Digital Trends

HP PhotoSmart 8050 June 18th, 2006 | by Vince Veneziani

Like a lot of the newer HP printers available, the PhotoSmart 8050 is actually a pretty stylish printer. It's long and sleek, sports a sparkling silver color, and has a quality design. It features a power button, USB port, and media card reader on the left hand side that fit together nicely. The right side is encompassed by a small, but useful LCD screen, controls, and options for printing. It is a bit cluttered, while still manageable. Dual paper trays fold out in the middle of the printer so that your paper and prints are held separately. The top features a storage space containing a 4x6 paper loading mechanism and the back holds ports for USB and power.

Considering what this printer does, it is indeed very long. There is a lot of extra space that seems to serve no other purpose than for the design. People with limited workspace will probably find the Photosmart 8050 too big for their taste. If you're a big digital camera buff though, you're in luck. This printer creates great looking prints at a cost-effective price that won't empty your pockets. However, to save more money, you might want to use a separate black cartridge and a separate color cartridge for ink. HP includes 2 cartridges when you purchase this printer: your basic three color Cyan, Magenta, and Yellow cartridge and another cartridge with photo-quality Cyan, Magenta, and black.

As a result of this, frequent printing of documents without photos will drain your cartridge fast and will leave you hanging with colors you may not need. Again, when your cartridges do go, be sure to replace them with an economical combination that will allow you to consume less ink. If you're printing mostly documents, then this isn't the printer for you. The Photosmart 8050 is a printer for those doing a mix of both photo and document printing. People looking for a heavy photo printer should check out HP's Photosmart 475.

Image Courtesy of HP