HOLIDAY GIFT IDEA ~ HP PhotoSmart Premium with TouchSmart Web Printer Review

I first saw the HP PhotoSmart Premium with TouchSmart Web Printer at the Type-A-Mom Conference I attended in August. HP had set up a suite and recharging station for the attendees. I decided to venture in and look around. You can read about my adventure here. Giovanni from HP was so helpful that day as I walked around and asked 101 questions. I also got to meet Angela from HP and she was equally as nice and helpful. As I walked around, I immediately noticed the HP Mini which I love and covet. I was really lucky I got to play HP Touchsmart 600 PC as well. Giovanni was patient enough to demonstrate all the cool features of the HP Photosmart Premium Touchsmart Web Printer. I loved it. I remember going home and hinting to Tom we needed the Touchsmart PC and PhotoSmart printer and that I needed a Mini as well. He ignored me.

So when HP contacted me to do a review of the HP Photosmart Premium Web Printer how could I say no. I was thrilled because I already knew what to expect. When the printer arrived I was so excited to set it up and start printing.

First of all, the printer was easy to set up. Though Tom was the one who set it up, I could have easily done it myself but I hate doing these techy things. The only issue I encountered was when I tried to network the printer and my laptop but that was a problem on the laptop's end because when Tom tried on his Mac, it worked immediately.


Before I get into the cool features of this fabulous printer, I want to talk about the biggest plus this printer offers our household. I am a PC and Tom is a Mac. When he bought a wireless printer last year, we assumed that he was going to be able to use it as well. It wasn't until we set it up that we realized that the printer we bought was not compatible with a Mac. So for about a year, he has been printerless here at home. He has had to take his laptop to work to print anything or have me print it from my laptop. It wasn't a good thing. But now our problem has been solved with this HP printer. It is compatible with both operating systems and now he can do his own printing. You don't know how exciting that is for Tom. I am so glad HP offers printers that are compatible with both operating systems.

I have to say that I loved that the printer came ready to go. We took it out of the box, plugged it in and it was ready to use. As we looked around for the instruction manual, we realized that the printer itself takes you though the instructions right on the touch screen so you don't even need a manual. That's how easy it is. All you do is turn it on and it walks you through the set up. It was fantastically easy to follow along and set up the printer. The printer cartiridges were easy to load and you can replace them individually as they run out! Sometimes loading ink is a pain but this was just simple as can be. Loading paper, both regular and photo, was easy as well.

In the box we found a really cute pouch that had all the cords and cables we needed. This is fantastic because usually we just have this big giant box full of cables and cords and have no idea where they belong. Now we can keep all the printer cords in one place. The printer itself came in a huge bag. Although I know this is the printer bag, I am taking this baby to the beach next time I go. It would fit all my beach towels and beach accessories! Nice touch HP!


Once we got the printer online, it was a breeze to get it to connect with our wireless service. All we needed was our password and it went online quickly. Now we can print from anywhere in the house. That is so handy. The touchscreen is the best thing because it is easy to use and the screen is a good size so it is easy to read.

That was all it took to get set up. It took less than 15 minutes to get it up and running and once we got our laptops to recognize the printer we were in business. It printed out the regular test pages and I tried a few pages from my computer and we had no problems. I even decided to print a picture and the printer automatically knew which tray it needed to be routed to for printing. The quality of the photo was fantastic. I love this because I am the keeper of our Family Album and now I can scan and print out copies for my mom and dad. I am sending this family photo I printed out to my sister for Christmas. After printing pictures, files, web pages we both came to the conclusion that the printer quality on everything we printed was excellent. The printer also has automatic two sided printing which is a wonderful feature.

This printer is also connected to the Internet which makes it so wonderful. And even if you are offline on the computer you can still access the applications that come with the printer without having to turn on the computer. It comes with several programs that you can connect to at anytime. The programs include Fandango, Disney, Google Calendar, Coupons, USA Today, DreamWorks, Nickelodeon, Google Maps and Recipes. I am sure I missed one or two but you get the picture.

We don't have kids but I know many of my readers do. This printer is so kid friendly. If I can figure it out I am sure a child can as well. Plus, the web applications accessible through the printer are fantastic. I went on Disney, Nickelodeon and DreamWorks. What is fabulous about these programs is that your kids can go on the sites and print out the content they like. Disney had coloring pages and crafts. Plus they had a featured movie button. The featured movie was A Christmas Carol and I was able to go on and print out crafts and coloring pages from the film.

Nickelodeon was really cool. They featured many of their characters including iCarly, Dora the Explorer, Go Diego Go and my favorite Spongebob Squarepants. They had a lot of content. Besides coloring pages, they had puzzles, mazes, spot the difference games, word search and many more. DreamWorks had great content for the kids as well. They also featured their movies including Madagascar 2, Shrek 3 and Kung Fu Panda. They had coloring pages, games and crafts. As a test, I printed out the Shrek door hanger. Not only do you get the printout to work with but they also include a page with instructions.

I also loved the other applications you can access. My favorites include the Recipe program where you search and print out recipes of all kinds. I would love to have the room in my kitchen to place the printer there so I can print and cook all at once. The Coupon program allows you to search for coupons by zip code. If you use coupons like I do, this is a really handy application to have.

If you have a Snapfish account you can easily log into your account and print your pictures. This is very convenient since there are many times I download pictures on my Snapfish account. Friends also share photos with me so I can always print out those pictures as well. If you love movies, you can access the Fandango application and buy and print up tickets from home.

The other programs were equally as good. I loved the Google Map application because I am forever getting lost. The best thing is that I can access the program directly from the printer and not have to log into my laptop. The Google Calendar is handy for keeping track of your appointments and you can print out the pages. I am printing out my schedule and tacking it on the refrigerator.

I can't tell you how easy it is to use this printer. I also have to mention that it isn't only a web connected printer. It also copies, scans and faxes. It is truly an all-in-one printer. I suspect that we will never ever buy another printer for a long time. I don't want another printer because I really love this one. Tom was equally impressed.

So if you are looking for a new printer, you have to consider the HP PhotoSmart Premium. It has everything you need and then some. The cost is reasonable for all the great things it does. The retail price of the printer is $399 and it is well worth it. I would recommend this printer to everyone.



Disclosure: As part of my review, I received the product I discussed in this review. No other compensation was given and the opinions in this post are solely mine and are based on my experience with the product. My opinions have not been influenced by the product given.