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Out of the Box (6.50)
The small A626 compact printer ships with the basics to get the user printing, including a starter ink cartridge containing 2.5 ml of ink, power cord, User’s Guide, and installation CD. Paper will have to be purchased separately, as is the case with most printers.
Setup (6.50)
Since the A626 is such a simple printer, setup was quick, with unpacking and setup taking only 6.5 minutes. The only parts to install are the ink cartridge and the power cord, hardly worth calling it installation since it’s so easy. Software installation took a little longer, about 7.5 minutes, for a total installation time of 14 minutes.
Manual / Quick Start Guide (6.00)
HP provides an easy, 6-step setup guide for the A626, with simple graphics and instructions. The paper Basics Guide comes in two languages and, true to its name, provides just rudimentary information for operating the printer. More information can be found in the driver’s help menu or even the printer’s help menu.
Drivers and Administration (7.00)
The driver that installs for the Photosmart A626 is the standard driver users receive with HP’s other Photosmart printers, which is a good thing. It’s organized fairly well, and lets the user make various paper, quality, and some image-editing choices.
The first window that shows up is the Printer Shortcuts windows. This gives the basic settings most users need. Four pre-set shortcuts for printing borderless 4x6-inch images, bordered images, postcard printing, and factory default settings. Users can also create their own shortcuts, which is a nice, easy way to make sure the settings you like can be accessed quickly and easily. Users should make sure that if they don’t want to utilize HP’s Basic Photo Fix tool, then this should be turned off. On is the default setting.
The Features tab for this printer really provides the same options as the shortcuts tab, so users can just ignore it. This tab has many more options for HP’s Photosmart all-in-one (AIO) printers.
The Color tab looks pretty sparse, with simply two check-buttons for printing in color or grayscale. The more helpful tool window pops up when clicking the "More Color Options…" button on the bottom right. This brings up the Advanced Color Options window, with slide bars for setting brightness, contrast, and color.
Software (4.00)
HP Photosmart Essential 2.01 is unabashedly Vista-like in appearance, with wide expanses of empty blue. And it’s also Vista-like in its functionality, taking as much control out of the hands of the user as possible. The program is essentially a prettified version of the driver, with less functionality. Unless users are wedded to the simplified Vista-look and feel and don’t want to make any changes to their images, we suggest using an earlier version of Photosmart Essential if you have it, or, better yet, use a third-party image-editing software program. These will let the user have at least a little control over image editing. Photosmart Essential 1.12 has some color editing tools and black-and-white and antique tint options.
Here’s the setup. The first page prompts you to find photos on your hard drive. If you have images on an external drive or server, it won’t look for them there.
The second page displays your photos in stacked, 3D-like form and offers you the option to print or share the photos. Clicking on Share brings up a window where the user can input e-mail addresses to send the photos to.
Clicking on Print brings up the Browse window, in which users can select from the photos that had been found through the Browse window.
Once images are chosen, clicking Print again brings up the Print window, with printer, paper, and layout options. Three buttons at the top right of the screen let users choose a few more simple options. The Advanced tab brings up three checkboxes—Auto Fix, Print Date on Photos, and Print One Photo per Page. Edit Layout allows users to change the orientation and sizing of the image. The third button, Printer Settings, brings up the very same choices found in the main driver window—Printer, Paper Size, Orientation, Paper Type, Print Quality, and Paper Tray.
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