Apollo P 1200

My Apollo p-1200 printer came as an add on to my PC package, it was only an extra £20 so I thought that I could not go wrong. So did I go wrong, has it been worth it?

Well, the print quality for a cheap printer is very good, in top mode it really looks very good. This is an ink jet, so it is not tip top, but the quality is comparable to other more expensive ink jets that I have seen. It is also colour, but to get this you have to swap cartridges and this is not the easiest thing to do, in fact it is a very fiddly operation that often leaves you wanting to kick the thing!

The speed is very slow, but that is fine if you do not do masses of printing, you can do something else whilst it prints, a little faster would have been better, but there you go. I suppose on draft quality you get 2-3 sheets of A4 a minute. But for the price the speed is what I expected.

But the printer’s real downfall is paper-jams. It jams fairly often if you are not ultra careful when loading the paper and it is the most hellish thing in the world to unjam. The gap between paper and rollers is miniscule and hidden by another component and you cannot easily spring it apart to get to the jam. In fact if you feel like kicking it when changing cartridges you will feel like GBH clearing a paper jam. The other annoying thing is that it does not come with a manual, this is supplied on the machine, but is very poor and basic and you end up having to guess at things to get it to work.

The size is nice and compact and the paper tray folds up for easy storage, but the whole thing does feel very flimsy and extremely easy to break. Although I have not managed it yet.

Do I recommend it? Well for the money I paid I cannot complain, I think it is £50 to buy in the shops, but I do wish I had spent another £40 to £50 and got something of better quality. I would avoid this printer, unless you can get it for the sort of price I paid. The cartridges cost £15 each, which is pricey, although they do last a while.

Oh and if you did not know Apollo, is Hewlett Packards budget printer range.