Judged purely on its own merit, HP’s Photosmart D7160 is capable of producing some extremely good photo-quality prints.

Deep, realistic colours demonstrate a complete lack of the unnatural pinkish or yellowish hues that sometimes spoil inkjet photo printouts. Grain is entirely absent also.

Unfortunately – and this may be a problem with HP’s premium photo paper, rather than the printer – our A4 test prints looked a tad lifeless when compared with the distinctly glossier Epson and Canon equivalents.

We also noticed that prints fresh from our D7160 were much more prone to smearing than the other printers, although this can be entirely avoided through careful handling. The Photosmart delivers an otherwise good balance of value, features and performance.

We had a few niggles with the printer driver software (which kept reverting to default print settings on our test document), but otherwise, the HP is a competent all-rounder. Its stylish, modern looks also help to make it an attractive option.

This article is part of a group test of photo printers.

See also:
Canon Pixma MP510
Canon Selphy CP720
Epson Picturemate PM240
Epson Stylus Photo R265
Lexmark P350

A table of features can be found via the attached pdf above.