Machogear: HP B8550 Photo Printer Makes Big, Potentially Embarassing Pics Come To Life

At this point, the only people who don’t have a digital camera are our grandparents and a few art-school types. You know, the kinda people who don’t think a digital camera really “captures the essence” of the image. “It’s too cold and sterile, maaaaaaaaaaan.” Whatever. We don’t like paying for film, and we like seeing, and deleting, our bad shots right away.
That’s not to say there is no market for actual photos you don’t need a computer to view. If you’ve got some spare room and don’t mind paying for ink, and you want your actual photos to be big, then Hewlett-Packard’s new HP Photosmart B8550 Photo Printer might be just the thing you need to print out a few posters.

We’re not kidding when we say big. The B8550 lets you print out high quality photos in sizes up to 13X19. We hooked it up and made a few posters, and the detail was so clear that we noticed things in the pictures that we never saw on a computer screen. Like a little leaf curled up and clinging to a few blades of grass, or my eyes closed shut in one of the nicer wedding photos. The quality of the images did not diminish whatsoever in the larger sizes.
In fact, the quality might be a bit too good. In a big poster you’re going to notice every blemish and imperfection on your skin in ways you never would on a computer screen or even a 4X6. If you’re concerned about how you look in photos, either steer clear of this bad boy or invest in Adobe Photoshop. My face was so enhanced in one picture that the shadows made it look like I had grown a mustache. I probably should have cleared that up in editing.
Still, the printer is very easy to use, and can either print from a computer or directly from a memory card. A small screen lets you see the pictures before you print, but if you’re making a poster you’ll want to check them out on a computer screen first.
The drawbacks to the printer are few, but somewhat significant. For starters, the machine is quite big, and can’t really be tucked into a corner somewhere. When printing big photos you have to sit by and babysit them, to make sure they don’t get stuck on the printer as the move through it. And the ink seemed to go pretty quickly. We noticed a “black ink low” message after just our second poster print. HP offers the smaller ink cartridges for this printer for just $10 each, so it’s not too costly to replace them.
If you want to print big, give this machine a try. The pictures are of such a high quality your art school buddy will have no idea you made ‘em in your house.
Visit HP’s official site for more details. Printer is available from a variety of retailers for $299.99.

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