Product Description
HP’s latest compact photo printer allows direct printing from you camera enabled cellphone via built-in Bluetooth…. More >>
HP Photosmart A646 Compact Photo Printer
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Where to begin, this printer has a lot to cover and I’m not going to hit everything.
I think foremost of importance is how does the print quality look. I have 2 other printers to compare the prints with. One is a full size HP D7560 and the other is a Epson PictureMate Dash. I printed the same test picture right from a memory card on each. Comparing the three both HP’s look better than the Epson. The HPs were sharper and more colorful than the Epson. Comparing the HPs to each other I’d say the D7560 wins but not by a lot. The 646 picture had more color saturation and the D7560 had less color saturation and a little bit more detail making it look more natural. Between 646 and PictureMate I am going to keep the 646 and sell the PictureMate. The pics aren’t perfect with the color saturation but they are good.
I know I could probably tweak the color on the PC of what I send to the Picturemate and make them match but I’m not all about doing that. The Picturemate did print a little bit faster but both are fast enough that it doesn’t really matter. The 646 can do 5×7 and the PictureMate can’t. Another plus the 646 has over the Picturemate is print head is in the ink cartridge. The Picturemate has built in heads that if you don’t print for a while will clog up. At least with the HP if that happens and it can’t be unclogged a new cartridge will fix it whereas the Picturemate would probably be shot.
The 646 has built-in Bluetooth which worked well with my Blackberry Tour. The touch screen seems to work well. When you turn on the printer for the first time it will walk you through setup right on the screen which is nice. Interacting through the screen with the printer seems to work well and is nice. You can do all kinds of editing and card making right on the printer if that is what you want to do. That is not my cup of tea but I saw the wife playing with it and she said she liked it and would use it to make quick cards for different things.
My printer came with a quick instructions, padded carry case, power adapter, ink cartridge, some paper, and a stylus. What they did with the padded carry case is pretty cool. It is what the printer comes in. They wrap a cardboard sleeve around it and fasten the zipper together for in the store. Less waste is nice.
There were no software discs. The printer has software built into it for 32-bit Vista and XP. Oh it has MAC OS 10.4 and 10.5 software on it too but I know nobody cares about that.
None of the built in software did me any good as I run 64-bit Vista and Windows 7 RC. I went to the HP website and got the 64-bit Vista drivers to install in Windows 7 and it works fine.
So overall I liked this enough to ditch the PictureMate and although its not perfect print wise I would say if you are looking for a compact 4×6 or 5×7 photo printer with Bluetooth this one should work well enough for what it is.
Rating: 4 / 5
The short: small, fast, minimalist, producing great looking prints.
The whole package is minimalist, compact, and designed to be simple to use: The printer arrives packaged eco-friendly in a reusable tote (made from recycled materials) that’s actually nice enough to reuse. There’s no driver CD, and minimal setup directions. The ink cartridge is all-in-one. The printer needs only an inch or so clearance behind, and a few inches in front (for the paper guide and output). There’s a tuck-away stylus to interact with the touch screen, and a fold-down carry handle.
On powerup, the printer displays a simplified version of the paper quick setup directions, and instructs the user to print a calibration page.
When attached via USB to my WindowsXP system, the printer has an unusual design in which is appears to Windows as a CD drive, from which I did the typical driver installation, after which Windows saw the unit as a printer, not a CD drive. Unfortunately, this base Windows software installation didn’t seem to offer an interface to the custom modes available from the touchscreen (eg: passport photo, greeting card, etc).
I’ve owned other photo printers, including Canon’s small dye-sub printer: Canon SELPHY CP510 Compact Photo Printer , and this HP beats all of them in speed, print quality, and color reproduction. For color, primary colors are rich and vibrant, though neutrals (such as earth-tones) and pastels are slightly washed out. Blacks are solid and jet-black. I tested some complicated, textured, outdoor scenes and was very pleased with the results (one sample was a mix of sky, desert dust-storm, and people). The same complicated print took 1m43s at “best” and 43s at “fast normal”. Interestingly, the quality difference between the two prints was modest. The “best” print was a little more rich and nuanced in detail, but at 5×7, “fast” seems adequate for most things I’d print.
I tried a couple of the speciality modes, and the printer did “the right thing” in printing passport photos, correctly scaling and sizing them (no more figuring out the DPI to resolution ration to get the exact 2×2 required for passports!). Greeting cards came out well also, though the small number of available designs are limiting.
While I like the printer a lot, I did have some quibbles:
* The inbuilt initial setup is a bit simplistic, and led me to at first not taking the tape off the contacts of my print cartridge (I don’t usually use inkjet printers so didn’t realize). Interrupting the setup before it was finished resulted in having to go through the setup process again. There’s such a thing as “too simplified”.
* To use the touchscreen-based modes on the printer I had to put the images on a memory card (presumably a bluetooth-enabled phone would have worked too). I realize many people leave their old photos “on their cameras”, but I take a lot of photos, and all my archiving and sorting is done on computers, so the on-card-only design makes the custom modes much less useful to me.
