HP Photosmart A636 Compact Photo Printer

Printing options include captions, clip art, frames, and effects such as sepia toning and cartooning; you also get simple editing tools. The printer takes an unusually broad range of paper sizes, from 4-by-6-inch photos to panoramic (4-by-12-inch) paper to 5-by-7-inch photos.

A few of the Photosmart A636's features perplexed me. You're supposed to open the front panel (which then serves as the output tray) by inserting a finger into a slender canal above the panel. This detail, while arguably intuitive, is not illustrated anywhere. Opening the front panel releases the LCD and the 20-sheet input tray, too--it's easy. But lowering the LCD is a trickier operation: It involves squeezing difficult-to-see rear latches that illustrated but not explained in the documentation. A hole in the top of the printer for holding the stylus upright (there's a slide-in storage slot for the stylus, as well) is not discussed anywhere.

The machine ships with starter supplies: a few sheets of 5-by-7-inch photo media, plus an ink cartridge that can print 10 to 20 photos. The high-yield replacement cartridge ($35) lasts for approximately 120 prints, which works out to 29 cents per print. A lower-capacity cartridge ($20) lasts for about 55 prints, at a pricier 36 cents per print.

The Photosmart A636 may miss on a few minor points, but it's a fast, capable printer--and its ability to accept an unusually extensive range of paper sizes is a definite plus.