The new HP Photosmart 230 ($249 list) is a slick, sophisticated, easy-to-operate photo printer that can function as a standalone device (with input from memory cards), attach directly to certain HP digital cameras, or connect via USB to a PC. Although limited to 4- by 6-inch prints (at about 50 cents each for consumables) and smaller, it produces excellent, minilab-quality snapshots.

The battleship-gray, all-plastic 230 weighs 3.4 pounds with its transformer and a full ink cartridge, and at 5.3 by 8.8 by 4.3 inches (HWD), the printer is small enough and light enough to transport with your laptop and digital camera. The printer's front cover pulls down and doubles as the paper tray. Above it are slots that accommodate CompactFlash (both Type I and II), Memory Stick, MultiMediaCard, SecureDigital, and SmartMedia cards, without requiring adapters. To the right is another pull-down flap that exposes the single, easy-in, easy-out ink cartridge.

On the top of the printer is a 1.8-inch LCD that automatically activates when you insert a memory card. A four-way jog button lets you navigate through images, albeit slowly, and the zoom button facilitates quick panning and magnification. The display is too small and the colors too undefined to gauge color and exposure accurately. Options you access via the menu button give you many of the capabilities that normally require a computer and image-editing software. On its own, the camera lets you adjust brightness, add a frame, add color effects, create a slide show, print an index page, print all stored photos, print range, print a test page, clean the cartridges, and set preferences. You can also set defaults for color, size, camera selection, language, and number of copies.

The 230 is a three-color ink jet printer optimized for printing at 4,800- by 1,200 dpi, and printing is easy. You can print one 4- by 6-inch or two 2.5- by 3.25-inch images on a single sheet or you can print an index page. The unit averages 2 minutes 36 seconds per sheet. You can stack up to 20 sheets of photo paper (borderless or bottom border) in the tray.

The output is photo-quality–rich, with vibrant colors, strong blacks, and sparkling whites. It is interesting, however, that the sharpness of our single-file test prints varied slightly, depending on the input. Using a PC connection, we retrieved a crisply focused print. When the source was a memory card, the output was a bit less focused, and images taken directly from a camera were even fuzzier. At the time of testing, the 230 was not compliant with EXIF 2.2, the latest version of the Exchangeable image file format, so colors varied widely depending on what camera we used to capture the image. HP promises to provide a downloadable EXIF driver in January 2003. Overall, the HP Photosmart 230 is a fun, easy way to print quality photos on the road and at home.