HP PhotoSmart 1218

Author's product rating:   

Picture quality	Excellent
Printing speed	Very fast
Colour sensitivity	Excellent
Ease of use	Very easy
Value For Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Simple installation, brilliant results
Disadvantages:	None

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

When I changed my home computer a couple of years ago I decided that I would also look at the new developments that have taken place in the field of digital photography. My first digital camera did sterling work (sending email photos, incorporating pictures in Word documents, holiday snaps stored and viewed on computer) although I never got as far as manipulating images and printing my own efforts. This review is an account of my first two years experience with a photograph-capable colour printer. It is also appropriate at this time as the colour ink cartridge recently ran out giving me the excuse (and expense!) of buying replacements.

I would hasten to point out here that this actual model has probably been replaced by a newer sleeker one with a reference number in the high 90,000s!!. I did have a look at the Hewlett Packard website which lists the HP1315 as the most recent replacement model for mine. Bear in mind they are an American company. Their current price is $299.99. From the description pages, I couldn’t really tell what had been significantly upgraded. However, if the various articles in the computer magazines are anything to go by, my comments can be carried forward with confidence to the current market place. Similarly prices for the newer models may well be somewhat cheaper or you will get more ‘bangs for your same bucks!’

PURCHASE

There are several home colour printing kits on the market now, currently aimed I suppose at the Christmas season. Kodak have teamed up with Lexmark to bundle a camera and printer with software and paper into a box that will give you your festive photos even without the aid of a computer. I already had a camera and in any event the pre-packaged offer was restrictive in capabilities.

I acquired details about many printers from several companies. The final choice was the Photosmart range from Hewlett Packard. I then looked at the various options at the computer store. The major promotion at that time was on the entry level P1000 machine which was in stock. I then looked at offers from my main internet supplier who also had available the P1100 (double sided print option) as well as the P1215 (faster) and the P1218 (faster yet and double sided print option).

All models have a similar appearance with a two tone dark and light grey chassis. The front panel has a series of press button controls and an LED status screen. There is a paper tray at the front (with a further small tray that takes 6” by 4” photo paper). There are parallel and USB ports at the rear. Each supports monotone, colour and photo quality output and paper type is sensed automatically. They support printing direct from a digital camera by putting CompactFlash or SmartMedia cards into slots on the side of the printer.

The P1218 boasts 17 pages per minute in black mode (P1000 = 11ppm); 13 ppm in colour mode (P1000 = 9 ppm). Photo quality output is at 2400 x 1200 dots per inch. A full A4 sheet with four separate images took just over three minutes to appear. This speed is identical across the range. The P1218 comes complete with an automatic dual-sided print mechanism.

The difference in price between these models was surprisingly small. The difference in price between the computer store and the internet supplier (dabsdirect.com) was quite significant. At the time (Year 2000) HP advertised a price for the P1218 of $ 499.00 (I bought mine from dabs for £ 290 including VAT); the P1000 was $299.00 (dabs – £219).

I picked the P1218 as the highest specified option. Dabsdirect delivered it overnight from stock.

ON ARRIVAL

Once out of the box two things were immediately apparent. There was no supplied printer cable (HP was advertising a special package with a free USB cable in the US). The supplied manual was in French!.

I contacted HP customer support to ask for a manual I could understand. She apologised profusely and offered to have one sent to me – from Amsterdam!! She also asked me to print out a test page from the machine (it’s still in the box remember) Apparently a number of these machines were sent out with the wrong firmware installed (they act like P1215 printers) – if mine was affected they would arrange for it to be collected and swapped for one that did work correctly. Fortunately mine is OK

SET UP.

So everything is unwrapped. I now have the problem of fitting it all together. This surely is the ultimate test of modern electronics and programming. My equipment base is as follows:

A new PC (11 MHz running Windows ME)
A USB hub
A Kodak DC 3400 digital camera
This printer.
An Iomega ZIP drive

How long will it take to have a final photograph in my hand?

