Home > Consumer Reviews > HP A717 Hp Photosmart A716 Compact Photo Printer

This compact printer is perfect for someone who wants hard copies of all those digital pictures you take. It can access pictures from various sizes of memory cards so there's no need to attach to a computer. The one problem I found with this printer-- and every other compact printer I've tried-- is that it tends to cut off the very top portion of your original photos. For instance, if you have a group shot and the top of the frame is close to the tops of the people's heads, it's possible the print will crop off those people somewhere around the eyebrows. This can be very annoying! Now I have fixed that problem by using the ROTATE button so that it prints upside down and cuts off the lower portion of the picture only. I've often wondered why the default isn't to cut off the bottom, not the top, but this trick has made it easy to deal with pictures where important features are located very close to the top of the frame. There are also zoom and crop features as well as other creative features if you want to get fancy with your prints. Print quality is excellent and everyone thinks I've had the pictures printed professionally.

I've had this printer for about 1 year and am completely satisfied. I don't understand why there are so many HP models similar to the A717 with such wide price differences. The A717 appears to be the cheapest but it doesn't lack any features that I want. I'm now shopping for 2 more for Christmas presents.