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HP Photosmart C5280

Capable for documents and photos, but are the Photosmart features smart enough?

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Last reviewed: March 13th

This is more of a home-office machine than the similar HP Officejet J5780

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At its heart, the HP Photosmart C5280 uses exactly the same printing system as HP's Officejet J5780.

However, the similarity ends there, because the C5280 foregoes office functions like auto document feeding and standalone fax, in favour of more photo-friendly delights.

As such, you get a colour screen, multi-format card reader and some clever photo enhancement options, such as red-eye removal, that you can apply even in direct photo print mode, when printing from memory cards. Also unlike the Officejet, you can print direct onto CDs and DVDs.

Photo enhancement

Considering its photo-printing aspirations, it's a shame that HP doesn't supply a photo cartridge, so you're stuck with four-ink printing unless you buy the additional cartridge as an optional extra.

More annoyingly, the direct photo printing menu, which is very versatile in some respects, makes it difficult or impossible to make basic changes to some of the more common requirements, such as choosing which quality setting you want to use.

For this, you need to print your photos from a PC using the regular printer driver, which makes the standalone functions rather limited.

A good all-round multi-function

As well as the standard A4 paper input tray, there's a neat secondary tray that can accept 6 x 4- or 7 x 5-inch photo paper. Better still, the tray is motorised, so it slots into place automatically when you're printing photos onto either size of paper.

Print, scan and copy quality is very good throughout - all of these as well as print speeds being pretty much identical to the Officejet J5780. This makes the Photosmart
a good all-rounder.

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Price at Launch 80
MPN Q8330B
Description Copier, scanner, printer
Dimensions 452 x 237 x 387
Warranty Length 1 Year
Weight (kg) 7.13
Compatibility Mac, PC
Memory Card Compatibility CompactFlash Card, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo, Memory Stick PRO, Memory Stick Pro Duo, MMC, SD, SDHC, XD Card
Borderless Printing Yes
Copier Specs. Max reduction: 50%, Max enlargement: 400%, Colour copier speed: 5.4ppm, Black and White Copy Speed: 7ppm
Display Type LCD
Energy Star Rating No
Media Types Cards, CD, Envelopes, Labels, Photo Paper, Plain Paper
Print Speed (Black Text A4) 8.2
Print Speed (Colour Text A4) 5.4
Print Speed (Photo 10x15 Draft Mode) 26
Printer Details 6 Color (C,c,M,m,Y,K)
Interface USB 2.0
Type of Multi-Function Thermal

Product Summary

Photosmart C5280

Best Price

Unavailable

Key specs

Price at Launch 80 | MPN Q8330B | Maximum Paper Size | Printer Type |

Full spec

For

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Photo enhancement options; Good picture quality

Against

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Ink cartridges not supplied; Awkward direct printing