HP PSC 1410 review

There doesn't seem to be much new about the PSC 1410.

It's exactly the same size as the PSC 1215, which it replaces. It's about as small as multifunction devices get. During printing, paper follows a U path from a front tray and comes to rest on top of the plain paper stack. Because there's no rear tray, you can push it to the back of a desk.

The eight function buttons and simple LED are enough to control everyday copy jobs without a PC. It's easy to set up, and has an automatic head alignment routine to help you get the best print quality. It comes with an extensive set of HP software, but even the minimum installation swallows 365MB of disk space.

The PSC 1410 offers a few improvements over its predecessor, the most welcome being that it can now print 6x4" photos without borders. Quality is fine for a four-ink printer, although sharp eyes will spot a small amount of grain. Unlike the PSC 1610 reviewed in What's New, Shopper September 2005, it isn't possible to use a photo cartridge for six-ink printing.

Print quality on plain paper is equally good, and black text in particular was pin-sharp in our tests. At 3.2 pages per minute (ppm), the HP was slow at its Normal setting. It reached 10ppm at Fast Draft, but ejected paper so forcefully that it spilled on the desk in an untidy, muddled pile.

Scans and copies were both competitively quick. Scans of regular text documents were impressively sharp, despite the HP's comparatively low 600 dots per inch (dpi) resolution. Photographs were captured with faithful colours and good detail for a budget device.

One of the best aspects of the outgoing PSC 1215 was its ability to use high-capacity ink cartridges that lasted for 450 black or 400 colour pages. This gave it very low running costs, making it an ideal budget device.

The PSC 1410 accepts only 5ml supplies that last one third as long, which seems a big step backwards and makes it particularly expensive when printing in mono. For £10 more, Canon's PIXMA MP110 combines faster printing and similar quality with lower black ink costs.