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HP Photosmart 7850
by alexandjef
Like most people these days the use of a printer is something primary done in the workplace. I've never had much say in the printers we have had at work - usually tied into contracts and price is not much of an issue. We have usually had the best printer that's suits our needs. Cost effective in the long run, good quality and can ... sustain a lot of daily use and abuse. It needs to cope with less than patient people not willing to follow any instructions on how to change the cartridge.
So, for the past few years my relationship with printers was how it should be - very functional. Do the job, do it well and do it everyday. I've never had a printer at home as I've never needed one. I live in a world of emails and smartphones - at home I don't ever need to print much.
However, late last year I needed a printer. I wanted to take some work home with me and there were lots of letters I needed to send out - I needed something that could print in color but didn't want to pay much as my use wouldn't be that high spec of heavy.
I made my first mistake keeping the tradition of how many of my poor buying decisions begin - stepping foot into a Cash Converters. I wasn't specifically for a printer - I had an hour to kill and fancied wasting it sifting though 129384124712984 cut price DVD looking for a bargain. I spotted this just as I walked in among 2 other printers I can only assume escaped a museum. Maybe it being sat between to relics was a clever marketing trick to get me to lug this printer home - the £15 price tag helped, as the printers I was looking at getting were £25-£30. I figured I would save myself some money - a printer is a printer isn't it?
Let me start with the first and only plus - installation is easy. It came with no instructions of install disc - so needed a little help form Windows 7. I plugged in the power and plugged the printer to the USB. It showed up in the print options right away.
Thats where the good points end. It came with cartridges, but the ink level monitor that popped up let me know they were empty. As I'm fairly environmentally conscious and a little poor - I went to an ink shop (The Ink Shop in Norwich). A shopping selling refilled cartridges and refills cartridges. After about 10 minutes of the assistance trying to figure out what make the cartridges were, she told me it was about £2 cheaper to get them filled. First problem - the reason she struggled to tell what cartridges were is its all a bit confusing.
Unfortunatly when I got the cartridges home the color was still showing empty - when I wen't back she was reveled it was broken and I would need new ones. I would have been nice her to tell me this before I was refilled.
A simple Amazon search will show about 12 types of cartridge that all are listed as working, ranging from £10-£25 for both black and white and color. However, not all are suitable - only the £25 purchase will work. Others will fit, but only printer will recognize most expensive set. I found this out with a mixture of my own failed purchases and other who have ranted on the internet.
This for me is a big issue, almost as importantly as the quality of prints is cost and availability of replacement cartridges. You need to be able to get them at an price relative to the printer and not have too much hassle getting them. This printer falls short on both of these counts. I paid more for the cartridges than the printer and figuring out what I needed was a pain.
I eventually got working cartridges - in hindsight a waste of money on two counts. The printer is poor, guzzles ink and rarely works. I would have been cheaper and more cost clever to cut my loses and but a new printer.
Changing the cartridges was a pain, its unclear how they snap in. You need to push at a very precise angle to get them in, and getting them out feels as if your trying to break the machine in two.
Its small and the paper tray works by pulling out a small extension for the printed paper to fall into and the paper is fed through with no support. This means most of the time you need to ensure the paper is sat in the right place to be fed in - sometimes you need to help it a bit to tell it paper is there. It prints slow, even large black text - a full minute of so for one A4 page. The hand full of times I printed color its took longer, and the one time I printed a full color photo just as a test it to 3-4 minutes and drank most of the ink. The result was pretty good but cost wise it was bewilderingly bad. About £20 for 5-6 photos. No thanks. The color was sharp and the image didn't bleed at all. It was vibrant and had the finish I was expecting - I was looking forward to knocking out professional looking results at home, as I'd never printed to this level before. The fun of being able to do this at home though had the edge shaved clean off when I took into account how much of a chore getting it done was.
I connects via USB cable but this isn't a selling point, as everything has now moved to this due to the worldwide inter-connectivity.
To add to the list of faults, it just stopped working on me a few times. Just stopped. It was on looked like it should be working, but wasn't. It has a small red light to indicate fault - but with no screen or display to tell you what that is, your left scratching your head.
I feel sorry for people paying full price for this. A quick search shows its mostly out of circulation - only two online retailers selling it, at a mind blowing £193. I checked Amazon.com and it seems this printer is still available in the US, and just as unpopular. I assume this is a product that was on wider sale in the US with only a few slipping through the net to UK shelves.
