Review: HP Photosmart D7360

Of the three printers reviewed here, HP’s Photosmart D7360 is the most expensive, but delivers outstanding performance and some unique features.

Among these are dual covered paper trays, support for long, panoramic paper sizes and excellent built-in photo-editing facilities via a touch-screen LCD panel.

The A4 and 6x4in paper trays mean you can switch between printing regular A4-sized documents and album-sized photos without having to get up and reload paper. Both trays are covered, which helps protect the printer from dust. And, because they’re at the front of the printer, you can access them easily without having to reach round to the back.

Unlike the Canon Pixma IP6700D and Epson Stylus Photo R360, the Photosmart D7360 doesn’t support direct printing onto DVDs or CDs. Instead, HP has created its own ‘CD/DVD Tattoo’ media, which basically consists of sticky labels that can be applied to discs using a special applicator.

In addition to printing excellent photographs, the Photosmart D7360 performs very well as a general-purpose inkjet. Although we couldn’t achieve the rated 32ppm when printing anything useful, it consistently outperformed its competitors when set to standard or fast modes.

In fact, it was often over twice as fast. Also, its competitors’ printouts were considerably worse in draft mode, often producing blacks that would be better described as browns. In its fastest mode, the D7360 still produces strong black text, albeit at a reduced resolution.

Photo printing at 6x4in was also very fast. Although a little slower when in the very highest quality mode, the D7360 wins by a significant margin at default settings. All the printers here were capable of producing excellent-quality prints. In our tests, the D7360 produced slightly more detail and contrast than either the Canon or Epson products. However, in auto mode, colour on the HP was a little dark, with the Epson R360 producing the most pleasing results.

The most noticeable advantage of the D7360 is found when using the printer away from the computer. All three printers come with large LCD panels, but the D7360 is the only one to offer touch-screen capability. This means far fewer control buttons are needed on the printer itself and the onscreen buttons can be much more descriptive. You see the function you want and press it – there’s no need to read a menu to find out which button activates a function.

There’s a lot you can do from here without the need for any photo-editing software. Auto-correction features, such as adaptive lighting and automatic red-eye removal, help improve poorly exposed photos and you can save the edited photos by initiating a PC transfer from the printer.

In addition to the memory card slots, you can use the front USB port to print directly from a Pictbridge-compatible camera or a USB flash drive. Alternatively you can plug in a Bluetooth adapter for wireless printing, perhaps directly from your camera phone.

Lifting the cover reveals six large ink cartridges, the black one larger still, which are very easy to install. The cartridges themselves don’t move, so you don’t have to wait for the printer to move the print carriage; they just clip in place at the front of the printer.

This is definitely the most impressive of the three printers, and we feel that for the serious user it’s well worth the extra cost.

This article is part of a group test of A4 photo printers
See also
Canon Pixma IP6700D
Epson Stylus Photo R360
How we tested the photo inkjet printers
Photo printing under Windows Vista
Graphs and table of features can be read via our pdf downloads above

Like this story? Spread the news by clicking below:

 del.icio.us     Digg this     reddit!