Hewlett-Packard's 5150 looks like a lot of things: maybe a futuristic photo printer or an incredibly stylish wide-format inkjet. The reality is that it's neither of these. This HP is a fairly standard $99 printer, albeit one with a few new capabilities not found in similarly priced units.

Initially, though, the most striking aspect of the 5150 is its size. At 18 inches wide and 15 inches deep, this is a huge printer. It's disappointing that paper handling maxes out at legal-size media, but this HP does create borderless prints on letter-sized paper. The printer has a unique Auto power-down capability and also an ink-backup printing feature that completes your current print job when a cartridge runs dry.

Print speeds were a bit above average for printers in this price range. Draft text printed at nearly 10ppm, and my PowerPoint and Word documents both printed at 2.5ppm, enough oomph to zip through most home jobs with ease. Text and clip art quality were just OK, with some visible banding and faded tones. Printing at the high resolution (4,800 x 1,200) didn't prevent banding on plain paper, although color fidelity was high and detail levels were excellent.

Photos I printed to glossy paper had very good color quality, and smearing was minimal after the prints dried for 24 hours. The 5150 printed full-page photos in about 2 minutes and completed borderless 4- x 6-inch prints in the same amount of time. When I disengaged the borderless mode and dropped the resolution from Best to Normal, 4 x 6 prints were done in 60 seconds.

HP's new driver includes Quick Sets, which is basically a list of print-job settings you select from a dropdown menu. You can create your own, too, and that's just another reason this printer is one of the best in this price category.

by Nathan Chandler

Deskjet 5150
$99
Hewlett-Packard
(800) 752-0900
(650) 857-1501
www.hp.com