HP Photosmart A636

The HP Photosmart A636 Compact Photo Printer is strong on convenience, with a kiosk-like touch screen and effortless installation. he HP Photosmart A636 Compact Photo Printer obviously has room for improvement when it comes to speed, but for a photo printer, high quality is far more important. With loads of software versatility, a clean design, and vastly improved picture quality, we’re comfortable recommending the Photosmart A636 over the competition. While other printers require an external disc full of drivers and superfluous software, the Photosmart A636 has all the necessary installation files already preloaded onto the device.

At a casual glance, the A636 looks like a fairly typical small-format printer. Taken together, the icons and menus replace front-panel buttons for giving commands to the printer, and the touch screen effectively turns the A636 into a personal photo kiosk when you’re printing from a memory card or USB key. Like the A626 before it, the A636 offers a far-better-than-average balance between initial price, price per photo, speed, output quality, and convenience features like the touch screen and automatic installation. Users can connect to their home computers using a USB cable (not included, unfortunately), but the true bread and butter of the A636 is the power to edit directly from a memory card, USB key, or PictBridge digital camera.

The A636 also has the potential to become completely mobile and self sufficient if you purchase a few additional wireless accessories including an external battery pack, Metro Style Carrying Case, and Bluetooth dongle. The bottom line: The HP Photosmart A636 is an excellent at-home photo inkjet printer that’s both versatile and easy to use.