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Tour
HP has changed from the white and gray look of their compact A-series printers to a black-and-gray look for the new Photosmart A626. Aesthetically and practically, this is an improvement, since the printer looks better and will be marred by fingerprints and dirt less easily. Although, with the screen and doors in closed position, the A626 is very toaster-like, so if you’re looking for a printer that looks like printer, this isn’t it.
Front
From head-on, the A626 is a simple, shiny, black, plastic rectangle edged in gray, with the HP logo front and center. This is the door / front tray. The base of the gray stylus can be seen on the top right where it sits in its slot on the printer’s top. The door opens by pulling on the top edge, which releases a catch that also opens the rear door and flips up the touch-screen. (More on the touch-screen in the Components section below.)
With the front tray open, the gray face plate of the printer can be seen. The memory card slots are set horizontally at the top, with slots for xD, MS, and MS Duo on the left, and the CF and SD card slots on the right. The door latch sits in between these slots, with the card access light below. The PictBridge port lies just to the left of these slots, and the ink cartridge access door on the right. The output print slot appears at the bottom, just below the HP logo.
Back
The rear of the A626 is even less obtrusive than the front, just the shiny, black, plastic rear door edged in the flat, black plastic of the chassis. The only two features that appear are the USB port and the power cord socket at the upper right, set into a plate that stays stationary when the rear door is opened. The door opens just three-quarters of an inch only when the front door has been opened itself.
Left Side
A featureless black void is the left side, with really nothing to comment on except the sheer emptiness.
Right Side
As if we needed a reminder of that emptiness shown on the left, the right side has to go ahead and mimic it exactly. Oh, cruel, cruel HP!
Top
Now, the top we can talk about. The huge, 4.8" LCD screen dominates, taking up about 60 percent of the surface, on which it sits flush with when not in use. It’s surrounded on the top, upper right, and left sides with the printer’s handle, which also sits flush when not in use. The handle is mounted just off balance, probably to prevent it from getting in the way. So if you take your hand off of it after lifting it up, the handle falls back to its rest position. While this may have seemed a clever innovation, we found it only annoying. (The handle is staying up in the image below with the help of a wad of paper.)
The Power button sits to the bottom left of the LCD screen, and is lit blue when the printer is on. On the bottom right is the gray plastic stylus, fit neatly into its slot. Just to the left of the slot is a one-half-inch-wide hole that serves as a temporary holder for the stylus. Just below this are two lights—the status light flashes to indicate an error, and the battery light indicates charge status when there is a battery installed.
Interior
The only interior that can be seen of this printer is the cartridge slot in the front and the little of the input tray that is revealed from its barely open crack at the back.
Components
Display (8.00)
HP topped everyone with this huge screen—all 4.8 inches of it. Although, the actually image viewing area is only about 3.5 inches. The remaining edges are for the large icons normally relegated to button status. These include menu, forward and backward arrows, back, cancel, and print.
The screen resolution is quite good, with crisp and clear viewing—a big improvement over the small screens on other HP printers. This is the biggest screen we’ve seen yet, approached only by the 3.6-inch screen on the Sony DPP-FP90 compact dye sublimation printer.
Paper Trays (7.50)
As with nearly all compact inkjet printers, the paper trays double as doors. This makes for convenient, compact efficiency, but usually doesn’t serve too well. The input paper paths are usually well designed, especially since they only have small paper sizes to deal with. The Epson PictureMate series and the Canon Pixma mini series both have top doors that open and serve as paper supports. The A626 is much more streamlined, with a simple yet effective sliding plastic brace that can be pulled up from the inside of the rear door. A paper guide slides in from the left to hold the paper straight as it’s pulled into the printer. This feature is common to all printers.
The output paper tray, while larger than those on the other two printers mentioned, still doesn’t fit the shape of the paper. It is horizontally oriented, which is perpendicular to the direction of the paper as it exits the printer, leaving the print to teeter on the edge of the tray. Perhaps side latches could be used, and then a tray extender could be installed, like is seen on some larger all-in-one printers.
Power supply
The A626 comes with an external power adapter / plug combo.
Battery (5.00)
A battery can purchased separately, which is an improvement over HP’s previous A-series compact printers.
Internal Memory (7.50)
The A626 packs 64 mb of RAM, more than most compact photo printers. The printer had no problems displaying our large files on the screen. Processing and printing was relatively quick.
Multi-Tasking (6.50)
This compact printer can cue jobs from the printer menu or from the connected computer easily. Even when an image is printing, users can select another, perform edits, and queue it for printing.
Hard Drive (0)
Like most compact printers, no hard drive comes included with the A626.
CD Burner (0)
No CD burner for this little tyke, common among compacts.
Accessories (7.00)
HP offers several accessories with the A626. In addition to standard ink and paper sold separately, a 120-sheet value pack, which includes both paper and ink, is available for $34.99. The HP bt450 Bluetooth adapter to allow wireless printing is available for $39.99. A standard cleaning kit that works on all HP inkjets and all-in-one printers can be purchased for $19.99. If you’re not satisfied with the printer’s carrying handle and want something more stylish and protective to carry it around, HP sells specially designed carrying cases. Blue and green "Metro style" cases with a padded shoulder strap and pockets for cords, ink, and paper sells for $24.99. Five bucks more will get you the deluxe version with faux croc skin.
The most important accessory, the battery, doesn’t appear on any of the web pages for the A626, but users can find it by searching for "HP internal battery" on the company’s Home and Home Office website.
HP also sells SD cards and a USB cable on their website, but consumers can find better deals on this equipment elsewhere.
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