HP Photosmart C5180 All-in-One printer (HP Photosmart C5180 All-in-One)

Member Name: dustymillergrist

Product:	HP Photosmart C5180 All-in-One
Date:	10/04/09 (16 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Solid, efficient appearance and does what is asked of it

Disadvantages: Clunky and noisy; can be expensive to run as needs six cartridges

I moved to this model when my previous HP printer finally squeaked to a sticky, painful halt. The two-tone grey of the C5180 combine with its solid feel to give it an air of efficient productivity. In reality, to me it just feels like a middle-of-the-road printer. Yes, it produces my documents OK and yes, it's neat dozen or so buttons are easy to understand. However, it's also given to spells of clunking and whirring for no apparent reason and I often find myself sitting back, listening to it, thinking "is it finished yet?" before I dare touch anything else. Most of all, rather than take just two cartridges (a black and a coloured) like my old model did, the C5180 needs a total of six and, when you print a fair amount on a regular basis, replacing them (generally at significant cost) can get to feel a bit like painting the Forth Bridge. On the plus side, it does seem to handle direct printing of photos quite well, although I'm only recently getting to grips with this. Basically, it does the all-in-one job OK, but I'm not wowed.

Summary: Functional but not over-impressive