The HP Deskjet 460wbt printer is useful if you're constantly on the move and absolutely need to be able to print from wherever you are. The option of Wi-Fi printing gives it a slight edge over the competition.

Like Canon's portable inkjet, the £169 (ex. VAT) Pixma iP90v, the Deskjet 460wbt isn't cheap. Unlike the Canon unit, HP's portable printer gives you the option for Wi-Fi printing. The iP90v does include wireless printing via IrDA, which allows you to print from IrDA-enabled phones and handhelds, and using an optional Bluetooth adapter. But Wi-Fi printing is preferred because several people can print directly from computers on the same network (useful, for example, at an offsite meeting). In the end, deciding between these two portable printers is relatively straightforward: for better graphics and photo quality, go with the Canon, but if you foresee a need for Wi-Fi printing, choose the HP model.

HP sells two versions of the Deskjet 460: the £155 (ex. VAT) 460cb, which comes with a Li-ion battery but no wireless, and the £179 (ex. VAT) 460wbt, reviewed here, which adds a CompactFlash Bluetooth adapter (a CF 802.11b Wi-Fi card is an optional extra).

The HP Deskjet 460 printers are reasonably compact for portable inkjets, but they're still large enough and heavy enough that you wouldn't want to carry them around unless you really need to. They measure 34cm wide by16.4cm deep by 22.8cm tall, and weigh 2.22kg without the power adapter or battery. They're slightly larger and heavier than the Pixma iP90v. Although the printer is small enough to be tucked into some laptop bags, the assorted peripherals — the power adapter and extra ink cartridges, for example — make us wish the printer came bundled with a carrying bag to house the printer and its accoutrements.

The control panel is limited to a couple of buttons and indicator lights. The buttons include power, cancel and resume, while the lights tell you whether the battery (if applicable) is charging and warns you of low ink levels. On the rear of the printer are two USB ports: one for connecting the printer to a PC and a second for PictBridge devices and USB flash drives. On the side are two memory card slots — one CompactFlash and the other SD/MMC.

Aside from printing from memory cards, the CF slot is used to enable wireless printing over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, using an appropriate adapter. If you're printing over Wi-Fi, a three-way switch on the rear of the printer lets you toggle between three different wireless profiles for up to three PCs or wireless networks. This is a great feature if you move the printer regularly between, for example, your office, your home and a particular client location. For £10 less than the Deskjet 460wbt, the Canon Pixma iP90v includes an IrDA (infrared) port for printing wirelessly from a phone or handheld.

The paper handling system is simple. The top cover folds up to serve as the paper input support, which has adjustable paper guides and can hold up to 50 sheets of plain paper. A small flap folds open from the front edge of the printer to reveal the output area. The flap doesn't serve as an output tray, though, so you'll have to set your printer back from the table's edge or be on hand to catch the pages as they exit the printer.

A small problem we noticed is that the paper feed mechanism has some difficulty with photo paper. Specifically, when we put a batch of about 10 sheets (4in by 6in.) in, it couldn't pick up the first sheet to start a print job. It tried several times and eventually gave up with an error. If we helped it along by pushing the first sheet manually, the feeder was able to grab it and print, but then it'd get stuck on the second sheet. The problem went away when we had fewer than four sheets of photo paper in the feeder. We didn't experience the same problem when using plain paper. Overall, it's a minor problem, but something to be aware of if you need to do batch prints of photos.

The Deskjet 460 printers use a two-tank ink system. The black ink comes in only one size and prints about 450 pages for £12 (ex. VAT). The tri-colour tank comes in regular (£14 for 330 prints) and high-capacity (£20 for 450 prints) sizes. Using the larger tank for best value, we estimate that a black-only print will cost about 2.7 pence per page, while a four-colour page will cost about 7.1p per page. Both costs are very reasonable for an inkjet printer, especially for a portable one such as this, although they're a touch more than the per-page costs of the iP90v.

In our tests, the HP Deskjet 460wbt trailed the Canon Pixma iP90v in text speeds, although it was slightly faster with colour graphics prints. It scored 4.88ppm for black text, well behind the Canon's score of 6.24ppm. When printing colour graphics, it produced prints at a rate of 1.89ppm, just ahead of the Canon's 1.42ppm. The Deskjet 460 is a bit slower than the Canon at 4in.-by-6in. photo prints: 0.53ppm for the HP versus 0.68ppm for the Canon.

The text prints were near-laser quality. To the naked eye, the text prints were pretty much perfect: dark black, sharp characters and clean lines. Colour graphics didn't fare quite as well, although we still found them impressive. Although we liked the saturation, the light end of the greyscale was blown out, resulting in lost details in some photo elements. Additionally, we noticed some graininess in the same photo areas. The 4in.-by-6in. photo prints fared the worst; prints were grainy and the details blurry. These results aren't surprising, though. The Deskjet 460 is geared for mobile professionals who need the ability to print documents anywhere. The photo prints are good enough for casual snapshots, though.

HP backs the Deskjet 460 series printers with a standard one-year warranty. Telephone support is available, or you can send an email to tech support. HP's site also offers drivers, documentation and manuals, software, FAQs and setup features.

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