There is every chance quite a few of these second hand taking up shelf space in various places and my consumer advice would be don't risk it. It is, in a multitude of ways a poor purchase.
I was surprised. HP is a name synonymous with printing, but this product really makes me wonder why.
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Canon Pixma iP4850
by VampirePrincess
I do a lot of work for my dad so when his printer packed up I went looking for another for him the same day. I wanted something cheap (as I was paying!) and cheerful that would do the job and easy to set up.
Canon Pixma iP4850:
'Superb photo lab-quality printer with built in Auto Duplex print and Single Ink ... tanks. Print from your movies using Full HD Movie Print, or take control of web printing with Easy-Web Print EX.'
What's in the Box?
The Printer
Software Disc
Power Cable
Instructions
(Free small pack of photo paper)
My Findings:
I have a similar model the Canon MP210 which is somewhat a little dated now but very reliable so I wanted to purchase something on the same lines as so far I haven't had any issues when it comes to Canon printers. I needed something that would work for his document work and for printing photo's so this one really did tick all the right boxes for him.
Setting this printer up is nice and easy and will auto detect on most PC's only down side mine didn't come with the USB cable. Luckily the one from the previous printer was the same one needed. It was just a case of plugging the USB from printer to PC, then the power cable from printer to mains and switch on. Soon as the printer is turned on it starts to make a slight noise. I actually don't think it is as loud as other printers when warming up.
If your computer doesn't automatically pick the new addition up you can download software or use software provided. I didn't have any issue with this and was able to use this printer straight away. Of course you need to put your ink in first before printing. This is done my lift the lid on the printer and slotting the cartridges in their allocated slots. They are marked where they need to go and you will hear a click once there in right. The cartridges are chipped so be careful not to touch the chip as this my break the cartridge which I have done in the past!
You get two paper feeders with this printer which I think is excellent, saves me time when having to change from photo paper to plain. We now have one for photo paper and one for plain, lazy I know but certainly a time saver. The maximum is 150 sheets, and will take all sizes up to A4, which I think is great for a home printer. The print quality when printing a photograph is outstanding and brings colours to life even when printing a black and white photo I'm stunned just how well this shows the contrast.
Continuing on with printing this printer will also print double sided, normally if you wanted to do this you would have to re-feed the paper making sure you loaded it in correctly. However this printer will do that for you as along as you select it in your print options. I really love how you can also print straight on disc's you just flip down the cover which is on top of the printer and it provides a support carrier where you place your disc to be printer on.
When printing photo's the printer is a little slower than printing normal text documents, however it is still done in seconds with brilliant quality. Text documents again are great done fast so far I have had no problems with any type of smudging or blurriness. When printing several photographs at once it will pause and state waiting for ink to dry. There for it is safe for me to just leave while printing and have no worries of them being stuck together due to the ink still being wet.
The ink I think is pretty much a standard price, the cartridges are individual there for if one runs out there is no need to replace the whole unit just the single cartridge. In my opinion I think this is a much more efficient use of ink with less waste. It does seem like your spending more when it comes to purchasing them but you are saving in the long run. As which all printers it does state on the instructions that is only recommends original cartridges only but I have had no problem when it comes to using compatibles.
This printer comes with some neat software which enables you to print individual frames of video clips, which is perfect to theme your own party events and you can personalise them with ease. However you can also do this in Photoshop!
The control buttons are located on the front of the printer to the side where you have two buttons, one for the feeder the other being the power button which is elite by LEDs. You also have under the buttons a pictbridge port which allows you to print direct from your digital camera as long as it is compatible.
Things that are not so great when it comes to this printer, however they wasn't needed for us so it wasn't really an issue but maybe worth a note for someone thinking of purchasing this model - It doesn't have any Wi-Fi or Ethernet connectivity and it isn't wireless. You don't have any 'in one' extra's like with the MP210 it can also be used as a scanner, this one can not.
Software that comes with this printer is called Easy-WebPrint EX which claims -
'Easy-WebPrint EX lets you easily clip & combine information from multiple web pages. Auto Photo Fix II enables photos to be optimised with corrections such as red eye removal. Easy-PhotoPrint EX allows easy layouts for printing photos, calendars, and features a Flickr® search function to find appropriate publicly available image'
However I personally find it much is easier to use Photoshop as I think what's the point in loading more items onto your computer that you don't really need. It just uses up space and just an add on to try and sell this printer to would be purchasers.
