An All-In-One That Is Outstanding But Not Perfect (HP Photosmart C7180 All-in-One)

Member Name: r123

Product:	HP Photosmart C7180 All-in-One
Date:	01/08/07 (409 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great quality prints, High res scanner, Large colour screen, Bluetooth

Disadvantages: No doc feeder for scanner, Pricey at about £300

This all-in-one from HP produces very good quality prints and has loads of features but is a little pricey at about £300.

There's a scanner, copier, printer and fax and the machine has built in WiFi and bluetooth and has an ethernet port.

The Printer

HP claims it can print at speeds of up to 32 ppm mono or 31 ppm colour but I have never achieved these speeds. It may be possible to achieve these speeds in draft quality. It usually takes me about 10 seconds to print a sheet of A4 text of normal quality. Photos are very good quality but I have found it can take up to a minute to print a 6 by 4 inch photo. There is, however, a handy photo input tray for photo paper in addition to the main tray.

The Scanner

The scanner works at resolutions of up to 4800 x 4800 dpi which, for an all-in-one, is very good. Results from the scanner seem to reflect this. There are also additional attachments included which allow you to scan 35mm negatives and slides.

The Copier

As you would imagine from the above reviews of the scanner and printer, the copier produces wery good results in most circumstances. There's the option to copy in black and white or colour. The one problem is the lack of a document feeder for the scanner which means scanning or copying multiple documents can be a pain. You can produce enlarged and reduced copies of originals as well.

Memory Card Readers

There is the facility to read from and write to most formats of memory card including SD and Memory Stick. You can also edit your photos on the machine itself via the large 3.6 inch colour screen.

Bluetooth

This is the only printer I've come across to feature bluetooth built in. It works very well with my N95. As soon as I have selected to print a photograph, the printer starts working and produces just as good results as if I'd printed from my PC.

WiFi and Fax

I haven't used these features so cannot say much about how they work. I can say that the usual fax features such as the ability to store faxes are there and there is also the option to fax in colour (depending obviously on the recieving fax machine).

Summary

I would highly recommend this all-in-one if you can afford the £300 price tag. You may be able to get it cheaper on the internet. I paid £200 for mine when PC World had it on offer.

Summary: Highly recommended if you can afford it.

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