Verdict

Pros

• Excellent print quality
• Responsive touch panel controls
• Powered photo tray

Cons

• No duplex print
• Need adapter for xD cards
• No Pictbridge/USB socket

You’ll be forgiven for thinking we’ve already reviewed HP’s Photosmart Plus inkjet all-in-one, as the company has a penchant for reusing model names, which makes ordering (and reviewing) prone to errors. In fact, we’ve previously reviewed the Photosmart Plus B209a, while this is the Photosmart Plus B210a, a completely different beast.

This printer is all dressed up in black, with an embossed pattern on its scanner lid and what looks a bit like an iPhone laid on its side on an angled tray at the front. Unlike the https://www.trustedreviews.com/HP-Photosmart-eStation-C510-inkjet-all-in-one_Printer_review Photsmart eStation C510 the silver-framed ‘pad’ on the front of the Photosmart Plus is fixed and is just a fancy way of including touch panel controls.

As well as an 89mm touchscreen, there are three dedicated touch buttons down either side, which illuminate when their functions are relevant. The screen itself is responsive and includes gesture recognition so you can, for instance, scroll through downloaded web apps by wiping a finger across the screen. There’s only one physical button, next to the control pad, which powers the printer on and off.

Below the control panel is a 125-sheet A4 paper tray, with a secondary, powered photo tray set above it, which can take blanks up to 13 x 18cm. There’s a dual SD and MemoryStick card slot to the left of the paper trays, but no facility for PictBridge or USB drives.

At the back is a lone USB socket, but the printer also supports wireless connection and this is very easy to establish if your wireless router supports WPS setup. You’ll also want to register the printer with HP’s download site, so you have access to a growing range of printer applets. You can also use the printer’s remote access facility, via ePrint.

There are four ink tanks, which clip into the semi-permanent head, once you’ve installed that in the printer’s head carrier. Software installation is painless and HP provides its usual bundle of support applets, though of course these are supplemented by any Web apps you download.

HP rates the Photosmart Plus B210a at 8.4ppm printing black and 7.5ppm printing colour. We got somewhere close to these speeds on larger documents, where are 20-page black text test produced 7.1ppm, though the shorter, more typical, five page document only racked up 5.3ppm. Our five-page black text and colour graphics test gave a speed of 4.4ppm.

These speeds, while not spectacular, are in the same range as machines from rival manufacturers in the same price bracket. This machine has no duplex facility, unless you want to turn the pages over by hand.

A single page colour photocopy took 29s and a 15 x 10cm photo print at best quality took 1:17, which is better than most. Surprisingly, a photo printed from an SD card at standard quality took 1:21, where we might have expected something quicker.

The print quality on plain paper is good. Black text comes through clean and with no noticeable spatter and there’s very little sign of any misalignment from pass to pass of the print head.

Colour graphics are intense and arresting, showing very few signs of dot patterns or banding. Photos are good with subtle, natural colours, as well reproduced as brighter shades, when the image calls for them. There’s plenty of detail and this is true for darker shades which can tend to print black with some inkjets.

The four ink cartridges are available in two yields and using the XL, Value consumables gives page costs of 3.2p for ISO black and 7.1p for ISO colour. These costs lie in the middle of the field so are certainly not punitive, as they sometimes are with budget printers.

Verdict

HP’s Photosmart Plus B210a is a great little home all-in-one. It has many of the features you would only expect in a more pricey machine: touchscreen control, dual paper trays and wireless connection, for example. Although it misses out on duplex print, it’s running costs are reasonable and print quality is excellent for a £70 printer.

Trusted Score