The rise in the popularity of the All-in-One printer continues to soar, especially in tough economic times when small businesses and home offices are trying to eke the maximum productivity out of their equipment at the minimum cost.

HP's Photosmart Premium Fax is virtually guaranteed to find a warm reception amongst this target audience as it packs in just about every current piece of gadgetry that the modern office is likely to call upon.

Bearing in mind just how many features are stuffed under the hood, this is a remarkably compact machine, measuring 468 x 473 x 283mm and weighing a comparatively modest 10.4kg.

Styled in attractive, creamy white, the Photosmart Premium Fax comes with a 50-sheet auto document feeder with full duplex capability, a centrally positioned, 125-sheet main input tray, a 20-sheet, 13 x 18cm photo tray above and a 50-sheet output tray.

The clearly labelled control panel has swiftly identifiable sections for fax, copy, scan and print functions, with an adjustable colour LCD screen at the left end for previewing and cycling through the menu options. Neatly tucked under the control panel is a CD/DVD printing tray into which you can insert a separate DVD holder that hides equally snugly under the input tray.

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There's a huge number of connectivity options available to you. You can join a network, either via Ethernet or Wireless 802.11b/g, and WiFi setup takes a matter of seconds using the printer's own menu. In addition you can establish Bluetooth pairing so you can print photos from your phone or PDA.

More conventionally, you can establish a USB link to your PC, plug in a Flash drive or access the memory card slots at the front (which offer all the usual suspects like SD, CompactFlash and xD-Picture Card). If that wasn't enough, you can print images directly from a PlayStation 3, use the assigned buttons for fast photo reprints and, oddly, even use built-in forms to design your own Sudoku!

As usual, the proclaimed speeds (up to 33ppm for black and 32ppm for colour) never match up to reality but on the whole the printing rate was not too sluggish. We managed 20ppm for A4 Draft quality text and 45 seconds for a 10 x 15cm colour print from a Flash card.

It took a minute and a half to copy a Normal quality A4 colour photo (although the colours had a redder hue and the detail wasn't as sharp) but just sixty seconds for a Fast Draft A4 colour print from a PC, with the same time for a 10 x 15cm Normal image from an SD card.

Apart from the slight saturation issues with copied images, generally the standard of the colour authenticity and vibrancy was excellent and, even on the lowest Draft settings, the black tones were dense and uniformly solid.

If you've scanned the market to find an affordable All-in-One that is highly multifunctional, is simple to use, looks good and can ultimately deliver top quality images at a relatively fast pace, this has to be one of the finest options around.