A superb printer for under £100, it can't be....surely!? (HP Deskjet 930c)

Member Name: GR-Design

Product:	HP Deskjet 930c
Date:	12/08/01 (390 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cancel button, Low print indicator

Disadvantages: Looks rather strange

Hewllet Packard is well respected in the computer community and probably one of the best, or should I say, most highly respected brand of printers. Why? Probably due to the quality of their printers and the fact that they seem to go on and on and don’t give you too much hassle. Oh they had a few problems with the HP 500 series etc but when it came to the 560, then the very widely used 640 HP were getting their name around and now, most companies that I know use HP printers.

The HP930c is probably the best printer I have seen to date from HP. It looks nice (have you notice how everything seems to be going curvy in the world of computing?! Nothing’s square like it was before!) it print’s fast, gives you a good clear print and doesn’t take up too much room. What more could you want for under £100?

We’ve got 4 of these printers at work and have had them roughly 6 months now. Ok, so they are not used all that much compared to other printers but we have had no problems whatsoever as yet, and this is using the printer to print off prescriptions and normally you have a lot of problems trying to get printers to do that, I can tell you!

So, what’s so special about this printer? Well first off it offers you 9 pages per min black and 7.5 pages per min colours, obviously depending on the settings. Your not going to get 7 full page photo quality prints off inside a minute! So don’t let that mislead you. The printer has an optional two-sided printing feature which we don’t have at work but I have seen in it action and it’s pretty good to tell you the truth, no more printing 2 pages out then going to photocopy them to get yourself 2 sided documents. The one I saw running did have a paper jam though, lol, so I wasn’t tempted to go get one straight away!

You’ve also got a feature on the printer that I have been waiting for for ages. Yes, it’s a cancel button when you’ve p
rinted off something that you thought was 3 pages but infact was 300 and your nearly crying because of all that wasted ink, not to mention your using half a rainforest in the process. This itself makes the printer worth buying! It will save you loads of ink and paper over the years I can tell you. Well, it will for thick me anyway!

If your like me and you seem to run out of ink just as you meet your deadline for coursework or have to get that report to the boss, then there’s a low indicator which will inform you that you best go and get another cartridge quick sharp, so that’s also a bonus! Next thing we know we’ll have the printers going to the shop for us and buying our cartridges. Actually, I read that’s not to far away, like fridge’s ordering our food….but I’m going way off the subject now as usual!

The space saving design includes a rather funny looking paper tray which you can fold up if you wish. You can’t use it when it’s folded up though! This is a new feature for HP printers but it’s old news for Epsom printers who have been doing the same thing for ages. I’ve figured out that I can fold it up with the paper in it aswell, I don’t know if I’m supposed to do this though, so anyone who knows could you tell me please? It doe’s make the paper curved though!

The software you get with the printer is good as usual. You get three types of print mode for normal printing which include ‘draft, normal and presentation’. You can actually use draft mode for normal letters and things as this gives a very good quality print, but uses about 40% less ink. Normal mode is good for documents that need a bit more clarity and I personally would only use presentation for colour photo’s and the likes. It’s a very high quality print on presentation but it will take more time and use more ink. It all depends what you use your printer for though!


Now, remember the day’s when your next door neighbour knew you were printing, and infact the whole street knew it due to the noise, well this printer is probably the quietist I have ever heard and even the noise it doe’s make is a nice noise (if you get me, anyway who is computer minded will!). It’s a type of reassuring printing noise!

Overall then, A very high quality printer for under 100 smackers. I would recommend it to anyone who wants a decent printer but doesn’t expect too much from it. And when I say too much I mean if your printing all day and night or printing via a small network to the one printer, although this is possible, I’d personally go for a bigger printer.

Thumbs up once again to HP.

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