HP Photosmart C4580 Ink Cartridges

Design

The HP C4580 inkjet printer case is glossy white, a welcomed departure from all the dull black and grey printers currently on the market. The control panel on the front is easy to navigate, the 3.8cm colour LCD display and 6 function buttons make printing on-the-fly a piece of cake. The printer can connect either through a USB cable or via Wi-Fi, unfortunately the print can't run on both so you will have to make the decision. The C4580 inkjet printer also comes with twin memory slots for MemoryStick, MMC/SD and xD cards - allowing you to print images directly. Disappointingly, HP decided to remove the paper output tray from the C4580 causing print outs to fly everywhere.

Advantages

The HP C4580 produces fantastic results. Photographs look natural with plenty of definition – this is compounded when using HP's Advanced photo paper. Black text is fairly good too, while it will never compete with the depth of a laser printer, it's more than adequate for home use. The flatbed scanner and copier are equally impressive, colour copies come out very close to the original, with little fading and plenty of detail.

Disadvantages

Unfortunately, HP has compromised on print speed to improve quality. Although the manufacturer quotes 30ppm for plain black and white documents, it was actually nearer 8. The scanner and copier also struggled, taking just over a minute to scan a single photograph. Aside from the speed, it would have also been nice to see HP adding fax functionality which would make the C4580 a more viable home-office printer.