HP HP Photosmart D5360

The Photosmart D5360 offers two special printing capabilities. The first is its duplexing mechanism, which allows automatic, two-sided printing. The second is its ability to print on specially coated CD and DVD media. To accommodate the latter, the printer sports a very clever design: You pull down the special input tray from the printer's open front bay, and then pull out a tray insert from its safe nest underneath the printer. As HP does with many of its low-end inkjets and multifunction printers, the company bundles Roxio's Express Labeler 3.2 software on a separate CD for customizing disc labels with photos, distinctive layouts, and special fonts.

Perhaps because the Photosmart D5360 tries to do so much, its performance falls a little short in some ways. Photos printed on special paper looked great, showing smooth textures and rich colors. Photos printed on plain paper appeared grainy; text samples on plain paper looked black and just slightly fuzzy. It produced color images at fairly slow rates from 1 page per minute (ppm) to 2.4 ppm, depending on the type of document, while on black text it managed a decent pace of 7.4 ppm. See the Printers section of our How We Test primer for more information on these tests.

One area where the Photosmart D5360 excels is in ink costs. The standard-size cartridges that come with the printer are pretty pricey, but the high-capacity replacement options offer significant savings, averaging 3 cents per plain-black page and 9 cents for each four-color page. Optional cartridges include gray for printing subtler monochrome images, and a photo-specific one for adding greater color depth.?

The Photosmart D5360 has something for everyone, offering a generous helping of photo features plus duplexing and CD/DVD printing. For many home and school users, this is a capable, well-priced choice.

--Melissa Riofrio