HP Virtual Focus Group – Printing From Memory Cards

Talking about the HP Virtual Focus Group again. The two models of printers are the HP Photosmart C6380 and the Kodak ESP 7. This time I’m talking about printing photos from removable media such as SD and CF cards.

I have printed photos for a long time, even before printers were meant to print photos. I used to print photos just on regular printer paper. Did you ever try that? They look good for like a week, then they start looking faded and old. Anyway. There have been many times I took a picture using my digital camera and didn’t have the computer on but wanted a photo. It was a real time suck to have to turn on the computer, upload the photos and then print. One of the things that interested me the most about both of these printers is that both allowed printing direct from a  memory card, bypassing the need to turn on the computer and upload pictures before printing.

The HP Photosmart 6380 has four ports on the front:

1. MS
2. SD, XD
3. CF
4. USB

The Kodak ESP 7 has three ports:

1. MS, SD, XD
2. CF
3. USB

The ports are all easily accessible on both printers. I printed pictures from an SD card.

On the HP after inserting the SD card you choose navigate the pictures using the arrow keys. Thumbnail sized images are shown four at a time on the screen. The colors of the thumbnails are very good and the images look clear. Once you choose what you want to print you choose the layout and size of the paper and if you want the date stamp on and then print.

On the Kodak after inserting the SD card you navigate the pictures using the arrow keys as well. One picture at a time is visible on the screen. The thumbnails on the screen are very blurry and pixelated and the colors look really dark. Once you choose what you want to print you can choose the layout, balance, color, quality and if you want the date stamp on and then print. It’s hard to tell what you’re looking at when you look at the thumbnails on the Kodak. In the end I had to upload the pictures to the computer just to see what I had before printing.

For ease of use I have to choose the HP over the Kodak, simply because of the poor thumbnail image quality. As far as the print quality between the two printers, the pictures were similar but always seemed a little brighter on the HP.

Check back soon,  next time I’ll be looking at document scanning.

Tags: HP Photosmart C6380, HP Virtual Focus Group, Kodak ESP 7, printers

Category: Tech