Step 1: USB

The computer recognised the USB port immediately. I had a slight cheat in that the computer supplier had installed the ZIP drive.

Step 2: The camera

No problems here: I plugged the camera into the hub using the USB cable. (Make sure the camera is switched on and turned to Connect mode!!!) Recognition was immediate. I had to start Set-up from the CD ROM drive to download the Kodak software. Transfer of jpg files from camera to ZIP drive was fast! (A card full of files took less than a minute whereas transfer from my older DC210 camera via a serial cable would have taken 15 minutes).

Step 3: The printer

Again no problems. The computer immediately recognised the printer when it was plugged into the USB hub. The printer came with five CD-ROMS (three installation disks for various platforms). Auto-run operated quickly and the process was completed in just over two minutes. A test page option then calibrated the printer and printed out a sample page.

Step 4: My first print

HP photosuite software is extremely simple to use. It allows access to the files on the flash card of the camera which are shown as thumb prints. It can also access .jpg files on the computer’s hard disk or on other storage medium. I chose four images that I downloaded into the print software. There is a menu which presents a wide range of different sizes and shapes of output (a single A4 print – right down to multiple passport size pictures). It is possible to print out (say) four copies of the same picture or four different pictures on the same page.

Hit the print button ---- three minutes later I have developed and printed my first digital photograph. The detail is great; focus is pin sharp; the colours superb.

EXTRAS

I have used the photosuite software to enlarge or crop pictures but I have still not fully explored all the other software that came with the various equipment. There are facilities to do fancy manipulations (sepia tones, solarisations, filter effects, borders); there are correction facilities (under- and over-exposure, colour tone and saturation); there are date – time and titling facilities. For someone with the time and inclination this has all the makings of rivalling the professional laboratory.

SOLUTIONS, SPARES AND SUPPLIES

I must admit that I am a light user of my HP1218. It is my subsidiary printer and for most print jobs I use a monochrome EPSON postscript laser printer.

I did find an answer to one little conundrum which I will pass on to you here. Most of my business work (word processing that is) is done using WordPerfect 5.0 for DOS. The reason for this is not appropriate to go into in this review. This programme, which is now easily fifteen years old still gives valiant service, works happily in a Window under Windows ME or XP and knocks the spots of Word2000 in terms of functionality. However, it does come from an era when printers were tied to the parallel port (USB ports had not been invented) and photo-capable inkjets were still twinkles in some distant developer’s eye. Anyway a superb web site (http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/sitemap.html#homepage) has a magnificent set of solutions for users of the old WordPerfect suite of programmes – all shareware or public domain, including drivers for the most modern of printers and a software solution transferring WP50 files via Windows to a USB port.

I have no breakdowns or repairs to report in the last two years. The black print cartridge that came with the printer is of low volume and should be replaced with a standard model. This was the first time I have had to replace the colour cartridge. Be aware that it is a tri-colour module so if you print exclusively in large amounts of yellow you may well be throwing quantities of the other colour away. There is a status reporter of sorts that issues warnings to your computer when the level of ink is running low.

Replacement of a cartridge is simplicity itself. Raise the top of the printer, the printer is taken off line and the cartridge carriage is brought to the middle. Take the protective strip off the cartridge. Lift the retaining lid to remove the old one and put in the new one – it will only go one way. Replace the retaining lip and lower the top of the printer. You will be asked to insert blank paper and a calibrating page is printer off. So long as the three colour bars have printed out satisfactorily you are on your way again.

HP has recently renumbered all of its ink cartridges so extra care is needed to make sure that your printer is listed on the side of the box.

Current prices are as follows:

Black ink cartridge (number 45) - about £ 25.80
Tricolour cartridge (number 78) - about £ 29.99
HP photographic paper (premium) 15 sheets £ 5.49

CONCLUSION

Digital photography at home from push of a button to final print. This is a great idea, a tremendous implementation - it is foolproof!. Not a hitch in getting started. With no hardware or software problems my photographic adventures will be limited only by my own imagination.