HP Officejet 6310 Multifunction Color Inkjet Printer

Like many HP all in one printers, the Officejet 6310 is packed with features. This 4-in-1 combines scanning, copying and faxing with its photo and document printing capabilities - all in color. Rounded out with an automatic document feeder and network connectivity, the Officejet 6310 becomes a useful addition to a small office (or home office) environment.

In addition to the ethernet adapter, the 6310 also has a USB 2.0 interface. These options provide the flexibility of having a standalone printer connected directly to your PC or Mac (through USB) or of having a network enabled printer for shared use among multiple machines. HP 6310 wireless support is available through an optional bluetooth adapter.

There is also an option to plug in most of the popular memory cards (SD, MMC, CompactFlash, etc) or to connect via PictBridge (from compatible digital cameras) to enable photo printing without having to go through your computer. The only drawback here is that there's no ability to preview photos directly on the printer - you'll need to print out a photo index.

The maximum resolution is 4,800 x 1,200 dpi and top printing speed comes in at 30 pages per minute in black and white and 24 in color.

The Officejet 6310 uses 2 ink cartridges - one black and one tricolor (yellow, magenta and cyan). You can replace the black cartridge with an additional tricolor ink cartridge for printing 6-color photographs or with a gray photo cartridge (three shades of gray) for black and white photos.

Customer feedback on print quality is mixed. Most seem happy with the photo quality, taking into account the fact that this is an all-in-one printer and not a dedicated photo printer. However a number of consumers have expressed concern about the print quality of some fonts when printing text. Others say that the HP 6310 manual is not up to scratch.

Scanning is made easier with the addition of the automatic document feeder. The ADF holds 35 pages and also comes in handy for copying and faxing. The scanner is a flatbed type suitable for scanning documents up to A4 size at a resolution of up to 2,400 dpi.

The photocopier will do black and white copies at up to 30 copies per minute with color being a little slower. Copies can be scaled by between 25% to 400% of the original size.

The fax unit has a memory capacity for up to one hundred pages and there is a speed dial function which holds up to 100 numbers. One of the things I like about HP's 6310 fax machine is the junk fax barrier. Using this function will prevent printing of faxes from a predetermined set of numbers which you can set.

The only other feature which would be nice to have is a duplex unit. As far as I can tell there is none available - even as an option.

As with most of these products, prices can (and do) vary greatly. I have seen the HP Officejet 6310 all in one printer available for under $100 but that may have been with some sort of rebate.