The HP PSC 1510 all-in-one printer has some nice touches, including a removable flatbed scanner lid, standalone copying, a PictBridge camera port, and unbeatable 24-hour support. But in exchange for the low purchase price, you’ll suffer sluggish photo printing and having to manually swap ink cartridges. You may also need to put up with some design problems, such as a flimsy output tray and a confusing control panel. But if you’re a photo hobbyist and have a PictBridge-compatible digital camera, this is a fun machine to have around the home for occasional printing, scanning, and copying. If you’d rather have an all-in-one with digital memory card slots, check out the Epson Stylus CX6600.
The good: Standalone copying; flatbed scanner with removable lid; PictBridge compatible; 24/7 support; Windows and Mac compatible.
The bad: Flimsy printout management; manual ink swapping for photo prints; awkward control panel; no control-panel photo preview.
The bottom line: This capable multifunction cuts corners on convenience, but the $99 price is right.
The HP PSC 1510 all-in-one sports a glossy two-tone gray body and rounded edges. This lightweight 11.2-pound multifunction is a compact 17.1 inches wide and 16 inches high, but its length roughly doubles to 23.1 inches when you flip down and fully extend the front paper tray. Up to 50 printouts land atop the 100-sheet paper tray, but you’ll need to extend the tray to keep these printouts from falling over the edge. The control-panel buttons atop the HP PSC 1510 are the same size and color, which doesn’t help to distinguish the functions. While the LED is backlit, glare from overhead lights makes it hard to read unless you stand over it. Luckily, the flatbed scanner lid detaches so you can easily scan books. On the right side of the machine, a flip-down panel opens to reveal the black and tricolor ink cartridges. To get six-ink photo prints, you need to swap the black cartridge for the optional photo ink cartridge–an awkward yet common step for budget color inkjets.
The HP PSC 1510 offers what you would expect for its price, but if you have extra cash and want extra features, such as faxing options, a straight paper path, or a manual feed slot, then you should look at a higher-end machine such as the Canon Pixma MP780. If you don’t have a PictBridge camera, you might want to consider a budget all-in-one with a display that previews your photos, such as the Lexmark P4350.
