Design
HP's Officejet 7000 photo printer is surprising for an A3 model, simply due to its size. Not its exact dimensions, mind you. It would be ridiculous to suggest that an A3 capable printer might be small in every dimension, as it's still got to accommodate A3 printing, but the 7000 is surprisingly shallow in depth, measuring in at 57.4x40.2x18.1cm. That's without paper loaded, something which is done from the front. Still, 18.1cm isn't terribly deep for an A4 printer, let alone an A3 one. With paper inserted you'll still have a large footprint, and the physics of very long exit paper trays means you'll have a wobbly surfboard of black plastic jittering out the front as well.

The Officejet 7000's construction is all cheap glossy black plastic, and like all cheap glossy black plastic, it's a magnet for fingerprints, dust and scratches. Our review unit came somewhat pre-distressed, but we can't imagine that even a fresh out of the box unit will remain looking clean all that long.

Features
Unlike many units that have travelled down the multifunction path, the Officejet 7000 is a curiously single purpose kind of beast. It's not likely that anyone will buy an A3 printer and not want to print to A3, but beyond paper size selection, there aren't many features worth crowing about. It uses a four-ink tank solution (black, cyan, magenta, yellow) with easy insertion and ink level tracking from the supplied driver application. The supplied paper tray fits all sizes of paper, but it's a one trick pony in this regard, so you can't load up, say, plain A4 and A3 photo paper at the same time. HP rates its print speeds as up to 33ppm for draft A4, down to 8ppm for best quality.

One thing you won't find on the Officejet 7000 is any kind of wireless connectivity. It's starting to become standard even across low-cost printer lines, and at AU$399 it might have been a good inclusion. Instead, you've got the choice of USB or Ethernet connectivity only.