Compact value for money home printer (HP Deskjet 3845)

Member Name: helenmay80

Product:	HP Deskjet 3845
Date:	15/11/05 (556 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great value for money, quick printing, compact, easy to use

Disadvantages: A little loud when printing

I've been looking for a new job recently and my boyfriend was getting fed up trying to sneak my CV through his printer at work, so we decided it was time to buy our own. We've only got a little flat so wanted a compact, relatively cheap printer, which was easy to use. Although we don't have a digital camera yet (it's next on the wish list!) we wanted a printer which would be able to print good quality photos too.

We decided upon a Hewlett Packard 3845 as it fulfilled each of these requirements. We paid £51.99 for this printer on PC Worlds website (its slightly more expensive if you buy in store).

**Specifications**

This is a colour ink-jet personal printer which prints up to 4800 x 1200dpi resolutions, using a single black ink cartridge (10ml) and a separate 3 colour cartridge (8ml). It can print up to 18 pages per minute in black and 14 pages in colour. The auto-load paper tray holds up to 100 plain A4 sheets of paper and envelopes, transparencies, labels, iron-on transfers, photo paper, cards and stickers can also be used. The printer automatically senses which type of paper is being used and adjusts its print settings accordingly. A CD with photo software is also included, enabling you to easily create reprints, enlargements, photo layouts and albums. You can create 4x6" borderless photos, or up to 8.5x11 with white borders. The printer is Windows and Mac compatible and uses a 4 pin USB type B connection (which is included with the printer). The printer weighs 2.3kg.

**Pros**

This is probably the easiest printer I've ever used both in terms of set up and printing. The first time you use the printer you simply plug in the USB cable and then the computer picks up that you have a printer attached and runs you through a quick set of instructions to install the printer. To print you just put in the paper and then press print - hey presto there it is, no paper jams or aligning paper! It prints really quickly (18 pages in black per minute and 14 in colour) and even faster if you only need a draft copy. To cancel the print job you just have to press the cancel button on the printer. There is an onscreen ink indicator which shows you how much ink you have left, and when the ink has run out it allows you to link to the internet to order more cartridges from HP.

The print quality is really good on written text and photos have a very rich, deep colour to them. It prints the last page first, so when the printing is finished your top page is on the top, so you don't have to re-sort the pages into order which is rather handy.

The wide range of paper types that you can print on is also great, and you don't need to adjust the settings each time as the printer recognises what type of paper you're printing on - very handy when you're switching between printing on normal paper and envelope stickers.

It is also compact so ideal for small spaces (width 43cm, depth 20.5cm, height 14.3cm) and the paper tray can be folded back when it's not in use making the printer even smaller. It's quite nice looking too - bluey grey and grey plastic with a lighter grey paper tray. There are only 2 buttons on it - 'on' and 'cancel' so its quite sleek looking.

**Cons**

It's quite loud when it's printing, but for the price and speed of the printer I don't think this is a huge issue to put up with. When printing on photo paper you need to leave the photo to dry for a bit as the ink is still wet when it finishes printing, but I have found this is often the case when printing pictures, so isn't really a problem.

**Ink cartridges**

I have had this printer for 10 months now and have done a fair amount of printing, and the ink indicator shows that the cartridges are still half full ('half full' - ever the eternal optimist!!) which I think is quite good value. The cost of new cartridges is £16.99 for both black and colour from PC World, which is quite expensive but I'm sure they can be found cheaper on the internet.

**Overall**

Overall I would highly recommend this printer - for the price I don't think you could get a much better, quicker, smaller printer for day to day personal printing

Note - I have not used the CD software which allows you to create photo reprints, enlargements, photo layouts and albums, but as soon as I buy a digital camera I will try it out and report back.

Summary: Compact value for money home printer

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