All for one and one for all (HP Deskjet F380 All-in-One)

Member Name: missy0303

Product:	HP Deskjet F380 All-in-One
Date:	24/09/06 (631 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: High quality prints, Cheap and cheerful, space saving

Disadvantages: None I can find

***PLEASE NOTE WHEN I ASKED FOR THIS PRODUCT TO BE ADDED, I ASKED FOR IT TO BE ADDED TO PRINTER SECTION...FOR SOME REASON DOOYOO HAVE ADDED IT TO TELECOMMUNICATIONS? I HAVE REQUESTED IT BE MOVED SO PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THAT BEFORE RATING...THANKS MICHELLE X ***

***Update 26/09/06***
I received an email today saying the review is not going to be moved as that would mean losing all dooyoo miles....but they are looking at fixing the problem of mixed categories.....

My old printer, an Epson C42 which came free when I bought my first PC almost 4 yrs ago finally gave up the battle and has gone to that great printer heaven in the sky…ok slight exaggeration I donated it to the computer department of my college, for the students to practice fixing or to use as spare parts!

So off I went on Saturday afternoon to find a replacement…I knew I wanted something cheap but not a Lexmark as the ink cartridges are extortionate! My choices therefore left me with another Epson model or opting instead for a Hewlett Packard model (HP) before I left home I checked the Argos website and found a few that were within my budget but thought I’d shop around in case there were any better deals.

So off I trotted to my local Curry’s store to find a pretty dismal amount of printers on display, with only 3 of those in my price range (I didn’t want to spend more than £50) The lady who helped me (some of the printers weren’t visibly priced so had to ask for help) told me that they would price match any printer I saw anywhere else. To be honest I didn’t see the point of this, better still if they beat the price instead of matching it? Anyway I popped across the street of my local retail park to Comet where there was more printers on display, each with the price clearly stated…I found three printers which were in my price range, an Epson and 2 HP’s, Originally my plan was to buy a basic printer capable of coping with light domestic use. But when I saw the HP Deskjet F380 and the HP PSC 1410 all in one printer/copier and scanner for only £49.99 I was hooked!

I called out to one of the sales assistants only to be asked to hold on and he’d get me another assistant as they had a known shoplifter in the store. The other assistant came over within a minute or two, and asked how he could help, I asked about the 1410 all in one first, to which he replied he had none in stock but the F380 was basically the same model, (he didn’t say what the difference between them was but they certainly looked the same) I asked a couple of questions about the printer, ie ease of use etc and once satisfied with the promise that it was simple to use and set up I told him I’d take it, only then did he inform me that it also came with one black ink cartridge and one colour included in price! Even better!! He also said there was no USB cable with it but if I already had one then it would fit nicely as it takes a standard USB (my Epson one fits perfectly)

Anyway the box wasn’t that heavy, perhaps a little awkward, the nice salesman asked if I would like him to carry it to my car….what a lovely touch….but useless as I have no car and was nipping to Tesco before going home in a taxi…

I got it home and couldn’t wait to get it out of it’s packaging. Another easy job.
I lifted the printer from box and picked up the quickstep guide to starting it up. This is a brilliant addition as it meant I didn’t have to trawl through the manual to work anything out.

What’s in the box?

You of course get the printer and the packaging, but you also get the quick step guide, the manual and 3 cd roms (one for windows, one for a mac and a copy of the manual on disc.) you also get the power cable and both colour and black cartridges.

Getting Started

WARNING DO NOT CONNECT USB UNTIL PROMPTED!
The first thing you have to do is open the paper door and the printer cartridge door, remove the items stored within (cartridges and cable) then close it again, you then connect the cable to your printer and to power source. Then it tells you to load some paper to the feeder tray (every action you do is illustrated to help you know where to put paper, which buttons etc to press)
After loading the paper you are told to switch the power on button. After that is done you open the print cartridge door, this will make the cartridge holder to move to the middle enabling you to place the cartridges in easily. There are diagrams on the guide to make sure you insert the cartridges the correct way. A real guide for dummies (perfect for me then) Then you close the door, waiting a couple of minutes whilst the alignment page is automatically printed. After that is done you have to place the alignment page on the scanner bed which is located on the top of the printer. Close the lid and press SCAN. Only after all this you are told to insert the Green Windows CD (if you are using windows) This runs through the installation and you will get a prompt to ask you to connect the USB cable at this stage.