* It would be nice to be able to create custom greeting card designs.
* For some reason the sticky protective cover on my model’s LCD wouldn’t come off without a lot of prodding and scraping, leaving a mar on the touchscreen. The screen itself has a non-obvious locking mechanism in its popped-up position that has to be pressed in the opposite direction from what I expected. I could see the screen getting broken in a multi-user household
My prints were all on HP “Advanced Photo Paper”. Most vendors formulate their inks to match their paper, so the combination typically yields the best results.
Aside from the minor quibbles, I’m very pleased with this photo printer. Highly recommended.
Rating: 5 / 5
I am a photographer so finding a compact printer to take with me is something I need to have at hand. I have the Canon Selphy 510 which takes the ink ribbon and the postcard paper (4×6).
I told myself I would never buy an HP printer since they were never that great. I took the chance and got this one since I had a gift card and figured it was worth investing in it. I wanted a compact printer that prints up to 5×7 and HP was the only one available that did that. When I first printed from it, I didn’t like the way the colors printed. It felt like they bled in too much and there was no separation on the colors. However I was printing from my camera to the printer via usb pictbridge. So I did the one thing I should have done in the first place. I went to the colorspace on the printer screen and changed the colorspace to Adobe RGB. The colorspace on my camera was Adobe RGB and when 2 different colorspaces are set you are bond to get colors that don’t look good or match what you see on your screen. So by changing the colorspace on the printer (its automatically set to auto) I was able to solve my color problem. Mostly all cameras are set on Adobe RGB. To change the colorspace on your printer go to the wrench icon, next go to PREFERENCES, scroll down until you get to colorspace and select Adobe RGB.
Your images should now print much much better and closer to what you see on your screen. Mine came out even better after changing the colorspace.
Also I have read the other reviews the bad ones too and realize that many people don’t seem to do enough research on the printer before they even buy it. I haven’t tried the bluetooth yet and wouldn’t bother since phone cameras are not so great in the first place and you can’t expect the printer to print high quality images from a phone. Its rather annoying when people complain that their phone pictures didn’t come out great like the printer would magically fix the crappy camera phone quality. PLEASE!! If you want to print pictures from your phone I recommend the Polaroid PoGo printer for $50 you can get prints at 2×3 which is wallet size and it does print okay. Not 100% excellent but good enough to make you happy to have that little printer.
I love the fact that it takes larger than 4×6 paper, the touch screen rocks and the fact that it came with its own bag is sweet.
Also I recommend buying the ink by itself and getting the paper on sale. People don’t seem to realize that they can get the paper on sale for much cheaper than what it costs. I bought a box of 5×7 50 pack for less than $8 and a box of 4×6 for under $10. If you buy things for less you do save more on ink and prints.
The only cons I have with this printer is that it does print a bit slower than I would like for a 5×7. However the print quality is set to best so I would believe that is why it prints slow. If it was set to normal or even fast normal I’m sure the speed would be much faster. I also don’t like the fact that it doesn’t take compact flash cards but it does accept pictbridge.
All in all I was glad that I like the printer. Also I am still using the ink that came with it. I have already printed 5 5×7 size prints and still have ink to spare, although I am sure I will run out quickly since I am printing larger sizes. It says it can print up to 15 4×6s on the ink that came with it which everyone should know is how all printers are. I also think that they based it on normal printing not BEST printing quality.
*Read the whole specifications about the printer before you buy so you know what it is saying. I hear too many people complaining how the printer doesn’t have this or that, well you should have read what it comes with before you buy it! Its called research. That’s why I got this because I liked what it said and was worth a shot buying.
Rating: 5 / 5
I’ve enjoyed this printer tremendously; in fact, I’ve traveled with it by car on two long distance trips. My grandmothers were absolutely thrilled to be presented with 4×6 and 5×7 photos immediately after having their pictures taken with their great-grandson. The quality of the photos printed on the HP A646 is equal to the photos printed on my two Canon printers (MP620 and MP830). I set the A646 up on my grandmother’s nursing home bed, inserted the camera card, and printed photos that she was able to keep within minutes. At my other grandmother’s, a kitchen countertop did the trick. When my in-laws came to visit us, I set the printer up outside on a small plastic deck table (near an outside power outlet) and printed family photos. The heat and humidity were high, but I was able to print about ten photos before experiencing any noticeable problems (the edge of the last printed photo appeared warped, as if the humidity impacted the paper or the ink).
Pros:
#1 – Excellent quality prints, equal to CVS’ Kodak machines and the Canon MP620 and MP830.
# 2 – Lightweight and easily portable. Easy set-up allowed me to quickly print at a nursing home, in a kitchen and on a (covered) front porch in inclement weather.
# 3 – Attractive carry-pouch holds wall plug, plenty of 4×6 and 5×7 camera paper, and a full size extra ink cartridge.
Negatives:
#1 – No batteries. To be truly portable, you should be able to use batteries to power the A646. You cannot take this printer to the beach or a park unless you use a converter and hook it up in your vehicle.
