Hewlett Packard will announce today new digital imaging offerings that produce prints surpassing both the photo quality and fade resistance — up to 73 years, more than twice as long as most traditional prints — of traditionally processed photographs, according to the company. Comprising HP’s largest consumer product rollout in its history are eight products, including four photo printers, three digital cameras and photo paper.
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The HP Photosmart 7550, 7350 and 7150 photo printers feature new print technology that, when used in conjunction with HP’s enhanced Premium Plus Photo papers, gives consumers prints that exceed both the photo quality and image permanence of traditionally processed photographs, according to Mary Peery, senior vice president, HP Digital Imaging and Publishing. The printers offer up to 4,800-optimized dpi or up to six- and seven-ink color printing.
All the printers offer support for Mac OS 9 or greater, including Mac OS X (10.1 and higher). When Jaguar (Mac OS X 10.2) is released, there’ll be updated drivers available on Apple’s Web site.
The HP Photosmart 7550 photo printer lets you preview, edit and enhance photos using its LCD screen and front-panel buttons. Additionally, the HP Photosmart 7550 and 7350 photo printers provide the ability to print borderless 4 x 6-inch prints and feature slots that accommodate CompactFlash, Secure Digital, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and Sony Memory Stick memory cards for computer-free printing.
The three printers also feature front USB ports, giving HP Photosmart digital camera owners another way to print photos without using a computer. And all are optimized to take advantage of automatic media sensing technology. This means you don’t have to set the controls manually — though you can if you want.
The HP Photosmart 7150 is an entry-level product with a street price of US$179. The 7350 is a midline $249 product and the 7550, which has an estimated street price of $399, is HP’s flagship product. It boasts a 1.5-inch LDC display, so users can insert a memory card and review images on the display.
“With these printers, we’re bringing a whole new inkjet platform to market,” Ken Fleming, product generation organization for HP’s Imaging Division, told MacCentral. “The 4800 dpi resolution we’re offering is something many users won’t need. However, we felt it was an enhancement we wanted to add with high-pixel digital cameras being released.”
The HP Photosmart 130 photo printer also joins HP’s photo printer lineup. It’s designed as a portable solution for producing photo-quality, 4 x 6-inch prints, and also boasts CompactFlash, Secure Digital, SmartMedia, MultiMedia and Sony Memory Stick memory card slots. The Photosmart 130 offers borderless prints with up to 4,800-optimized dpi.
The Photosmart 130 is a replacement for the current Photosmart 100 model. It should have a street price of $179. The Photosmart 7150 is currently shipping. The other new printers should begin shipping in a week or so.
In addition, HP introduced the HP Photosmart 720, 620 and 320 digital cameras, featuring the exclusive HP Instant Share technology, which lets you choose where photos will be sent or printed. The new HP Premium Plus Photo papers, developed for use with HP’s new photo inks and new generation of inkjet printers, offer 10-mil thickness, high-gloss coating, vivid colors, realistic skin tones and glossy blacks, Peery said.
The 320, expected to cost $179, will be a step up from the current 120 camera. It’s a 2 megapixel autofocus camera with video clip capability of 14 frames per second. The 620, which will cost $249, is a 2 megapixel device that offers video clip capability of up to 16 frames per second. The 720, a replacement for HP’s 715, will boast 3.3 megapixels, and the same features as the 720. The $399 camera will also have audio clip support, which lets you attach a .WAV file to any image or series of images.
The cameras comes with a HP Photo and Imaging Software suite, which offers creative printing options, photo album options and much more. It also comes with the HP Memory Disk Creation tool that can grab images that sit on your Mac and pull them into a slide show format.
The HP Photosmart 720, 620 and 320 digital cameras feature HP Instant Share technology and are compatible with the optional HP Photosmart 8881 digital camera dock. The dock lets you connect to a computer, TV or printer while recharging batteries.
HP Instant Share technology is an Internet-based software application for sharing digital photos. From the back of the camera, you can select up to 14 destinations for any photo. Then, by connecting the camera to your Mac, the photos are instantly sent to the selected destinations — e-mail addresses, printers or HP’s photo server site.
The bad news is that Instant Share isn’t yet Mac compatible. However, HP is working “incredibly hard to make this happen,” Fleming said.