The first thing that strikes you about the DeskJet 6980 is how different in appearance it is from a conventional printer. It's a sort of metallic charcoal grey colour, unlike the usual white or battleship grey, and has a flatter rectangular shape that combines stylish cool with comforting solidity.

Set-up is simple. Snap the duplexer unit into the back (this allows you to do automatic double-sided printing), load the front paper tray (which is fixed in place), open the clear cover, slip in the two printer cartridges and you're nearly ready to go. The usual next move is to attach the relevant lead to your PC or Mac, insert the software CD-ROM and follow the instructions on the screen until the magic phrase "Installation complete" appears.

And so it is here, except there's another moment of magic before that text arrives. This printer has finally caught up with most other computer accessories and offers the possibility of a wireless connection. Not only that, but you have three methods of establishing that connection: through the SecureEasySetup button (assuming you have a similar button on your router or access point); by using a combination of the Windows Connect Now feature and a USB drive; or by briefly linking the printer to an Ethernet port on your network via the supplied cable.

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You can, of course, leave the Ethernet cable permanently attached if you don't have a Wi-Fi network, or just attach the printer to the computer via a (not supplied) USB cable. But the wireless mode is an excellent feature for small to medium sized businesses that have a relatively small number of computers on the network and want to make use of one printer, because all that's needed is to install the software on each machine and you're ready to operate.

The two ink cartridges are high volume black and tri-colour inkjet. Print speeds reach a quoted maximum of 36 pages per minute (at the lowest, Fast Draft setting) in black and 27ppm in colour. The duplex option lets you get twice the capacity out of your 150-sheet front loading tray, and you can add an optional extra 250-sheet tray for even longer life.

It's not just the look and the wireless practicality that will endear you to this little beauty though, because it also produces excellent quality photo prints using the printer's front USB port. PictBridge-enabled cameras can thus bypass a PC entirely and HP's fade resistant Vivera Ink cartridges support resolutions up to 4,800 (optimised) dpi.

The same USB port will allow Bluetooth-enabled devices like PDA photos or mobile phone images to be printed using a suitable print adapter. These images can then be organised, manipulated and edited using the supplied HP Photosmart Essential software.

HP offers its own built-in automatic media sensing which means you don't need to change paper type and print quality settings in the printer software when special media is used. A small optical sensor detects the type of paper in the paper tray and the printer then selects the appropriate print setting and colour map for the best output.

At a very affordable price and with an attractive wireless connection feature, not to mention duplex printing, this is a stylish printer with high output and high quality photo reproduction.