GizmoSpy » Printers

HP Deskjet F4580 All-inOne printer

GizmoPaul — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:17:31 +0000

HP have come up with an offering that is ideal for both the home and the small office users. You can print from virtually anywhere in the home or the office thanks to the wireless technology built in to this superb offering. The printer also offers scanning and colour copying too. It’s easy to setup, reliable and can even print without a PC.

There is some easy to install software and an intuitive control panel which makes controlling the printer easy as 1-2-3. The simple controls also allow you to stop and cancel printing at the touch of a button saving resources if you send print jobs by mistake. There are also handy LCD ink level indicators meaning you know when you might be coming up for an ink change.

This offering from HP has improved printing speeds of up to 28ppm black and white and 22ppm in colour. The print quality is sharp and crisp with sharp black text and bright colours with original cartridges. There is an improved access to the cartridges which make changing them even easier.

This HP printer uses dual drop weight technology to get the best quality prints. This technology combines small and large ink droplets to utilize greater ink coverage on the page and increase image quality. There is also the option of borderless printing to print larger 10cm x 15cm prints.

HP uses dual drop weight technology to ensure you get the best quality prints every time. Small and large ink droplets are combined to create greater ink coverage on the page, increasing image quality and reducing the visibility of ink droplets. Also, get fabulous photos with borderless photo printing on up to 10cm x 15cm prints.

HP’s Smart Web Print technology makes printing from the web even easier. You can print what you want by selecting the frames you want to print. There is also HP’s Photo Gadget which enable you to print from multiple sites on the same page by dragging and dropping. You can even re-size areas to print.

Photo printing is easy as well giving great options for printing photos and managing the quality and size. The HP is quite clever too to avoid cropping photos in vital areas. The HP Photo Print Gadget lets you drag and drop photos to the printer to print.

The Good
This printer is easy to use and very suitable for the home and those wishing to have an all round printer, copier and scanner and to reproduce those family snaps in high quality.

The Bad
Some have reported the wireless to be quite tricky to setup, however we didn’t have any problems.

Conclusion
A good all round printer for its value. Good quality printing and easy to use once setup.

Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Camera

GizmoGaz — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 13:22:39 +0000

Following on from my earlier review of the PoGo Instant Digital Photo Printer, Us Spys wouldn’t be doing such a good job if we didn’t review the Instant Camera to. Sure the Instant Digital Printer is a great gadget and very portable however the Instant Camera takes it to the next step of convenience by combining both a Digital Camera + a Printer all in one. Now the downside of all in one devices is that they are most often never brilliant at all things, more of jack of all trades and master of none.

Features a 5.0 Megapixels digital camera with 3.0″ bright color LCD and a 4x digital zoom but not optical zoom. You can also use SD cards to add extra memory for more pictures, runs off a Rechargeable lithium-ion battery so battery shouldn’t run down too quick. Can print in less than 60 seconds just like the printer and prints out on 2″x3″ ZINK full colour sticky-back prints.

Spy Verdict

For the average consumer who will be looking for this type of camera for convenience and a bit of fun sharing photos on the go, then this will go down like a treat, although for those more fussy about photo quality may be disappointed. The Spys had some fun in the office testing this out. Unfortunately they are unable to publish these as that would reveal our secret head quarters.

Polaroid PoGo Instant Digital Photo Printer

GizmoGaz — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 12:32:31 +0000

The Pogo Instant Digital Photo Printer from Polaroid is a great portable photo printer barely bigger than your mobile phone and allows you to print and share with friends and family in an instant. Designed to work with your existing digital camera or mobile phone via either USB or wireless/blue-tooth.

Uses Zero Ink (ZINK) technology so you don’t have to worry about replace ink and expensive ink cartridges. All that is required is you purchase ZINK photo paper and then you’re ready to go.

Each print comes with a sticky back enabling you to peel off the back and stick anywhere you like. Perfect for the fridge or for capturing those precious baby moments and not having to worry about getting them developed and buying frames.

Printing takes about 60 seconds but then they came out completely dry to touch and waterproof.

Uses a rechargeable lithium-ion battery and will print approx 20 prints before you need to recharge.

: Awarded 4 stars out of 5 at T3 magazine

Spy Verdict

What a great gadget and a perfect gift for your loved ones. This will provide fun for the kids as they can print and share with friends without having to mess around with ink, can use on the go and it doesn’t break the bank.

Epson Stylus SX415

GizmoStu — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 03:15:55 +0000

The SX415 is one of the latest multi-function printers to come out of Epson HQ and it’s certainly very reasonably priced, but how does it perform under testing? We sent one of our agents into the firing line to bring you a full report.

The Good

On first look the Epson Stylus SX415 presents itself well, with a shiny black plastic finish and sleek lines and 2.5 inch LCD screen it certainly appears stylish and modern.

Setting the SX415 up was a breeze, just pop the supplied installation CD into your computer and it hand holds you the rest of the way, we were up and running very quickly. Installing the ink cartridges was also a pain free experience, this model features four seperate colour ink tanks each using Epson’s excellent DURABrite ink.

This printer is capable of 5760 x 1440dpi printing using Epson’s Resolution Performance Management and comes equipped with various printing modes. Printing performance was on the whole very good, we printed out several full pages of text and it notched up a time of 4.1ppm and the quality was very presentable for an inkjet. Moving on to photo mode and it produced our pages of text at 1.8ppm but it gave the text more definition and sharpness, overall we were impressed with the SX415’s text output.

It worked beautifully on colour images as well, completely disregarding the fastest printing mode we went straight in and tested with the medium mode and it managed to knock out a vibrant reproduction at a good 3.2ppm, the images were suffused with colkourand consistantly without any sign of banding. Even when printing onto a glossy medium in photo mode it produced a decent rate of 1.5ppm and the print quality was even better.

We also managed some great results from using the built in 1200 x 2400 dpi scanner, after playing with a few of the settings we were soon able to do a full colour photocopy in 30 seconds, with reproduction quality being of a very reasonable standard.

The memory card support is vast, covering pretty much the full range, from Memory Stick to SD to xD-Picture as well as a PictBridge port, it really does have all the bases covered in this respect.

The Bad

Some may consider the Epson Stylus SX415 to be a little nosier while printing than some other models available today, but we didn’t find it too distracting. Also the buttons on the unit feel as though they are made of a cheaper plastic although it doesn’t affect the look of the printer and they do work as intended.

Conclusion

The Epson Stylus SX415 is an excellent all rounder with a lot of features, it stands up very well against it’s peers and is a bargain price. If you are looking for a multi-function printer for your home or small office then you won’t go far wrong with this one, plus Epson ink cartridges are a darn sight cheaper than most of it’s rivals!