It was after all more convenient, instead of printing photos, to just store them on your computer’s hard drive or on a CD. You could share it with your whole family via the Internet, or play a slideshow on your notebook or TV screen. After all, seeing a photo on a 21 inch screen sure beats a 4 x 6 inch photo.

But to be honest, back in the day when photos were mostly found in a photo album, people treasured them much more than now. This is, I guess, why many people are interested in photo printers, and why there are so many models on the market at the moment. If you’re interested in a bigger size print, you have somewhat of a problem though. But before you start worrying, consider the option HP is giving its potential customers, the B8550, a large format digital photo printer. What’s so special about this device is that it offers a print size of 13 x 19 inch. What’s even more surprising is that HP has managed to keep the size of the printer relatively small as well.

The printer comes with 3 Vivera color dye inks, namely magenta, cyan and yellow. It also has 2 black cartridges, one that’s a dye and recommended for photo printing and an extra one that’s a pigment and was included for text and document printing. Another great aspect of printing in a larger size is that you have a much wider choice in terms of paper (you can find fine art paper like canvas or watercolor only in a larger format).

Now let’s talk a bit about features. You’ll get your rather small but convenient LCD panel for navigation, a USB 2.0 port, Bluetooth via a dongle (plugged in the PictBridge port) and the mandatory memory card slots that support just about all cards out there (list includes Memory Stick/Duo, Secure Digital, Multimedia Card, xD Picture Card and Compact Flash). You can also use the card readers on the printer to transfer your files directly to the PC or laptop.  A very interesting feature that most recent printers from HP include is the Auto Sense technology.

What exactly does the Auto Sense do? Well, by ‘scanning’ the barcode of the photo paper you just purchased (generally positioned on the back of the package), the printer will identify it and automatically adjust print quality settings.  This means you, as a user will just have to hit the print button, sit back and relax while the B8550 does every setting for you and takes out an amazing quality photo. If large format digital photo printers would cost a fortune not so long ago, right now you could get the HP B8550 for just around $300 (you could probably find it even cheaper if you’re a patient and methodical shopper).