Last Updated December 22, 2008   Product Rating   Built-in automatic duplexing Prints on specially coated CD/DVDs Good print speeds   Small LCD -- lacks photo editing No USB for PictBridge printing

HP's Photosmart D5360 inkjet printer is a solid printer that has useful photo-related printing features paired with some advanced printing features as well. It has pretty good text and photo quality and a lot of multimedia features, as well as CD/DVD printing. The D5360 is a decent choice for anyone looking for a multi-purpose printer that is economical and useful as well.

The HP Photosmart D5360 printer looks just like all the other HP Photosmart printers on the market today, but that's a good thing. We like the design because it's very sleek, yet functional at the same time. It has a shiny, white-and-grey exterior and measures 18 x 15 x 7 ( l x w x h)- inches and weighs around 12 pounds. On the front of the printer, there's four memory card slots as well as a small 1.5-inch LCD mounted on the upper left corner of the device. There's limited buttons on the printer, including only the standard print photos, print tray, OK, cancel, and red eye removal. The printer offers no image editing abilities due to the small LCD, but you still view them off your memory cards.

The memory card slots include CompactFlash, SD card, xD Picture Card, and Memory Stick. However, the D5360 doesn't have a USB port for PictBridge printing directly from a PictBridge-enabled camera, which we don't like and most other printers have one. The front has two paper trays, the top one if the output tray (with embedded photo paper tray) and the bottom tray is the input tray that can hold up to 120 sheets of standard paper. The photo tray can hold many different sizes, but the max is 5x7, which is pretty standard. One detail worth mentioning is the built-in duplexing feature, which allows you to print on both sides of paper automatically, which is usually something you have to purchase separately and install yourself. Another really neat features on this relatively inexpensive printer is the ability to print directly on specially coated CDs and DVD's. To do so, you'll need to use the included Roxio Express Labeler software that comes with the printer and you'll need to purchase inkjet printable CDs or DVDs (one CD is included). To print onto a disc, you just inset it into a special disc input tray that flips out from above the output tray.

The cartridge system on the HP Photosmart D5360 is what you would expect on a under or around $100 printer. You don't get the more flexible 6-ink system with more expensive Photosmarts, but rather a two cartridge system. For most users, you'll use a black and tri-color cartridge together. However, you can get buy a photo cartridge that will replace the black for more detailed photo prints or a gray cartridge that replaces the tri-color for grayscale prints. The black and tri-color cartridges comes in two sizes, a regular and XL. The black regular is $15 and the XL costs $30 and the color regular is $18 and color XL costs $35.

As we mentioned before, you can't really do any editing to photos right on the printer besides removing red eye. You can print directly from a memory card, but again, you cannot via USB from a PictBridge digital camera. We recommend that if you want to edit your photos, use the included Photosmart Essentials software, which allows you to import photos, edit them, and print or save them to HP's online photo-sharing service called Snapfish.

In regards to performance, the HP Photosmart D5360 performed pretty good. To print a page of text, it takes around 15-20 seconds and around 50-60 seconds for a photos, which is not bad compared to competitors. The quality of text prints is good enough for home use, but some samples do show imperfections. For photos, printing on regular paper isn't really suitable for this printer as prints came out grainy and not too decent. However, using HP glossy photo paper, quality improved a great deal. They look very smooth and the colors are represented very well and detailed.

Overall, the HP Photosmart D5360 is a pretty good inkjet printer for home/school use and it even has some more advanced features, such as CD/DVD printing and built-in automatic duplexing. Its inexpensive price makes it a good buy for most home users.