HP PSC 2175

The latest in a seemingly unstoppable line of printer-scanner-copiers, HP's PSC 2175 stirs up the mix of high-quality input and output by adding special support for digital camera cards. It's hardly an office workhorse, but it sits comfortably in a home office where a family can get hold of it too.

Looking almost identical to the other PSC 2100 series devices, it features an A4 scanner built on top of a photo-quality inkjet printer. The scanning plate is covered by a lid which raises up at the hinges to accommodate thick originals. To the right of the lid is a control pad with a two-line LCD status display and big, rubberised buttons with similarly big labels, so you can't go wrong. Paper is loaded into a 100-sheet input tray at the bottom, and printouts delivered to a tray immediately above it.

You can of course use the HP PSC 2175 as a conventional printer and 48bit scanner, but you don't even need to switch on your PC to use it as a colour copier or digital photo processor.

To process photos, you just plug your digital camera card into one of the four slots at the front, print off an index sheet, mark with a pen the shots you want and at what size, and scan the sheet back in to instruct the machine what to print and how. Photos can be printed at 4,800dpi as opposed to the usual 1,200, and are excellent given the 2175's price.

It's not a speedy machine though - a plain paper colour copy can take one and a half minutes, while Word documents chug through at around 4ppm - but it is very simple to use. If you like to fiddle with scanner drivers, you might even find the PSC 2175 too simple for your taste. But in terms of usability, no-one does it better than HP.

Contact: HP 08705 474 747
www.hp.co.uk

Specifications

• 1,200 x 1,200dpi printing, 1,200 x 2,400dpi scanning
• Thermal inkjet
• 18ppm black only, 13ppm colour speed
• CCD, 48bit scanning
• 8.85kg
• 463 x 400 x 220 mm (w x d x h)
• Iris OCR and HP Director software
• USB2
• 4 camera card slots
• Black ink cartridge £17.20
• Tri-colour cartridge £24.17