HP has put a lot of effort into improving the performance of its entry-level multifunction. The Photosmart C4180 was twice as fast as its predecessor, the Photosmart 2575, in printing 8½x11 or 4x6 photos. That puts it just about on a par with the Canon Pixma MP510, though the Canon does have a certain advantage when printing large photos. Text mode was also very fast, reaching almost 15 ppm.

Cost Per Page

In spite of a slight drop in the price of the cartridges, the Photosmart C4180 is still expensive to use. A 4x6 photo on average-quality paper came in at 43 cents, compared to 36 cents for the Canon and Epson models. Unfortunately, the capacity of the ink cartridges is quite low, and you'll have to change them fairly regularly, especially if you print a lot of photos.

Scanning And Copying

As is often the case with multifunctions in this category, the scanner won't be practical for scanning at more than 300 dpi. At 600 dpi, it took over two minutes to scan an 8½x11 document, which is hard on the nerves. The copy function performed reasonably well.