
Hewlett-Packard Australia Photosmart 8450
Pros
- Fast printing in both black and colour
Cons
- Its colour printing is more expensive than competitors
Bottom Line
If blistering print speed is crucial--particularly if you're looking to make regular use of the lower quality settings--you'll find this a stunning printer.
-
Price
$ 599.00 (AUD)
The HP Photosmart 8450 has room for three ink cartridges, using up to eight inks at once to great effect; both its snapshots and photos printed on letter-size glossy paper showed sharp details and natural colours.
For the price, the Photosmart 8450 offers many features for operation both with and without a PC. You can preview your pictures on the 2.5" colour LCD and make basic edits using the buttons on the control panel. The media card slots read all the common flash memory formats, and you can print directly from a compatible digital camera via the direct-print port. Also, the Photosmart 8450's direct-print port reads USB flash drives, so you can print photos stored on these small, handy devices.
The Photosmart 8450 is one of the rare photo printers with an Ethernet port; it's easy to put the printer on a network, making it accessible to multiple shutterbugs. Alternatively, you can connect the Photosmart 8450 to a single PC using its USB 2.0 port, or add a Bluetooth adapter to send photos from compatible camera phones and PDAs.
Ongoing costs for the Photosmart 8450 could be steep, however. According to our tests, photo paper and ink cost considerably more than average.
Although it takes time to install HP's large software suite, the wait is worth it. The suite offers a wide range of features for editing and organising photos, and has a slide show creation tool.
The Photosmart 8450 is on the bulky side, but it stashes dual paper trays neatly into its base. The main drawer holds 100 sheets up to legal size. Up to 20 sheets of 4" x 6" photo paper fit in the second tray. You can add an optional 250-sheet drawer; if you want to cut your paper consumption, there's an optional duplexer.
As we typically see from inkjets, prints on plain paper were less impressive than on glossy paper. The Photosmart 8450's colour graphics looked a bit faded and showed some banding. Text printed in a strong black, but fine characters such as italics failed to form completely.
The Photosmart 8450 printed text at 5.6 pages per minute, a little faster than average. You have to be patient for its photos, however. The Photosmart 8450 took over 2 minutes to print a 4" x 6" photo at best quality settings.
Brand Post

Most Popular Reviews
- 1 Asus TUF Gaming VG28UQL1A review: This 4K monitor plays nice with consoles
- 2 Firewalla Gold review: Powerful home network security in a tiny box
- 3 Alienware AW3423DW review: Quantum dot OLED renders rival monitors obsolete
- 4 Acer Aspire 5 review: An affordable laptop that’s enjoyable to use
- 5 Asus ROG Zephyrus S17 review: This gaming laptop oozes luxurious power
Latest News Articles
- Canon ink is freaking out after shipping without crucial chips. Here’s how to fix it
- Epson RapidReceipt RR-600W scanner released for home offices
- Epson announces heat-free EcoTank printers
- Canon’s Pixma Endurance has a new name
- Brother pitch themselves at SMBs with new 'Inkvestment' options
Resources
Business Centre
The latest business news, reviews, features and whitepapers

Videos
Watch our video news and reviews from around the world

Guides
Comprehensive buying guides, features, and step-by-step articles

PCW Evaluation Team
Pedro Peixoto
Aruba Instant On AP11D

Set up is effortless.
Cate Bacon
Aruba Instant On AP11D

The strength of the Aruba Instant On AP11D is that the design and feature set support the modern, flexible, and mobile way of working.
Dr Prabigya Shiwakoti
Aruba Instant On AP11D

Aruba backs the AP11D up with a two-year warranty and 24/7 phone support.
Tom Pope
Dynabook Portégé X30L-G

Ultimately this laptop has achieved everything I would hope for in a laptop for work, while fitting that into a form factor and weight that is remarkable.
Tom Sellers
MSI P65

This smart laptop was enjoyable to use and great to work on – creating content was super simple.
Lolita Wang
MSI GT76

It really doesn’t get more “gaming laptop” than this.
Featured Content
- Best Unlimited Internet Deals in 2022
- Microsoft’s universal ‘One Outlook’ client just leaked out
- Liquid Retina vs. Liquid Retina XDR: Which display is better?
- Which flagship TV is best? Sony 4K HDR Bravia 2016 versus LG 4K HDR OLED 2016
- 10 Blu-ray movies / Best looking Blu-ray movies