All in all it took about 10mins to get my printer up and running…which for me is excellent! It is very easy to use and I defy anyone not to be able to do it themselves.

PRINTING

I wanted to get started with some printing to see how it worked straightaway, so I went to a word document I had saved for college and clicked on print, initially the machine made a quick noise as the cartridge was obviously moving back to start printing, but then it was very quiet during the actual printing process, I could barely hear it, which was great considering my old printer was a noisy machine. The whole A4 page only took less than 10 seconds to print, and that was black on white writing.

I then put it to the test of printing a photograph of my daughter, this was about half the size of the A4 page and took an amazing 10-15 seconds and the colours were perfect! Almost as good as the original photograph I had printed from. Perhaps If I had used actual glossy photo paper the quality would have been perfect. I tried again, this time with better paper, and the result was fantastic! I would have been hard pushed to get better quality from anywhere else.

I let my children use Paint to “draw” some pictures on PC and then let them print them out and again the quality was superb.

SCANNER

Make sure machine is turned on, Press SCAN button on the top, and a box will appear on screen, asking if it is a document or photo, you can also choose where on your computer you want to send the scanned photo/document to, you can opt to save these settings so that you don’t need to be asked every time. I’d rather be asked though in case I want to change anything at any time.
At the left side of this box is an option “scan picture settings” pressing this can enable you to choose the resolution of your picture, change the output type , ie millions of colours or black and white plus many more…. The other good thing I found here is that you can choose to scan single photo, or scan multiple photos to individual files (single selection for each photo found on scanner bed) so basically you can have 5 small photos on the bed and scan them all in at same time and they will all be individually filed. Or you can scan all the photos to same file. Or just scan the entire scanning glass as it seen (great for collages)

Once you have scanned your picture in you can preview it and make any adjustments to size etc all done easily with no problems.

The copier works in a similar way and can be used without needing to turn PC on, You simply press the SCAN BLACK or SCAN COLOUR buttons on the top of the printer and it detects the item placed on scanner bed and prints it out for you..this is quick too, taking about 10 seconds for black and white, and about 15 for colour.

All in all this printer really was an excellent buy, I would highly recommend this as a first printer too as it is so easy to use and the quality is by far better than my old Epson prints.

Size wise it is not much bigger than my old Epson, and takes up less space than my old printer and scanner took up. It is about 16” wide by just under 10” deep and 5.5” high.

I’m not technically minded at all so reading the list of specs doesn’t really do anything for me…but I will include it for anyone who deems it necessary.

It claims to print up to 20 pages per minute (black) and up to 14 (colour)
Scan at 1200 x 2400 DPI (dots per inch?)
Print at 4800 optimised DPI

PC specs
XP, 2000, SP3, 98 SE, Me
Pentium®II
128MB RAM
475MB HD
CD-Rom drive
USB

Also compatible with Mac computers.

I bought mine from Comet store for £49.99 but is available from their website for £5 cheaper, good if you can wait a few days for delivery. Argos also have it for £49.99.

Printer cartridges are available from Comet for £9.99 (black) and £11.99 (colour) which is reasonable as far as cartridges go, I forgot to ask if you could use compatible cartridges with this printer but I doubt they would be that much cheaper, and I’m sure if you shop around you would find a better deal somewhere anyway. Argos is more expensive at £14.99 and £17.99 respectively. HP recommend you use HP no 21 (black) and HP no 22(colour) with this, and HP no 58 for photo printing (I’m using 21 and 22 and getting good quality photos, I will try 58 next time I need to renew!

I hope this review has been of some use to anyone looking to get a new printer!

Michelle September06

Summary: A great all in one printer for all your printing needs!