#2 – The printing time is slow – each 4×6 print takes 1 minute, 30 seconds to print. This is too long if you plan to print your entire vacation from a camera card, but its fine for traveling to the houses of family/friends and printing a few shots.
#3 – Not all functions are intuitive. Why does the “pet eye fix” pop up on the main menu, but not “human red eye”? The user guide (only available online at HP) is about 100 pages in length. On page 46, it says: “to remove red eye: (1) touch the Setup icon to display Setup menu; (2) touch Preferences, (3) touch Red Eye Removal; (4) touch On to remove red eye from all prints. Touch Off to undo.”
Still, I recommend the HP A646. Photo quality is excellent. I am enjoying the printer, and I use it far more than my other printers because it’s fun to take to events and print off photos for friends and family.
Rating: 4 / 5
The A646 Printer is a good compact photo printer for every day small photo prints around the home. Notice the key word being GOOD, it is not GREAT but it does work and for what it is it works perfectly fine.
Whats Included:
Printer
Handy Padded Nylon Bag
Documentation
One packet of 5×7 Photo Paper (3 sheets)
Introductory Printing Cartridge (Note: Introductory cartridges do not have as much capacity as a regular RETAIL cartridge, they are provided for test/play).
Ac Adapter
Stylus
Once the unit is plugged in you are prompted to select the language of choice followed by the country you are located in. Once completed, using the beautiful touch screen, you are prompted to load your cartridge and finally some paper to do a cartridge alignment. The beauty of this is that you need not manipulate any documentation as the screen has handy built in animations that describe the process…Pictures tell a thousand words and this implementation makes it a breeze to get started. The alignment takes about 30 seconds, but does waste one sheet of photo paper. Once completed, the unit says it is successful and we should recycle and or discard the printed page.
Bluetooth Printing: Now this was the fun part, since I have never used a printer via Bluetooth before. I have two devices which have simple 3.2mp autofocus camera’s built in. The blackberry 8900 and the iPhone. The printer detected the iPhone 3gs but the iPhone did not see this device at all. The Blackberry and Printer both saw each other and voila, I was able to select an image on my blackberry and send it to the printer. About 45 seconds later I had a decent 5×7 print of my picture and I was satisfied…all things considered this picture was taken on a cell phone and thus the quality will be of that. I was more then satisfied, with the exception of the iPhone not pairing.
Printing via Memory Card: More and more all photo printers now have the ability to read images directly from memory cards and naturally USB. This printer is no different. It has slots on the front for Memory Stick and Memory Stick Duo, SD and XD Cards, and finally a usb slot for a thumb drive etc. Simply insert your memory card and select images from the screen. (There is a blue LED that flashes when a card is inserted.) Simply hit VIEW/Print on the screen, select the image you want to print, confirm, and voila 60-90 seconds later a 5.7 image is presented. Naturally you can print on 4×6 sheets too.. The quality of the print is dependent on your image quality. For testing purposes the image printed was taken on a Canon SD 1100is Canon PowerShot SD1100IS 8MP Digital Camera with 3x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom (Silver) in super fine mode. The print was GREAT, it was not excellent but good enough to put in a frame and hang on the wall….in the end, what goes in is what comes out. While I am sure high end photo printers will give you a EXCELLENT print, portables gives you the next best thing.
Printing via Computer (PC/MAC) – Although no computer is required, some will prefer that they connect this printer to a pc or mac so that they can edit images and print them out. Not a problem at all. Details are as follows:
Windows 7 x64 – Plug in a standard USB cable and the printer automatically prompts you to run the setup software to install the driver. Naturally a 64bit driver is not included and thus you are prompted to go to HP’s website and download the right driver. Click on the link and select your operating system (in my case I had to get the Vista x64 drivers). Start the installer, about a minute later the drivers are installed. However, there is a TRICK – once installed, unplug the printer, plug it back in, and run the SETUP on the printer itself…it will detect that you have new drivers loaded and set the printer up in Windows 7 x64. Printing from there on is seem less and quite easy. Prints take the same amount of time.
MAC OS X Snow Leopard: The easier of the two, since no software is required. Plug the printer in and go to System Preferences. Click on Print & Fax and hit the plus sign to add a new printer. 20 seconds later you are ready to print pictures. Quality and time are the same as pc, direct from card.
Overall I like this printer and feel that it is a great portable device. I can see our family using this a lot more then a full size printer, simply because it is easy to use and has a beautiful touch screen interface. My only negative, which is Apple’s fault, is that it does not pair with an iPhone….therefore HP cannot be held responsible.
The printer earns a solid 4/5 from me…the missing one star for the quality of photos not being excellent, and the fact that a retail cartridge is not included. When spending on a device like this I feel the MFR should include a full cartridge and more then just one pack of 3-4 sheets of photo paper. It is a significant investment and should allow the user a full use right out of the box…not a trial size.
Rating: 4 / 5
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There is noticeably a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in Features also.