HP PhotoSmart C4280 – HP’s Inexpensive All-In-One Printer

The Photosmart C4280 from HP is an entry-level and low-cost all-in-one printer with mediocre print quality, variable task speeds and extremely basic features. Even for a $100 printer, the feature limitations were frustrating. The other all-in-printers which are similarly priced provide a broader feature set. Using the same $100, you receive an all-in-one with faster speeds and more features.

Features and Design

The design of Photosmart C4280 is minimalist. Its control panel has an easy-to-function row of buttons, a little icon panel and a small 1.5 preview LCD. For an all-in-one, the Photosmart C4280 provides extremely basic features. While printing photos with memory card, the only option left is to manually step through the card contents to choose images.

However, you can change the number of copies, select borderless options and change the image quality. Scanning of images or documents can be initiated from printer or system itself. The HP Photosmart Essential software pops up while doing the latter. Here, there are different ways to edit the picture.

Overall Performance

The HP Photosmart C4280 prints texts at 5.94 ppm, superseded only by Lexmark X5470 with a score of 6.9 ppm. In terms of color graphics prints, the HP was the slowest of the bunch at 1.50 ppm. The print speed of 4 x 6 photos reached 0.67 ppm – in line with Lexmark but slower than Canon. There was a substantial improvement in scanning speeds – 1.76 ppm for color and 4.46 ppm for grayscale. The device comes at a price range of $ 134.