Most lower-priced multifunction printers (MFPs) can fill a dual role as a household and home-office printer, but tend to lean towards either the home or business side. The HP Photo smart Plus e-All-in-One ($149 direct) leans noticeably towards the home side, although it could also be used in a home office if need be. If you're looking mostly to print photos, it should be on your short list as a household MFP.
The Photo smart Plus E-All-in-One can print, copy, fax, and scan. It can scan to a computer or to a memory card, though not to e-mail, and it lacks a port for a USB thumb drive. Under the scan menu, there's also a Reprint function, which lets you scan a photo and print out a copy on 4-by-6, 5-by-7, or 8.5-by-11 photo paper.
Design and Features:
A black box with rounded corners, the Plus eAIO measures 7.8 by 17.8 by 15.8 inches (HWD) and weighs 16.4 pounds. The lid has a tasteful honeycomb pattern etched into it. The dual paper tray (125-sheet regular plus a 20-sheet photo-paper compartment) seem to jut out in front. The paper capacity is adequate for light home-office as well as personal use, and the photo tray is a nice extra. It lacks an automatic duplexer, a feature we're seeing as standard on many sub-$200 MFPs these days, both home and business models.
The front panel is dominated by a 3.4-inch touch screen that allows you to access, with the touch of a finger, icons for Scan, Copy, Photo, Apps, and Snipefish.
The Photo smart plus can print selected content directly from the Web as a standalone device using HP's Web apps. You can output business forms, daily newsletters, coupons, recipes, even coloring book pages with Disney and Nickelodeon characters, and much more. Additional free apps are available for download from HP's ePrintCenter.
The ePrint function lets you e-mail an attached image to the printer for it to automatically print out. The printer is assigned an e-mail address when you register at the ePrintCenter. From a single e-mail it can print out up to 10 attached files with a total size of up to 5MB, printing out first the cover e-mail and then the attachments.
Even better, the Plus eAIO is one of a select group of printers, all HP models, that supports wireless printing directly from an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch using the Air Print feature in Apple's iOS 4.2. You simply open a document on your "i-thing"—say, an e-mail, or a photo—press Print, and then select Printer. The I-device should recognize the Photo smart Plus eAIO (if they're both on the same WiFi network) and let you print to it.
The Photo smart plus eAIO offers both USB and 802.11b/g/n WiFi connectivity. I tested it over a USB connection to a PC running Windows Vista.
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