Photosmart C5180 All-in-one, printer, copier and scanner, (HP Photosmart C5180 All-in-One)

Member Name: Clarryb42

Product:	HP Photosmart C5180 All-in-One
Date:	17/05/09 (12 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap to buy, fairly easy to use, 3-in-1 print/scan & copy.

Disadvantages: 6 different inks, some difficulty getting origional inks, hard to recycle cartridges.

Having a printer, copier and scanner in one machine is very handy.
It is easy to print a photo directly from the memory-card from a digital camera. Scanning to such a card is easy but to scan directly to your computer requires a cable not supplied with the printer. So I have not tried it yet.
The instruction booklet is OK but they never seem to answer the questions like "how to set black as the default for printing"?
I've had this printer for less than a year and I am on the 3rd set of 6 x printer cartridges Which represents roughly 1 set every 5 months. N.B. One set comes with the printer usually, plus photo paper. Check the box for contents before you buy.
The ink is not so easy or cheap to get if you stick to the manufacturers originals. However, on-line offers can help, like when PC World gave a £9 discount when ordering on-line even though we collected in store. I now generally print ordinary documents in black. Also, the coloured inks don't get used up at the same speed so you could buy them individually when required. It may not be the greenest option on the market. The machine estimates when each one will run out.
In general usage the machine is fairly simple, however it shakes a bit from side-to-side. The regular printing realignments are noisy.
I think it looks quite smart, shiny white and with silver buttons but it is rather chunky.
If you want a single machine to copy/print/scan that is quite easy to use and relatively cheap to buy this is a good buy. I use it every day.

Summary: Reasonable domestic printer,scanner,copier. Quite easy to use. Running costs need care.