Prints of England! (HP Business Inkjet 1100d)

Member Name: seth1970

Product:	HP Business Inkjet 1100d
Date:	29/05/09 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap and good quality

Disadvantages: May be hard to track down

Review of an old printer that, if you see going cheap, you should jump on it.

Why the HP Business 1100d printer.? Well the first reason is that it was on offer at Staples (£49.99-last one in stock clearance type thing). Another one is that we use the same ones at work, and so I can get the cartridges dirt cheap! A personal reason for it was that it does double sided prints, and as I often do leaflets and small booklets, this is a great feature.
Included in the box is the printer, a power cable, parallel lead, usb lead, driver disk, manuals, a set-up poster and the usual bits of warranty info.

It is not a massive printer (19.5" wide x 18"deep (with tray extended) x 8.5" high), so will fit nicely on most home desks. It weighs in at 19.5 lbs, so is not as heavy as my old Deskjet. The control panel is nicely laid out, has indicators for low ink, and the usual power, print cancel and resume buttons. The tray handles 150 sheets which is more than enough for most home users. The output tray handles up to 80 prints (normal paper).
There are instructions under the cover for the ink compartment that go into replacing the cartridges, and a trouble shooting guide. This is great if you have misplaced the manual (One of my usual tricks!)

Set-up was a breeze. The poster goes through bath physical installation (e.g. fitting the cartridges) step by step, and is great for people with little computer knowledge. It accepts parallel cable or USB, so I went the USB route, and was set-up within 3 minutes using the wizard that appeared. I love XP!!!
But how does it perform?

Due to the fact that I get the ink cheaply (sometimes free!!), I did a good testing with a variety of styles and types of paper.
I used the same 10 page Word document, with several pictures for all the following tests.

Single side:
Draft Quality: 1 minute, 50 secs.
Fast Normal quality: 2 Minutes, 20 Secs.
Normal Quality: 2 Minutes 15 Seconds
Best Quiality: 3 Minutes, 30 seconds.

Double Sided:
Draft Quality: 2 minutes, 10 secs.
Fast Normal quality: 3 Minutes, 40 Secs.
Normal Quality: 4 Minutes 10 Seconds
Best Quiality: 5 Minutes, 35 seconds.

Not sure why the "Fast Normal" print took longer than the "Normal" print, but all prints were excellent condition and there was very little difference between "Draft" and "Normal. So little in fact, that I am going to use draft as my default setting.
Best quality was extremely professional. The pictures were crisp and bright, and there were no smears, unlike my old printer, that always looked slightly fuzzy.

I then printed a photo onto premium quality glossy photo paper. It took 4 minutes 30 seconds on best (The paper is that expensive, it would be a waste to print at any other setting), and
This came out excellent, and rivaled anything I have had developed from the chemists. It was a 8" x 11" print, and came out fantastic.
The printer is reasonably quiet (again, compared to my old printer, which used to wake deaf people in Hong Kong.), which is a godsend when your computer room is next to your 3 year olds bedroom.

Another great feature of the printer is a program that runs in the background that keeps track of how much ink you have used, how much you have used, how many prints you have done, and how many prints you can do with the ink remaining. This is a great feature, as I used to always be running out of ink at inconvenient moments.
I am very happy with this printer. I feel the quality rivals that of a Laser printer, and at the price I got it, it was a real bargain. I have seen it via Kelkoo at £110, and I still feel it is a bargain at that price.

I originally published this review on Ciao undr the name sethsurvey.

Summary: Good quality, reliable printer

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