Good reliable printer - not laser quality though! (HP Deskjet 710c)

Member Name: LaylaStar

Product:	HP Deskjet 710c
Date:	16/10/08 (161 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: reliable & trustworthy, good quality for the price paid at the time when we bought it...

Disadvantages: not as silent or quick as laser printers, not so beautiful prints! :) expensive cartridges

We have had this printer for years!
It's an okay printer, though I would assume there are better newer ones in the price-range nowadays...

It's perfectly okay for home use & student use (if you're not an architect or designer - I'm not, & assume those might need something better), a few BAs have been printed on it too, as well as a family tree - with photos! /& yes, the photos look beautiful!/

It is good to consider getting better quality paper for those, though... & experiment with various sorts of paper a bit... (to get best results with cheapest possible paper, it does need to be a bit thicker, but not necessarily 'photo paper' if you print on one side only!)

Mom has printed a ton of envelopes on the printer too (though she's the only one in the family who managed to figure out, how!)

I have considered a new printer at times, but so far this one has worked just fine!
And frankly, I prefer it this way: a small printer that stands on the computer desk & a separate scanner that is pulled out when needed... 'All in one' machines these days seem efficient, but for me, they seem less practical as they seem to take up more space... (Or maybe I'm just not used to the concept yet?)

The nitpicks (aside from a very occasional paper jam or two) - &
remember, this is after years of use!

1) On some paper, 'normal' looks quite too strong, & 'draft' actually looks like 'normal'... So if you need it for something really good (like a BA, again, it is worth experimenting with different papers & settings)
To be fair I'm not sure if it did these things from the beginning or only after a few years.

2) Also, when it's not plugged in & you try to print, after you plugged it in, it only prints half a page & stops.. (no idea why it does that, maybe a more techie person could fix it. We just say 'Oh', cancel the print & go print the document once again)

Not sure if it always did this either.. We only started unplugging it regularly when not in use recently (it's more eco-friendly! even if only plugged in & not in use, techie gadgets still use some electricity.. So I hope you unplug yours too!:))

3) Our parrot sneezes when printing... So out of protection for poor parrot we moved the PC & printer elsewhere... (Okay, not just out of these reasons, but it was a concern too..)
After the parrot I started noticing a specific smell of the ink & some particles 'in the air' too.. (& sometimes sneezing lol)

I also read online that some printer cartridges contained iffy chemicals, so with the parrot sneezing, it was some cause for concern. We try to minimize printing now & air the room sufficiently after printing.

I must say I developed a sort of allergy (sneezing mainly) to laser cartridge printing ink too when working in one office... (even before reading about it) So this seems a problem with many inks these days...

4) price of cartridges: especially the color inks are quite expensive, & all colors are in one cartridge, so this is sometimes not handy, if you only run out of one or two colors...
We have mostly bought original cartridges for fear of damaging the printer & wishing to maintain highest print quality... An acquaintance suggested cheaper refills, so we're considering these now..

So why not give it 5 stars? Well, I might have given it 4 or 5 stars a few years ago, when we bought it.. It was good price for considerable quality then.
I'd give it at least 4 stars even now if I hadn't worked in offices with beautiful quiet efficient laser printers! :)

It is a bit slower & louder (though still in the 'hum' region!) than some of those, & the prints are of lesser quality too.. there's occasional tiny spillage of ink into surrounding areas around letters - which some people might not even notice, the letters are not so 'crisp'.. They're good for an inkjet, but compared to lasers... Ahh!

This printer would be okay even for an undemanding home office, if not a lot of printing is done (due to price of cartridges & speed) & the quality doesn't have to be of the utmost 'designer-quality' or such!

Summary: Good for home & student use, if you want utter speed & brilliance, find something else! :)

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