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Photograph: Rick Rizner, Chris Manners
HP Photosmart 8050 Printer
Pricing
$65.00 - $157.40 From 4 Vendors Get Best Prices »
- Spec Navigator
- Core Components
- Media Handling
- Display
- Network
- Connectivity
- Platform Support
- Dimensions
- General Features
- Green
- Included Software
- Resolutions
- Scanning
Media Handling
| Manual Feed Slot | Yes |
| Maximum Number of Input Trays | 1 |
| Maximum paper size, height | 14.0 inches |
| Maximum Sheets With All Paper Trays | 100 |
| Output Tray Capacity | 50 |
| Standard Number of Input Trays | 1 |
| Maximum paper size, width | 8.5 inches |
| Standard input sheet capacity | 100 |
| Duplex printing | No |
Platform Support
| Operating System Support |
|
3.5
5 User Reviews Add your own »
$65.00 - $157.40
From 4 Vendors
Get Best Prices »
- Lab Tested
- How We Test Printers »
Pros
Produces attractive photos
Prints very good, sharp-looking text
Cons
Slow glossy photo output
Bottom Line
Includes impressive software and plenty of buttons. But it employs multi-ink cartridges and the LCD is small.
HP Photosmart 8050
Photosmart 8050 Printer Review, by Paul Jasper December 20, 2005
The $149 HP Photosmart 8050 offers fewer features than the $200 Photosmart 8250, and it is slower, but it delivers better print quality. Like the 8250, the 8050 has a color LCD, four media card slots, and a direct-print port. However, the 8050's LCD is smaller, at 1.8 inches, and it can be difficult to see because it sits vertically on the front panel and doesn't tilt (the 8250's 2.5-inch LCD swivels). The media card slots accommodate most common card formats, though the printer uses the older USB 1.1 connection to upload images to a PC. In addition to working with PictBridge-compatible digital cameras, the direct-print port lets you print photos stored on a USB flash drive. But you can't transfer images from a flash drive to your PC (as you can when you insert cards in the media card slot). To print wirelessly from suitably equipped camera phones and PDAs, you can plug a Bluetooth adapter ($60) into the port.
The paper tray sits in the base of the printer and holds up to 100 sheets, including legal-size paper. HP provides a special photo cassette for printing smaller sizes, such as 4-by-6-inch snapshots. But before using it, you have to remove the paper from the main tray. When not in use, you can store the cassette in a compartment under a lid on top of the printer. We noticed a narrow stripe near the trailing edge of a test snapshot, which may indicate that the cassette did not feed the paper smoothly.
The 8050 employs up to six inks from its two standard tri-color and photo ink cartridges. For printing text documents, you can install an optional pigment black-ink cartridge in place of the photo ink. For printing black-and-white photos, HP offers a photo-gray cartridge. Under the cover is a slot for storing a partially used cartridge.
Using the photo ink cartridge, the 8050 printed very attractive photos; we liked their depth and shadow detail. But because the prints looked a bit light and some highlights appeared foggy, they earned a score of Very Good. Most photo printers earn a Superior rating for their color photos. The 8050's grayscale print had a faint pink tone.
When printing text and line art on plain paper, the 8050 notched a Very Good rating thanks in part to its pigment black ink. The 8050's sharp-looking text also earned a Very Good, higher than most other recently tested photo printers. And the 8050 is also the only photo printer that earned a Very Good for its line art print; the 8050 printed clearly distinguished lines, with just a little grittiness and wavy horizontal banding. When we printed color graphics on plain paper using all six inks, they looked too washed out. We got better results with good shadow detail and natural-looking skin tones when we used the black ink cartridge, although some horizontal banding was evident in the prints. In contrast, the Photosmart 8250 uses individual ink cartridges. Overall, the 8050's graphics earned a Good rating.
The 8050 printed text and graphics quickly, at 5.7 pages per minute and 2.1 ppm, respectively. Glossy photos were a different story, however. The 8050 took 83 seconds to print a 5-by-7-inch photo, slower than the other models tested this month, which averaged 55 seconds per print. The 8250 took just 29 seconds.
Upshot: The Photosmart 8050 delivers better print quality than the more expensive 8250, but it prints photos slowly and uses multi-ink cartridges.