I do like the whole appearance of this model it has a sleek smooth black finish, but it is a little blucky for a bog standard printer. It does however still look modern and current and fits in nicely with the PC being as that is black in colour too.
Price and Availability:
This printer cost me around £60.00 which also came with 12 months warranty from Curry's in the Merry Hill shopping centre a few months back now. I can no longer see this model on their site however it is a similar price on Play.com also.
The ink for this print averages around £11 each per cartridge and as they are all single it can run rather expensive however you can get a whole set for £23.99 (5 cartridges) from play.com. In my opinion these are just as good as originals and last as long too.
Overall:
As all I wanted was a simple printer that does a good job this was certainly money well spent. It has exceptional printing qualities for both photo and document printing. I think it is great how you can also print straight on DVD/CD data discs. Printing is fast but immaculate and I would defiantly recommend this printer for home use/students and small offices. This really is a decent simple printer and so far is going great with no paper jams of yet!
Don't for get to recycle your ink cartridges!
I give this printer five out of five stars
Thanks for reading.
Additional Information:
www.canon.co.uk
System requirements - Microsoft Windows XP SP2, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows 7 64-bit Edition, Microsoft Windows XP SP3, Microsoft Windows Vista (32/64 bits), Apple MacOS X 10.4.11 - 10.6
Will print on - Envelopes, plain paper, photo paper, semi-gloss photo paper, photo stickers, glossy photo paper, matt photo paper, CD/DVD labels, high resolution photo paper, DVD discs, CD discs
Photolab-quality 9600dpi and 1pl
Full HD Movie Print
ISO ESAT speed 11.0/9.3 ipm mono/col
10x15cm photo in 20 sec.
5 Single Inks
Auto Duplex print & 2-way paper feeding
Direct Disc print
CREATIVE PARK PREMIUM
Easy-WebPrint EX
ChromaLife100+
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HP Deskjet D1560
by danny691
I were on the lookout for a reasonably cheap printer for my desktop PC, but I also wanted something that wasn't too basic either. I came across the HP Deskjet D1560 at a cost of £25 online and felt it matched my needs.
The D1560 is a compact little printer. The printer folds out for use and so is compact enough for storage ... and is ideal for those that don't get a great deal of use from their printer, as it doesn't require much space when not in use. The case of the printer is quite basic and it wouldn't be wrong in saying it looks like a cheap printer. There are two fold-out trays where the paper enters and exits the printer. I could have paid a little bit more for a jet black Samsung printer, for example, but I wanted something simple and didn't care too much about looks. If you are a heavy user you may find it is more than the looks that will put you off, more of that later.
Setting the printer up to my desktop PC was effortless. Simply connecting the printer to the power and then the PC via a USB cable there will be an automatic driver installation. Once the installation is complete you are ready to print, it really is very simple indeed! You could say this makes it very attractive to novices, but to be fair a lot of printers these days are very easy to set up.
The printer comes complete with two ink cartridges, a black and a tricolour one. These are also very easy to install and remove. The printer will indicate to you during the printing process if the ink is low and specify which cartridge needs changing, so it really couldn't be any easier. The area where this printer excels is its ability to print high quality photo printing. The 'fine' resolution gives 4800 x 1200 DPI (dots per inch) which is respectable for such an inexpensive printer. In terms of its ability to print promptly and to a high standard really is a plus-point with the D1560 and seeing the results you wouldn't guess this is a £25 printer. For those that care to know, 'Mono' prints at upto 18 pages per minute, whilst 18 ppm is achievable in colour.
Ink cartridge cost can be an issue for some, and often it is cheaper to buy a whole new printer than a set of branded cartridges. Fortunately supermarkets do sell a set of '21' and '22' for around the £10 mark, so they are reasonably priced. HP cartridges are numbered, and each printer is compatible with certain numbers.
I will now come back to heavy users. If you are a heavy user of such a printer then it is worth knowing that whilst the cartridges are affordable and the print quality is very good, high quality images really do sap the ink quickly. If you regularly print photo quality images then you will find yourself buying replacement cartridges quite regularly, so that is a consideration for heavy print users.
Overall HP have got a budget Deskjet printer to be proud of. This compact printer really does pack quite a punch considering its cost. If you are a light print user then consider the D1560.
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