Key Specs
USB; 802.11b/g8.5x14 inches
Four or six (with optional photo cartridge)
Two
1,200x1,200dpi (1,200x2,400dpi interpolated)
1,200x1,200dpi
1.5 inches
6.4x17.1x11.4 inches
11.2 pounds
HP’s $129 Photosmart C4580 isn’t the cheapest all-in-one (AIO) you can buy, but it has an excellent features-to-cost ratio. It provides the core capabilities most families and small businesses need: printing, copying, scanning, and Wi-Fi connectivity. The print quality is also quite good, though printing could be faster.
Inexpensive AIOs are often defined by what they don’t offer compared with their higher-priced cousins. The C4580 doesn’t fax or have a built-in CD burner. It doesn’t have an Ethernet port or support Bluetooth. There’s also no provision for adding duplex printing or a second tray for snapshot-photo paper. (You’ll have to swap out the paper and manually adjust the paper guides.) If you need one or more of those features, there are plenty of choices, such as the Epson Artisan 700, Canon Pixma MX700, and HP Photosmart C8180; just expect to pay more.
Another gripe: As with other HP wireless printers, the installation can be a bit confusing. You have to install the printer for either a USB connection or an 802.11g Wi-Fi connection. There’s no option to install for both, which many people will want to do.
Still, if you dig into the documentation, you’ll find the printer does support both types simultaneously; you’ll have to install the software again and select the other connection type. Your computer will then have two C4580 printer profiles you can choose between, as needed. The printer has a host of other attractive features. It supports both USB and Wi-Fi connections. It has memory-card slots for direct printing of digital photos. There’s a built-in LCD screen, though it’s a tiny 1.5-inch display that shows only a few menu choices at a time. And despite the low price, the plastic casing seems well-constructed and reasonably durable.
The C4580 also has scanning features you don’t often find with low-end models, such as optical-character-recognition (OCR) software. You can initiate a scan from the printer’s control panel, as well as from your computer. You can also use the control panel to select the networked computer that will receive the initiated scan. Print and copy quality were very good using the supplied black and tricolor cartridges. There was little difference in color saturation or perceptible resolution between the normal and best print modes when using regular paper, even though the best mode took considerably longer. Our standard 10-page test document with a mix of text and images printed on plain paper in a relatively slow 3 minutes and 10 seconds, and a 20-page document took 3 minutes and 2 seconds.