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• The Good: User-friendly interface. Sleek and stylish design, with a compact size. LCD screen is vibrant and sharp. Hard drive capacity tops up at 4GB. Nice remote control
• The Bad: A little slow in printing images. Inconsistent quality in printing images heavy on skin tones with higher levels of contrast
• The Verdict: A good looking printer that struggles at times
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Having a portable photo printer at home is great for those family gatherings where a memorable moment has made everyone laugh or when long lost relatives find each other in an embrace at a family reunion.

But producing photos at home is still a relatively new process, and while it's convenient, the jury is still out on whether it's a viable alternative to a photo lab.

The HP Photosmart A716 is one of the manufacturer's latest portable photo printers and it packs in more than any of the previous models. It's sleek, stylish and has enough bells and whistles to keep your images away from a PC, but there's more to all this than meets the eye.

Making it go as easy as plugging it in

Setting up the A716 is a very simple process, so even an abashed novice could get this thing started. The reason is because the printer has been designed to be more of a plug-and-play device, which means that once you put the ink cartridge in, turn the power on and put in a sheet to align the cartridge, you're pretty much ready to do what you want afterward.

Printer alignment is forced on you before you can get started on anything, so since all it takes is the push of a button, the user-friendliness is definitely a plus. Taking the front panel down pops up the LCD screen to a 45-degree angle, while also pushing out the loading tray in the back. It's a snazzy little feature.

Slow and steady... Did i mention slow?

When it comes to actually printing, the A716 has some mixed results. The print time clocks out at two minutes per print on average, which is a bit slow, even for ink. The LCD screen is vibrant and sharp, but can also mislead you when it comes to what's outputted.

Generally speaking, my tests showed that the A716 can handle landscapes and architecture well, but there's a real inconsistency when it comes to skin tones and high contrast images. In one instance, the image projected on the LCD screen was easily three times brighter than what was eventually outputted. Indeed, the final print was useless simply because the shadows were too dark and the skin tone was filled with noticeable pixels.

Printing a landscape image from the same location showed better results, except for the fact that there was a little too much saturation in red and magenta. The good thing is that some of the issues that creep up in printing can be resolved through the software interface within the A716.

Tweaking, though limited, can solve some issues

Brightness, contrast or colour balance can all be tweaked through the editing menu, and though the options aren't overwhelming, they should be able to help through some of the problems that pop up.

But unfortunately, it's not always the best way to go. Part of the problem with all this is that the A716 is a little erratic at its default settings, and printing three of the same image to get the right colours and tones becomes almost cost-prohibitive. HP says that it should amount to about 39 cents per print, but that's assuming that you get it right the first time, every time.

This isn't to say that you can't get it right on the A716, only that you need to really fiddle with the settings and learn how the unit works with different types of photos. This is even more important if you plan to try printing 5x7 or 4x12 panoramic images, both of which are supported by the A716. Since there's no cost-per-print to point out, it's hard to say how cost-effective printing those sizes might be, but either way, the quality has to be consistent.

Waterproof, except when put into contact with moisture

HP has also boasted that the printed images are waterproof, but this is only true under the right circumstances. Under hot and humid conditions, the ink can be rubbed off — without any water being used. But assuming you spill water or another drink onto the photo, you'll get away with it most of the time, but not always. There may be smudging in some cases or there may be no effect at all. As long as you're in room temperature, you shouldn't have much of a problem, but HP's assertion that a print will be dry once it spits out of the A716 is not really true.

But at least if you ruin a photo through an act of clumsiness, you can just go back to the A716 and print out another one by taking it from the built-in hard drive. The previous model, the HP Photosmart 475 GoGo, had a storage capacity of 1.5GB, but the A716 carries significantly more at 4GB. Considering that could be thousands of photos, there's never a real need to keep using a memory card to print images.

Meant for the home, fun for the whole family

It's also nice to see that you can display photos through a TV and use the A716's remote control to print out an image that you or someone else really likes. It's sort of like a show and tell for adults, though kids will likely be able to figure out how to do it too.

And the family is very much the target for an item like this because it works best in a home environment. The A716 is small and even has a handle for carrying to multiple locations but it's probably best suited for those tender moments with family and friends in select environments.