The Hewlett Packard Photosmart 385 Inkjet Printer is a photo printer made to go anywhere. On the bottom of the printer you can install an optional (Not Included) $80 Li-ion rechargeable battery that charges up from the supplied AC adapter. The battery is supposed to hold enough charge to print around 75 photos before a recharge is needed. Plus you can purchase an optional Bluetooth Adapter for about $50 so you can send the photos wireless from a cell phone, digital camera that has Bluetooth or any device that has Bluetooth. My review is without the battery or Bluetooth Adapter.
The Photosmart 385 prints borderless prints of 4 x 6 inches that look as good as if they were sent off to be printed.
LCD
The Photosmart 385 has a built-in 2.5 inch color LCD that lays flat on top of the printer or it can be tilted at an angle for better viewing. This means that the 385 needs no computer to work with it, it can print photos without a computer and without a cord to plug in the wall with the optional battery. It is also made to be used with a computer.
The LCD has an easy to use menu system to help guide you through the printing process. Some editing can be done through the LCD screen. It can even take red eye out of some of the photos before printing them. You can zoom the photos in and out to see more details and for editing.
Printing
The Photosmart 385 offers a variety of ways to print your photos. Of course there is the USB connection to a computer, which gives use of the included software for editing. It is PictBridge compatible, meaning you can plug your camera directly into the printer if your camera is PictBridge compatible.
There are plenty of slots in the front for printing from CompactFlash, SmartMedia, Secure Digital, MMC, Memory Stick/MS Pro and xD-Picture Cards.
The photo paper is inserted in the back of the printer and printed photos come out of the bottom front. The front is protected by a cover that folds down when using the printer. The printer has DPOF (Digital Print Order Format) so you can pre-select images automatically to be printed.
Ink
The Photosmart 385 printer comes with the 7 ml Tri-color HP95 print cartridge with Vivera Inks. You can purchase a larger capacity 14 ml Tri-color HP97 cartridge so you won’t have to change cartridges as often. It you want to do some black and white photo printing they offer an optional HP100 gray photo cartridge.
My Printing Tests
Hewlett Packard claims that the Photosmart 385 will print color photos in about 60 seconds or one minute from a computer.
Printing from the computer is my favorite way to print photos because I can see the photos in a large size and I can do more editing. From the computer through a USB connection, I timed ten photos and they were between 58 second to 61 seconds each.
Using the printer without a computer, using the PictBridge connection from the camera, I printed ten photos from 59 seconds to one minute and 53 seconds.
Using the printer without a computer, using an SD card inserted into the printer, I printed ten photos from 57 seconds to one minute and 40 seconds.
My conclusion is that from the computer the 60 seconds was there every time. So why did it take longer for the PictBridge connection and SD card? I believe the computer processes the photos no mater what size and sends the printing information to the printer in a 4 x 6 inch format. In the other printing ways I noticed that the 5-megepixils photos took longer to print than the 3-megapixils photos, probably because the printer has to process the photos down to the 4 x 6 inch prints.
~~~ NOTE ~~~ My tests are not a scientific and the true way to test, but it should give the consumer an idea of what the printer is capable of doing.
If you want the fastest prints without the use of a computer, I would recommend using 2 to 3 megapixels settings. The quality I saw in a 3-megapixels 4 x 6 inch print is as good as the 5-megepixils in a 4 x 6 inch print.
My Final Thoughts
The printer is neat; when not in use the printer can be closed up to prevent dirt from entering the media slots and for easy carrying. The controls on top with the screen are easy to use and navigate with; I do like being able to tilt up the screen for viewing and editing. I like the idea of the optional battery because it makes the printer very portable for printing photos almost anywhere.
Photo quality was excellent, as good as a photo lab, and I can see a big improvement verses the photos I print using my
HP PhotoSmart 1215 Personal Printer. My 1215 printer is almost 5 years old, it still works great, but I can see the improvements technology has made on photo printing. The colors are bright and life like for the Photosmart 385 printer.
The
disadvantages of a printer like this is the size limit of 4 x 6 inch prints and that is all you can do with it.
The
advantages of a printer like this is portability, the ability to print quality photos anywhere with or without a computer.
Overall I am impressed with the quality of the photos!
Thank you for reading my review.
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Gumtree.com
