HP Deskjet 6540

Deskjet printers have come in for some bad press of late and as a result, consumers are wising up to vendors’ tricks and approaching the purchase of essential kit with more foresight and knowledge.

Printer manufacturers such as HP, Brother, Lexmark and Dell have responded to this closer scrutiny with a new, refreshing honesty about running costs and now give users amore basic product that acts as the starting point for a series of optional add-ons and upgrades.

Of course, this is more expensive for the user, but at least it sets out from the off what will be needed rather than leaving you digging into your pockets months down the line.

One such machine is the HP Deskjet 6540 – a small and very stylish printer that offers core functionality in a well-built package.

For a printer of this price, HP has really come up with the goods in terms of product design. The 6540 feels solid and the metal finish gives it a classy look and an expensive feel.

Print monitor and progress buttons are positioned on the front of the unit and the printer accepts Colour and black cartridges come as standard, but a six-colour cartridge comes as an optional add-on.paper feeds through the standard HP front-feed system.

With basic black and white text printing the 6540 performed well at around 9.8 pages per minute, not quite the top speeds available to laser users. Lowering the default settings to draft quality increased the speed to 30 pages per minute, but this caused some obvious knock-on effects in terms of quality. In best and normal quality settings the results were crisp and clear.

The colour print performance of the 6540 also produced pleasing results at a slower 5.7 pages per minute in normal print mode or 2.1 pages per minute in best quality mode. Colours were true, if a little dull in places, but impressive enough.

The 6540 also delivered great images from digital photo files, especially using the optional six colour cartridge. Our prints took some time to arrive, but the results were grain and smudge free with vivid colours and great definition.

A standard 150-sheet paper tray, 16MB of memory and USB and USB2.0 connectivity are included and there’s also a socket positioned at the front. HP is pushing this as a “walk up laptop” connection but we suspect it’s nothing more than another USB port that’s easier to reach.

At £118 the Deskjet 6540 is well priced for either the small business or home user, but a little more cash spent on extras such as the HP Duplex unit would add functionality.