Price protection, price matching or price guarantees do not apply to Intra-day, Daily Deals or limited-time promotions. This automatically engages when you select 6 x 4in as the paper size and means you don’t need to remove the A4 paper from the main tray.Prices, specifications, availability and terms of offers may change without notice. One advantage over the Canon is the dedicated 6 x 4in paper tray, which can hold around 20 sheets. Colours aren’t quite as vibrant and grain is much more noticeable, but they’re still acceptable as photos. We saw prints fly out in around 13 seconds, but the drop in quality is noticeable. Likewise, in draft mode, the 8250 beat the iP5200R (and everything else on test) with a superb rate of 16.2ppm.Īnd, to be fair, the 8250 can beat the Canon iP5200’s time of 36 seconds for a 6 x 4in photo too, but only if you switch to fast draft mode and use HP’s barcoded Everyday Photo Paper. Mono text quality wasn’t up to the Canon standard (being slightly grey in comparison), but it was delivered quicker at normal quality – 5.4ppm against 4.8ppm. Quality was excellent, though, and easily on a par with the 8450’s stunning detail and colours. Printing a 6 x 4in photo at best quality took one minute, 31 seconds, which was far from the fastest we saw. HP also makes a lot of noise about the 8250’s speed, claiming to be the world’s fastest photo printer at its launch. Resolution remains the same as other PhotoREt IV inkjets at 4,800 x 1,200dpi. The ink system falls under the Vivera banner and comprises a pigment-based black along with CYM and light versions of cyan and magenta. If you opt for Premium Plus paper for better quality prints, it still works out at a reasonable 35p, making this printer the fourth most economical in the Labs. If you buy HP’s value pack of six cartridges with 150 sheets of Everyday Photo Paper, each photo will cost just under 20p – very competitive.

We discovered it wastes precious little ink: it prints the same number of prints under intermittent use as it does in a single bulk session, namely 116 6x4in photos. However, the good news is that, since our original tests, we’ve run real-world rundown tests over a number of months, by printing photos intermittently. Unfortunately, the fact that ink remains in the system made it impossible to measure exactly how much ink is used for maintenance (see Running costs).

Plus, excess ink can be pumped back into the cartridge, and HP claims it’s ultra-efficient. The ink-recycling technology is new too – rather than a continuous flow of ink between the tank and print head, the latter’s reservoir is only filled up when it’s used up. The 8250 is HP’s first A4 Photosmart printer to use individual ink tanks with a separate, permanent print head.

Hp photosmart 8250 printer reviews