Paul Jasper
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PCWorld Lab Results
- Rating Breakdown
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75
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96
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78
- See Complete Lab Results »
Performance Comparison with Similar Printers
75
74
82
82
Performance
| 5 x 7 Photo (secs) | 82.58 |
| Color Output Quality | Good |
| Color Photo (secs) | 25.44 |
| Color Photo Quality | Very Good |
| Color Photo, Best Quality Settings | 82.58 |
| Color Photo, Normal Settings | 25.44 |
| Grayscale Output Quality | Very Good |
| Line Art Output Quality | Very Good |
| One-Page Grayscale Graphic | 30.19 |
| One-Page Grayscale Graphic (secs) | 30.19 |
| Output Score, Color Graphics, Default Settings (formerly pf-Output-Print-Color-Default) | Good |
| Output Score, Color Photo, Best Quality Settings (formerly pf-Output-Print-Color-Best) | Very Good |
| Output Score, Grayscale Graphics, Best Quality Settings (formerly pf-Output-Print-Grayscale-Best) | Very Good |
| Output Score, Line Art, Default Settings (formerly pf-Output-Print-LineArt-Default) | Very Good |
| Output Score, Text, Default Settings (formerly pf-Output-Print-Text-Default) | Very Good |
| Ten-Page Word Document | 105.02 |
| Ten-Page Word Document (secs) | 105.02 |
| Tested Color Graphics Speed (formerly pf-PCWColorSpeed) | 2.1 |
| Tested Color Speed (ppm) | 2.1 |
| Tested Glossy Photo Speed (ppm) | 0.7 |
| Tested Photo Speed (formerly pf-PCWPhotoSpeed) | 0.7 |
| Tested Text Speed (formerly pf-PCWBWSpeed) | 5.7 |
| Tested Text Speed (ppm) | 5.7 |
| Text Output Quality | Very Good |
| Three-Page PowerPoint Document | 94.61 |
| Three-Page PowerPoint Document (secs) | 94.61 |
| Two-Page Excel Document | 50.89 |
| Two-Page Excel Document (secs) | 50.89 |
Text Printing
| Text output quality | Very Good |
User Reviews
Review Now! Already own it? Tell us What You Think
User Reviews From Around the Web
-
Reviewed by: john_t1234
Strengths: Small, card reader, LCD
Weaknesses: no separate ink cartridges
Overall: The Photosmart 8050 Photo Printer is a compact printer that produces quality prints. It includes a LCD to preview pictures and a card reader for direct printing. On the downside, it uses 2 cartridges with 3 colors each. This means that if one color runs dry, you have to replace the entire cartridge, which results in wasting whatever ink the other two colors have left. If not for this design flaw, this would be the perfect printer in my book.
-
Reviewed by: bargainbudy
Strengths: Accepts Memory cards,Nice Prints
Weaknesses: Uses ink fastly, NO USB Cable
Overall: I liked the printer. I purchased at staples for $50. I shouldnot have negative comments for the price. It prints great pictures. But the cost to print each 4X6 is fairly high.I am already running out of inks.
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Reviewed by: mayz7275
Strengths: good quality
Weaknesses: none
Overall: I was very surprised at the quality of my pictures. Vivid, clean, sharp pictures..Another great thing was that the setup was a sinch, so I was able to print pictures quickly. Lastly, this model (over the 7850) gives you the option to link the camera directly to the printer or insert your camera's memory card into the front of the printer so that you don't even need a computer. (There are some editing limitation with this option, but at least there's the option.) Lastly, there is an extra paper tray for borderless 4x6 photopaper. Nice.
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Reviewed by: iblinder
Strengths: Price, Image quality, reliability, speed, memory slots, LCD screen
Weaknesses: None
Overall: HP printer prints photos better than any local 1hr photo and it flies through text. One of the best for pricepreformance, very easy to setup and work with it, LCD is very handy and doesn't requires computer.
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Reviewed by: ruddypoo3333
Strengths: Very easy to use especially if you read the directions in the manual. Makes great pictures either by sd card or by camera without a sd card.
Weaknesses: I haven't found any yet.
Overall: I would recommend this printer to anyone who wants to buy a printer just for pictures. The pictures come out just as good as any place that develops pictures. Also when I purchased the printer it was a great deal plus a rebate.
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