A Good All Round Printer (HP Deskjet 5552)

Member Name: Drone007

Product:	HP Deskjet 5552
Date:	21/12/05 (1594 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Good quality with quite quick speeds. Long lasting printer overal.

Disadvantages: A bit large and noisy

I've had this printer a couple of years now. Its been reliable throughout and has easily fulfilled my needs. This length of time of about 3 years is the longest a printer has lasted me.

Installation was nice and simple. Its connected to the computer by a USB cable (although a normal printer cable can be used) and was recognised as plug and play, however I installed the software that came with it for use of changing printing standards, test prints etc. The installation of the software was easy, with you just needing to click next and follow the on screen instructions

Its four different standards of printing allow you to choose the type of print you want, compromising between quality and speed. At best quality the printer really does well and although the printing is slow, the quality is very and ideal for holiday pictures. On glossy paper, they come to life.
At lowest quality, its still ok for general use (such as some internet documents) and is a lot quicker. I keep it on the standard called ‘everyday’ which although isn’t the fastest, especially compared to some other printers, is still quite quick whilst giving a good quality – Good enough to hand in for coursework etc.

This printer is quite versatile, so is useful for use within a family and printing documents for school, work, or just those to be used for reference around the house. The replacement cartridges aren’t too expensive either and last a while, meaning if your kids get print happy it shouldn’t break the bank!

I’ve only used HP's ink cartridge replacements and have no problems with bleeding inks or alignment. I use the printer often, printing items off the internet, college work, a few posters and the occasional photo, and still only have to replace it once every few moths.
The printer holds two ink cartridges which is black and colour or photo. Replacing them is quite easy as you open up the main pat of the printer, open the flap of the required in cartridge, pull out the old one (which can be a bit stiff), then push in the new one into the space. The official HP replacements come with a pre paid envelope inside for sending off old cartridges for recycling.

The paper feed is ok but is one of the only problems I've had. Occasionally it will take more than one sheet in so you often find your work is printed across a couple of sheets of paper. Also very occasionally it brings up the on screen message of paper jam for no reason. I have also found that it doesn’t always feed the paper through completely straight, even when it is aligned straight in the bottom tray, making some print outs slightly skew. The envelope feed works fine and keeps the envelopes straight for address printing.

Above the paper input tray, there is an output tray where printed documents are collected, with a flap that folds out to prevent documents from sliding out. I have found when printing at the quickest speed, the printer almost throws the document out when its finished printing and pages have occasionally gone over this flap onto the floor, so aren’t collected as required.

I use it through USB and it appears to have a good printing memory allowing for quick printouts. I have found there is however a slight delay when printing a lot of photos in one go (which may be expected), or large PDFs.

When printing the printer can be quite noisy, more so on the quicker speeds and has a tendency to shake a lot, so needs to me on a secure surface or the whole lot seems to move. It detects the type of paper being inputted which is good for when using glossy or coloured paper.

Its a bit large on physical size, but something else like a scanner or speakers could easily be placed on top and just moved when the cartridge needs replacing. The large physical size is mainly due to the paper feed being horizontal (paper tray positioned under), rather than vertical.

Lee

Summary: A quick long lasting printer, though a bit large and noisy