We can start the review now.

Although I have been using a pre-production B9180 printer for nearly a year, I have avoided publishing too many of my thoughts on the printer, this would have been unfair to HP. Yes there were a few teething problems with the Beta model, I would expect this with any printer or hardware, regardless of who makes it. I am hoping the few problems will have been sorted.

So, the full retail product is here and we can get going with the review. I will cover every feature on this printer and I anticipate this review lasting for 10 to 14 days. Just to keep things absolutely as you would find, I will be using a printer supplied to me in a sealed box together with updated drivers.

What's in the box?

The printer was shipped to me in a heavy duty uninspired brown box, but I have just received an email from HP saying that you will get a Blue White and Green box with a picture of the B9180 to finish off the decor. The whole package weighs just over 25kg, this means you can't pick this printer up with your saturday shopping. It won't even fit in the boot (trunk) of my car, it is very big!

HP Photosmart B9180 printer Eight ink cartridges Four printheads Paper storage bag (blue) Calibration pack for setup User guide HP Photosmart installation CD Power cord USB cable (not in all countries) Quick start guide - not shown

The printer is well packed and padded out in the box, which is just as well because the box arrived here looking like it was at the centre of a rugby scrum. Thankfully the printer survived in one piece, but the box hasn't fared too well. The printer is covered with a polythene bag and a generous helping of tape, this is to stop the doors and trays from flapping open. The Quick start and User guides look like they have been printed on an office laser printer - I assume the retail guides will be a better quality production.

The eight ink cartridges are individually wrapped and the four printheads are each contained in their own packets - looking like an in-flight meal pack. The package also includes a 10 sheet calibration pack, I will cover this on the printer installation pages. I have been using HP sealable blue bags for most of my photo media storage for a number of years, maybe there is a good market for media storage boxes, I used 10x8 boxes in my darkroom days, but have not found any decent A4 or A3 boxes for inkjet paper.

I was pleased to see the inclusion of a USB cable (although we have received a few postings on the forum saying it iwasn't included with their printer). The printer has an Ethernet port, a CAT-5 ethernet cable will be required. Please note that networking this printer with Windows XP Professional x64 is not supported. The only oddity I found with this review package is a 14 inch (36 cm) power supply cable, this wouldn't reach the back of my desk, let alone the power supply outlet on the wall. Still, this is just a minor quirk and the power input plug is a common three socket type.

A single HP Photosmart CD contains drivers for Mac OS X v10.3 & v10.4 (driver version 7.8) and Windows XP (driver version 6.0). I will cover the drivers later in the review.

Please note that the box content will vary from country to country, I am just reporting on what is in this review package.

Next driver installation and setting up.