Help me with a dilemma (HP Deskjet 350c)

Member Name: Plymyphil

Product:	HP Deskjet 350c
Date:	27/01/04 (343 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Portable, Robust

Disadvantages: Still heavy

As regular readers of my reviews will know, I work with technology. I am constantly exposed to new technology and often excited by the promise of what it can deliver. All too often the reality underachieves the promise and I have to revise my expectations. This review is prompted by a pleasing change of perspective caused by forced exposure to technology of which I had little or no expectation.

A work colleague was looking over my shoulder at the end of a day as I posted a review. After a short conversation about how the community worked I showed her some of my past reviews. A debate ensued about portable printing. Now, to me, portable printers are redundant. If you need to print, prepare it at home and print it before you leave. If you need to print on the move you weren’t ready to leave in the first place. For the rare occasions when printing away from your base is necessary the extra weight of a portable printer is really not worth the shoulder ache. End of conversation I thought and certainly feedback from my recent opinion in which I stated this case was largely in agreement.

Enter my work colleague. With a laptop essential for work she regularly uses this personal computer both at home and at work. A brief overview of our work environment first. Laptop computers are a big part of our computer solution at work but increasingly they are not networked. The reason is historical. Our network security on our Windows NT4.0 server is compromised by machines running Windows XP. The solution of upgrading the server to a new machine and Windows 2000 will have to come one day but until then laptop computers can only connect to the network if they run Windows 2000 or earlier. As so many people use home computers for essential elements of work, we cannot afford to allow people to charge home ink costs. Hence, most people have to save to floppy or CD, or e-mail in to work to print. No real hardship but wait – one person has a better solution. r>
Having collected her laptop from work she immediately looked for a printing solution. Her physical location in work necessitated a new printer and the one chosen was the HP Deskjet 350c. As this is a work owned printer the printing costs are picked up by work and yet, as it is portable it can also go home for printing work related material without the need to arrive early the next day.

Having had this outline as a use presented to me the colleague in question insisted I take the printer home and try the system for myself.

First, a look at the printer.

It is portable but it is also quite heavy. If you were carrying a laptop anyway this adds about 50% to your payload. The printer is robust. It feels as though it could survive the minor knocks and drops it may experience in being transported in a car boot for example. It does come with a reasonably padded carry case which absorb a fair proportion of these knocks and help the longevity of the device.

Print quality is surprisingly good for such a small and lightweight printer. Photographs have a fair quality of colour but there is noticeable banding. (Banding is the term used to describe those faint horizontal lines that cross the images printed by budget devices.)
For text and presentation graphics such as clip art and graphs though the output is good. The printer has a resolution of 600dpi (dots per inch) which to the layman means the text is fairly crisp and of reasonable quality.

So, what of the experience. Well, carrying the printer around I did find irritating because as I mentioned it does have a fair weight. That said, the convenience of being able to print from my laptop with Windows XP installed was great. Remember, the normal solution is print at home and cost myself cartridges or arrive at work early to print the attachments that I e-mailed in. The facility to print at work from the laptop without needing to e-mail in was really handy.

The print
er has drivers for Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP and Mac OS 7.4.3 or higher. Installation was a breeze and I am beginning to identify times when borrowing this printer may well be really useful.

I’m going to end with a small dilemma and I hand it to you, the reader, to make up your own minds. Often, as I have said, after continuing to use a technology you find yourself wondering ‘why’? Attractive though it seemed in the first few days of use it soon becomes apparent that the other solutions that you used to employ were equally as suitable. For example, satellite navigation. The atlas the night before has always worked for me and I don’t see a time when I would be rushing to purchase a stilted American voice installed in my dashboard. My handheld computer experience has been similar – a great idea at the time of purchase but soon clear that a diary was equally as suitable as a solution for my life organisation needs. And so, my dilemma. Will this prove to be one of those devices which whilst great now and even the cause of some excitement, in the near future I will drop in favour of the old way? I think the answer is yes. My colleague assures me that the advantages outweigh the negatives but I feel sure the additional weight outweighs almost all else. I have used it and I do feel like it saves a little time – but does it really. Setting up a laptop, setting up the printer, finding the paper, printing at 2 pages per minute colour or 5 pages per minute mono. All this takes time. If I had only e-mailed the work from home the night before I could have just clicked print on the work computer. Mmm … I think in time the usefulness of this printer may fade.


Thank you for taking the time to read this opinion and I look forward to any comments you may leave. - Phil