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Configuration (6.00)
The HP Photosmart A626 uses one tri-color cartridge, containing just cyan, magenta, and yellow inks. A single cartridge makes for hassle-free installation and maintenance. The HP110 cartridge slides easily into the cartridge slot behind the access door on the front of the printer and locks into place. The printer quickly acknowledges the installation and calibrates the printer with the new cartridge.
Printers with integrated cartridges usually include a black ink in the cartridge, such as the Canon Pixma mini320, or a separate black ink cartridge, as is the case with the Kodak EasyShare 5300 all-in-one photo printer. Lacking a black ink certainly makes print quality suffer, as can be seen in our quality tests on the Photo Performance page.
Value (4.00)
HP estimates that the HP110 integrated ink cartridge used by the A626 will yield 55 4x6-inch prints. One of these cartridges costs $19.99. Users can buy a photo value pack with 120-sheets of paper and enough ink to print them for $34.99. While most manufacturers are by their own admission not working on the same playing field when it comes to measuring page yields, we report what they tell us. Canon estimates page yields for their new Pixma mini320, another compact inkjet printer that can produce prints up to 5x7 inches in size, at 109 4x6 prints from their single CLI-36 integrated cartridge (with black). At $16.99 per cartridge, this comes out to be a better deal than the HP cartridge, even with HP’s photo value pack.
Like the HP value pack, paper and ink for the Epson PictureMate Dash and Zoom compact inkjet printers come packaged together. The pack includes 150 sheets of paper with enough ink to print "about" that many, according to the company’s website. It’s impossible for any manufacturer to accurately predict the number of prints possible from an inkjet cartridge because each print is different, requiring different amounts of the different ink colors. That aside, based on the paper and ink cost, the Epson produces prints more cheaply than the HP value pack and, consequently, much more cheaply than the standard ink cartridges. With print quality much greater with the Epson and Canon printers, the value of the HP A626’s ink is clearly deficient.
Ink Management (6.50)
The A626 has a small ink beaker icon at the top of the LCD display, which gives users a coarse view of the amount of ink remaining. Users can touch this icon to get an ink level message. The HP Solution Center software also provides an ink level indicator on the main page for the selected device.
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