HP Photosmart C4480

A great all-in-one for photos and text


HP'S $99.99 PHOTOSMART C4480 is a fine multifunction inkjet that's easy to use and pumps out great-looking photos and crisp text. It's equally adept at printing, copying, and scanning, making it a well-rounded printer with just a few small flaws.
The C4480 is geared toward local photo printing (networking is not an option), with a multiformat memory-card reader on its faceplate and an optional "photo" tank that improves photos and saves black ink for documents. You don't need a PC to print either-just stick a card in an use the integrated 1.5-inch LCD to print pictures or to start a scan or copy job.
The C4480 is capable of producing high-quality 4,800x1,200 dots per inch (dpi) prints, and we were very impressed by its color accuracy and overal quality. Text reproduction was equally rich.
Scanning at 1,200dpi (either to PC or to a file) is easy; simply press the buttons at the unit's faceplate. It takes about 25 seconds to scan a document, then another 25 seconds to print it.
The printer comes with two stingy introductory tanks, so we recommend HP's high-yield tanks for a wallet-friendly 4 cents per page for black and 6 cents per page for color.

Print speeds are slow, with a 10-page mixed document of text, photos and graphs taking 2 minutes and 49 seconds to print. The upside is that the printer is quiet while printing. We also had problems with the included software, which requires a lot of legwork to print photos.-Josh Norem

Computer Shopper October 2008.
www.hp.com