I purchased this printer nearly 12 months ago, at the bargain price of £19.99 (prices may differ now), at the time it also came with free delivery. The printer was brought as a in between printer as I did not expect it to last long at the price it was available for. Needless to say, it's been excellent 12 months down the line and it's still going strong!
When purchasing through Dell, they automatically add extras on before you purchase which knocks the price up a little, you
simply need to go through and take these off. For example they charge you extra for the USB cable, it's about £12, all you need is a standard USB cable that will fit most printers, you can buy these for next to nothing, and most people who have previously owned a printer that required a USB cable will fit that they have one kicking around the house.
As for speed of printing, to be honest, it's not too bad, it's not lightening fast like a laser printer, but it is faster than a lot of the older inkjet printers, and it's quite quiet as well. The only thing that can be a little disconcerting is that it prints upside down and last page first (although this can probably be changed in the settings somewhere, I haven't tried to change it). You just need to remember that when printing labels or envelopes, or they'll all come out upside down!
The print quality of the printer is very good as well, even with a refilled cartridge. I have often put the printer on to it's photo printing setting and printed on to gloss printed paper. Occasionally it is a little liney, but this is resolved by cleaning the print heads.
The biggest the that most people think about when buying a printer is the cost of replacing the ink when it's run out. And I do have to say, when buying your top up ink from Dell, it can get a little pricy. I have found a way around this however. Inktek do a Ink refill kit for this printer, it costs about £8, rather than £30 for a new cartridge you can get 1 bottle of each colour or 3 of the same, it comes with instructions and tools etc. The colour that gets used the fastest is the blue, this is due to printing black text. If you are going to attemp to refil your cartridge the computer will continue to tell you that you are out of ink, this is because the cartridge comes with a little chip in it to tell the printer how much ink is left. This does mean that you sometimes have to guess how much ink is left, but waiting for the printing to change colour (normally it goes pink then you have to add more blue). You also need to remember to clean the print heads regularly.
If however refilling your cartridge is not for you, then by all means buy the Dell cartridges. I'm sure if you search the internet you'll be able to find some compatible cartridges (although I've not had much luck with this).
I would also say to be wary of the draft feature. First off, only use the draft feature when printing black, if you try to print a colour with the draft feature then it ends up being near impossible to see. Also, you need to keep your eye on the printer when printing in draft, it seems to go in to over drive, it prints almost 10 times faster than normal printing and the printed pages will not say in the paper collecting tray, infact they seem to have a mind of their own and shoot across the room, leaving you to sort the pages in to the correct order again, so it's best to stand there and wait for it to finish and collect the pages as they come out.
Over all, I'm very pleased with this printer. Generally my luck with inkjet printers has been almost nill, and I've had to replace them every 9 - 10 months. And so far this printer is doing brilliantly. I wouldn't say my use is a great amount, although it's definately more than the average home printer. And the ink cartridge in the printer is still the original one it came with.
And the best bit of all, is that this printer works, very happily with Windows Vista.
Would I recommend this printer, yes, it's a good alround home office printer.
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Aug 9th, 2007
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