| Product: |
HP Officejet G85 |
| Date: |
02/03/02 (3186 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Photo Quality, Multi-Tasking, Reliable
Disadvantages: None
If you're looking for a printer and scanner for use with your home computer, look no further than the OfficeJet G85 from Hewlett Packard. This multi-function unit is "best in class," and with such a small footprint, will save you desk space to boot.
Now, normally, I am averse to multi-function units. There's always a small risk when you buy a combo unit that something could go wrong. For example -- if the printer stops working and you have to send it to be repaired -- you would lose the use of the other copy, fax, scan features built into the unit.
However, HP printers and scanners are of such high quality and technical integrity, that they are usually problem-free and work all the time. There are some other manufacturers out there that make combo printers with a similar feature set, but it will be a cool day in Hades before I ever even consider buying one from any other manufacturer out there.
As I mentioned before in my review of the HP 5300 scanner, I am pretty much sold on HP. In a previous life, I ran a desktop publishing operation at a print shop for five years, and the HP equipment I used always worked without fail. I love evangelizing for Hewlett Packard on my job, and given the opportunity, I will always sell an HP over any other brand. They are simply that good!
The HP G85 improves productivity by letting you perform a few tasks at the same time. If you're printing something -- you can be scanning a photo, or sending and receiving a fax, or be lining up a copy or print job -- all at the same time. The jobs you are lining up in the print que will start right away, when it's their turn.
The G85 is available in either Parallel or USB (Universal Serial Bus) versions. As long as you have a USB port on your desktop or laptop computer, you may want to go that route. A unit with a USB connection will transfer data much faster than a parallel cable.
The G85 will work with many different
operating systems, among them: Windows 98, Windows 2000, and Windows Millennium. The combo unit comes with its own HP OfficeJet software that supports faxing, multitasking, printing, and scanning with OCR included. It prints up to 600 d.p.i. in black, or up to 2400 d.p.i. in color.
You will be very happy with the speed of this printer. It prints up to 12 pages a minute in black, and up to 10 pages a minute in color. The black cartridge will run you about $30 a pop, and the color cartridge about $33, depending on where you shop. You should be able to get about 5,000 page impressions from the life of the cartridge. The G85 supports eight fonts that are built-in; Courier, Letter Gothic, Times, and Univers among them.
You can use a variety of different paper sizes with the HP G85. A4, A5, B5, Envelopes, Executive, Index Cards, Legal and Letter are all standard paper sizes that can be run through the G85. The G85 has a bottom-loading feeder tray that comfortably holds a little over 100 sheets. The automatic document feeder on the G85 will only hold about 30 sheets however.
The TWAIN-compliant scanner neatly tucked under the lid of the OfficeJet G85 is a 36-bit color scanner with a resolution of 600 x 3600 d.p.i. The scanner has its own image editing and OCR software included. You will get crisp photo reproductions out of it. In fact, the clarity is amazing!
The built-in fax capability is only adequate. Transmits at 14.4 kbps, or roughly one page every six seconds. Image quality is only 300 d.p.i., in High mode, on the faxes received. One nice thing about the fax -- it will store a heck of a lot of pages, up to 125! The speed dial capabilities are rather handy, and you can send and receive faxes in color or black & white.
You can use the G85 as a copier too. You can make copies at a rate of 9 pages a minute in black, or 12 pages a minute in color. Your copies will come out at up to 1200 d.p.i., and you can reduce the copies by
up to 25% or blow them up by 400%. For some inexplicable reason, you can only make copies in sets of 99. If you make a lot of copies, this might get frustrating.
One of my only other quibbles with the G85 relates to the overall size of the unit. While the footprint is small, the unit is 19.9" H x 18.5" W x 19.1" D -- not exactly the most svelte of profiles. This multi-function printer is a tall one, if I had to give one a name, I'd probably have to call it "Stilts," or "High Rise."
We have been selling the G85 for a couple weeks now at Gateway, and I've sold a few of them this week. Now -- not everybody will want to splurge for this big ticket printer -- but for the right customer, the quality is well worth the price. This is a popular model! If you add an additional $39 to the $599 price, the warranty will be extended from one to three years. Since this is a combo unit, I would always recommend the warranty, just in case. Anyway, those are just some of the highlights of this fantastic new printer from HP. If you need to replace an older printer and scanner in your business, the OfficeJet G85 would be just right for you!
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