Printing out the head alignment chart took 1 minute 54 seconds. I printed this twice as the first chart showed some white lines in the bottom row of swatches, the second print (B) was perfect. It is always a good idea to run the head alignment two or three times on a new printer or cartridge, this helps to get the inks into circulation. The actual alignment process is achieved by a laser beam reading the print as it is being printed, a tick at the beginning of each line indicates it has passed the HP test. I wonder how the printer knows the line is going to be correct, it must start to print the tick at the beginning of each pass?

Automatic head alignment	2nd printing was perfect

The head alignment can also be run from the menu on the LCD screen, navigate to Tools > Head alignment. and press the OK button to print.

Driver installation

Once you have performed the above steps then you are ready to install the drivers and other software. Do not connect the USB cable yet. Shut down any open applications and turn off your anti- virus software. Insert the CD and the installation is fully automated from here. A full installation will occupy over 600mb of hard drive space, a minimal custom installation takes up 200mb.

Shut down all running applications	600 or 200mb options
Connect the USB cable when prompted	No problem
Watch some colourful advertising	Register your product on-line

During the installation you are asked if you want to set the 8450 as the default printer, handy for me as I install a new printer at least once a week, but for the average user this will be the only printer in use. The entire installation took over Eleven minutes for Windows XP.

Printer interface

When you start to use the printer the first screen you will see is the Printing Shortcuts tab. From this screen you can select the media type, bordered or borderless, media size etc. You can alter any of the settings by going to another tab, if you make any adjustments then the first screen changes to a Custom screen. There is an option to save your own custom settings, you can access this feature from any of the next five tabs. Select the options you want from the tabs and then click on the Save button and enter your own custom title. This is added to the drop down list.

Printing Shortcuts tab	Custom settings in use
Excellent controls for making a colour adjustment	Or controls for visual adjustments
Advanced ink and drying controls	Preview print before printing

The interface is excellent with plenty of user control, I like the Advanced colour control - pity the preview couldn't have been your own image. These settings are saved with your own custom adjustments (make sure you press the Save button). There are plenty of options on each tab, including a colour management setting. The last tab is printer maintenance, use this to clean the heads, alignment etc. So far I am impressed. First prints next.