While some all-in-ones offer great quality, some focus on speed and others pack in the features, a select few succeed in combining all three with little compromise. Canon’s Pixma MP500 is one example and HP continues its superb run of form with the Photosmart 3110.

As well as winning our recent inkjet Labs with the Photosmart 8450, HP took a Recommended award for the 8230. We praised its speed and quality, so we were pleased to find the same print engine in the 3110.

As the engine recirculates ink when performing cleaning and maintenance cycles, it’s more efficient than others with permanent print heads. This proved true in our intermittent testing, with the 3110 managing as many prints under intermittent use as it did under our continuous rundown test. However, as you’ll see on page 80 the price per per 6 x 4in photo is a whopping $1.84 – destroying HP’s big ‘efficiency is cheaper’ campaign claims. This is because of the high price of consumables. Using HP’s Advanced paper, which offers similar fade resistance to its competitors’ best, reduces costs to $1.24 (and down to $0.69 when bought in a value pack) so we didn’t hammer HP too harshly, but its consumables pricing needs to be addressed.

The 3110 matched the 8230’s print quality, although even this isn’t quite at the same high standard as the Canon MP500. Text is black but slightly feathered around the edges and our monochrome test image took on a faint green cast. Other than that, though, we didn’t see any weaknesses throughout our photo tests.

The five 6 x 4in prints were superbly reproduced at exactly the right saturation and tone, and the level of detail was excellent, with no visible grain or banding. The latter traits are only noticeable on the A4 photomontage if you peer up close. If print quality is your main priority, the Canon has the edge, but the 3110 compensates in other ways.

The most noticeable of these is the quality of its scanner. Even though it uses a CIS sensor, both the copying and scanning tests were the best on test. The 3210 made three copies of our 6 x 4in photo in a little over six minutes and, although this is by no means the quickest, the reproductions were extremely close to the original and the level of detail was fantastic.

This was further emphasised in our scan tests. The scan of our 10 x 8in jewels image at 600ppi (along with the PSC 1510’s) showed up tiny imperfections in the edges of some precious stones that every other scanner missed completely. If there’s one complaint, it was that some scans were slightly overexposed, which is a simple problem to fix.

Scans are quick too, taking just 40 seconds to scan the jewels at 600ppi. Our 12 x 10in photo scanned at 300ppi in just 21 seconds, and copies of text documents were reproduced at a decent rate of 4ppm. Draft quality isn’t a huge step down from Normal, so the impressive speed of 15ppm and copy rate of 10ppm could prove useful when top quality isn’t essential. The resulting image detail was good, but the colour reproduction was poor compared to the Epson RX650 – you’ll need to correct colours using the bundled HP Image Zone.

You can also share photos and videos from media cards or an attached camera using the EasyShare function. Note that there’s no support for SmartMedia. However, we still like the intuitive 2.5in colour LCD, which makes it simple to use the 3110’s standalone functions. In fact, the only feature missing is fax capabilities – for this, look at Dell’s 964.

A useful button labelled Photo Tray is used to switch between paper sources: the 3110 has a 100-sheet A4 cassette as well as a separate 6 x 4in photo tray so you won’t have to remove A4 paper when you want to print borderless photos. Another useful option is HP’s duplex printing unit, though Canon’s is standard.

All things considered, the 3110 and the Canon Pixma MP500 were hard to separate during our testing. If this were purely a printer test, the Canon may just about prevail thanks to its near-perfect text handling and superb photo output (although HP’s photos won’t fade as much). But these are multifunction devices, and the scanner and copier functions are equally important. In this respect, the 3110 is streets ahead of the competition.

On its own or on a network, whether you’re scanning, copying or printing, the HP Photosmart 3110 is a superb all-in-one and a deserving Labs Winner this month.