot of features into an attractive and ergonomic unit with a fairly small footprint. The 2575 sports both a USB and Ethernet port giving you the option of connecting it directly to a PC, network or print server.

We tested the 2575 using office applications and photo editing software. At first, we weren't able to test the rather large, 1GB plus, software bundle that HP includes with this unit due to some installation glitches. HP has some fixes posted on its web site but they didn't work on our machine. The software also automatically checks the website for any updates during each installation attempt but to no avail.

We were excited to get started and had the Kinks 'Picture' song on the brain but after a few installation attempts we starting hearing another Kinks classic 'Do it Again'. The good news is we already had plenty of software on this machine to use with the 2575. However, the cumbersome software bundle surprised us. HP can certainly do better. We finally received a replacement installation disc from HP and it worked. It's the same 5.3.0a software version but perhaps it has been tweaked or we simply had a bad disc. But that still doesn't explain why the update on HP's website didn't work.

The 2575 is loaded with useful features. With a color 2.5' LCD and just shy of 20 buttons you can quickly access a variety of features and get quite a bit done without even connecting it to a PC. This includes making copies and printing pictures directly from flash memory. You can even make a copy of a photo and the results are pretty good. For a quick cropping of a picture or duplicating some paperwork the quick access buttons come in very handy.

For working with your images on the PC HP's software bundle includes everything you need to catalog, edit and print your pictures and other documents. Despite the clunky installation the software is easy for anyone to access and quickly start editing and printing photos. It has enough features to clean up, crop, adjust color and contrast, remove red-eye and generally make your digital pics ready for production.

The HP 2575 has a plethora of quality and paper settings. The print driver also includes a shortcut for jumping to common settings for paper size and quality. We didn't get the stopwatch out but found the 2575 plenty fast and quiet for light duty SOHO use. We had a 2-year-old stop by our test facility. He was fascinated by the LCD display on the 2575. He also enjoyed sitting on the 2575 pushing buttons and opening and closing'well, anything that would open and close. The 2575 survived his abuse and that's a good sign for the SOHO market.

HP says its inkjet cartridges are specially formulated to stay clear and shouldn't require cleanings that waste ink. That's good to know because printing a lot of photos can burn up the ink pretty quickly. HP makes a nice profit from repeat ink cartridge sales so it's no wonder they've made units like the 2575 so easy to use. We burned through the ink cartridges printing 60 4x6 photos at the "best" quality setting. The ink dries relatively fast. We let the printer rip and the copies piled up. They were just a touch sticky but did not stick together. After a few minutes on the countertop they were frame ready.

Every year we test new printers and every year we're amazed at how good photos can look from an affordable ink jet system. The quality from the 2575 is very good. We still prefer to send 'keeper' photos off to the photo lab. But the truth is, if you shoot 100 photos with your digital camera you're lucky to get 1 or 2 photos that really blow you away. Having a printer on hand for proof sheets and 4x6 fun shots is well worth the immediate satisfaction it provides. The 2575 is more than up to the task. Not to mention, you get an every day printer for your office documents and a copier to boot.

Visit HP for more information about the 2575 and other all in one products.

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