The designers of the DeskWriter 560C clearly drew their inspiration from the Maginot Line. It's boxy. It's big. And it's a great place to stand your coffee mug. [Except that coasters don't cost £540 and they still work if you spill coffee on them - Ed]
The 560C's ancestors have been the mainstays of many a small office, and this latest family member isn't about to let down the DeskWriter's name. It has a permanent sheet feeder and out tray, both conveniently situated at the front, and the sockets at the back are all neatly recessed to allow the printer to be pushed back against a wall.
The driver software with it is Hewlett Packard's usual high quality offering. It offers previews, various colour matching and print quality options, and a good background printing system. The 560C is also networkable on AppleTalk.
Like other DeskWriters from Hewlett-Packard, the 560C is an inkjet. It has a maximum resolution of 600 x 300 dpi when printing in black only, and 300 x 300 dpi when printing in colour. It's a four-colour machine, with the black ink being stored in its own cartridge, enabling it to be replaced without you having to lose the other three colours.
The fact that it is able to use black where it's needed makes a big difference to print quality. The test documents showed the DeskWriter 560C to be the best of the inkjets reviewed, just beating the StyleWriter 2400. In the scanned image, primary colours were bright and clean, shadows were deep, and details were quite crisp. Block colours weren't quite so good, however, and tended to look a little weedy, but text was good and black.
The printer was one of the quietest in operation, but unfortunately, it was one of the slowest too. On average, and in best mode, it took marginally longer than the Colour StyleWriter 2400 to print the test page.
Ratings
Price: £540.50.
Requires: Mac Plus or better, at least 4Mb of RAM and 7.5Mb of free disk space.
For more details contact Hewlett Packard on 01344 369369.
Features
good solid all-rounder - -96%
Ease of use
No problems, but not very fast. - 90%
Value for money
Delivers very acceptable print, and it's built to last - 95%
