General & Price: I have had this printer for over a month now and i am really pleased. I ordered it from HP for £199.99 and it came a day later which i was surprised and very pleased with. Elsewhere i could find the printer in the price range of £200-£250. I unpacked the box and took everything out. Everything was in the box that was surposed to be.
Instructions: With the printer came a full instruction book on how to do everything, and a quick step guide on setting up the printer. The quick step guide was really easy to follow. It gave 3 seperate sections for setting up with USB, wired network and wireless network. I followed the quick step instruction first to set up the printer and this was really easy to do. I connected all the cables then turned it on and it worked fine. I then installed it on my computer with the CDs that came with it. This was easy to do. I put the CD in and the message came up asking me if i want to install the printer which i did. I followed all the steps which was simple, the installation process took a little while but nothing to worry about.
Printing: Once i had the priner connected to my computer by USB i decided to test its features. I started with a simple Microsoft Word document print with just black text. This printed straight away and was very quick. The text was excellent quality even with draft
quality selected. When draft quality is selected the printer prints as fast as some lasers and the quality is nearly as good. I then tried a photo firstly on A4 printer. I put glossy paper in the main paper tray, found a photo and selected good quality etc and it printed perfect. I thought my last photo printer, Epson Stylus Photo 750, produced excellent photos but i compaired the HP print to the Epson one and the colour from the HP one was so much clearer and brighter. It is also much faster than my Epson printer and quieter. The quality was excellent and dried straight away. I then tried a print on photo size paper which was really quick and again brilliant quality.
Wireless network setup & printing: Ok so i was happy with the USB setup so i decided to try the wireless setup wih my laptop. Firstly i went to the menu on the printer itself which was easy to do. I found wireless setup and it found my wireless network very quick. I then put the CD in my laptop and followed the wireless setup in the step by step instructions. This installation took a little longer than on the computer but still nothing bad. Once it had found the printer i decided to try a print. I went onto Word and printed a simple document. I was doing all this in a different room to that the printer was in. I clicked print and went into the room the printer was in, just as i got there the printer started up and was printing the page. I must say, from when you click print on the laptop and when the printer starts printing there is a slight gap, takes longer than when it is connected via USB but that was expected.
Scanning & copying: Now for the scanning and copying. This was simple to do both on the printer itself and via the computer. I first started wth a document in the flat bed. Quality was fantastic even when it was only selected at 600dpi. I selected the copy function on the printer itself and it gave me a wide choice of places to scan to including microsoft Word, Paint, HP photosmart which comes with the printer and other places. I scaned to Paint. It started the scan (this is one point, when you scan straight from the printer you cannot easily select copy quality, if you want to select all the different options then scan from your computer using the software including). Even so the quality was excellent. I then tried a scan from the computer which was better as it gave you chance to choose different options such as quality. Scanning speed was quite quick even with high quality selected. I then tried copying. I tested the auto document feeder above the flatbed scanner. I put a sheet of paper in and a little sensor detected the paper and opened the print/scanner function window on the computer. This allows you to either copy from the computer and select different options but i find it easier to copy straight from the printer. All you do is click copy menu then you can choose copy size, quality, etc. Then you click either Colour copy or black copy button and the sheet will be taken through the top scanner and the printer will print onto a new sheet of paper. This was quick and good quality.
Inks: The inks are nifty. There are 6 colours altogether. A large black, a yellow, a light and normal Cyan and a light and normal magenta. These were to easy to put in. They are all colour coded and have set shapes on the back so you can't install then in the wrong slots. Each one pushes in then a cover clicks over them. The printer detected when any cartridge is missing, and tells you the levels of each ink on the winodw on the computer and you can also see the levels on the screen on the printer. Unlike some people say, the ink does not get used up quick. The only ink i have had to replace so far is the yellow. This is quite understandable though. The other inks stay full as instead of just one colour, there are two, light and normal which saves on alot of ink. Most of my other colours except black are still full. The black lasts a long time as it is a bigger cartridge than the others.
Paper handling: The printer has quite good paper handling. On the bottom it has the main paper tray which pulls out for easier access. It has to sliders to hold the paper into place. Just above this is a small blue tray which is just for 10cmx15cm photo paper. This means you do not have to remove all the other paper to print on photo paper. Above this tray is a third tray. This is the output tray which has a section which pulls out to hold all the paper. On the top of the printer is the scanner/copy section. This has a flat bed scanner. The top opens to allow paper to be placed on. There is also the auto document feeder which holds around 50 sheets of paper and feeds then into the tray just underneith.
Other printer features: This printer has faxing capabilities. I do not know much about the fax function as i do not need it but it has a 0-9 keypad to dial numbers. You can fax in black or colour, and there is a auto answer function to allow faxes to be sent straight through. On the left of the keypad area is the screen. This is a good size screen which allows you to see photos, the on screen menu etc. It is very bright in full colour. Next to the screen are fuctions such as zoom, back, cancel etc which is all for the menu. On the front right of the printer is the memory card section. There are 4 slots which allow around 6 or 7 different types of cards. When you plug a card in on the screen you will be given 4 different options: view and print, reprint, save, and share. The view and print allows you to see the photos on your card, you can crop them etc them print in colour or black and white. The reprint isn't actually to do with the card, this is when you have a hard copy of a photo and it asks you to put it in the scanner. The save function allows you to save the photos to any computer connected to the printer. The share function allows you to add the photos to an email. There is also a USB port for is your camera is pict bridge which means you can connect your digital camera to the printer via USB cable.
I could say more about this printer but i will be going on for ever. I can't really think of many faults with this printer. I can be a little noisy whilst printer but nothing major. The output tray is a bit flimsy, the carry handles either side are two small to carry the printer for a long time. Apart from these little things, i can't really find much else with it. I am very pleased and i hope this printer will last as long as my previous printer. I recommend thid printer for anyone looking for a brilliant quality all in one photo printer.
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May 24th, 2007
(Jun 7th, 2007)
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