HP vs Epson (HP Deskjet 930c)

Member Name: kathchurchill

Product:	HP Deskjet 930c
Date:	25/08/01 (1128 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Much better printing quality

Disadvantages: Expensive cartridges

Okay, to start with I work in the computer trade, so I see products come and go. At work we do lots of point of sale displays, which are usually A4 sized with a large colourful header and some bullet points in large black text.

I can without hesitation recommend the Hewlett Packard 930c for its excellent print quality and speed. the documents are printed directly from Photoshop 5 and the results on cheap copier paper are fantastic.

But for a real test I printed out a picture of my baby son (for testing purposes, honestly!). The picture was taken on a Kodak 200 plus at high resolution and printed directly from internet explorer, on copier paper with the HP cranked right up to the highest print quality (1200 DPI, I believe).

The finished picture was excellent, and I now keep it to show customers how good the printer can be even on cheap A4 paper.

Now I?m gutted! I went out and bought an Epson 700 photo about a year or so ago, and the comparison between the two, well the Epson has 2 extra ink colours, so the skin tones should be better. They are not. The Epson takes much longer to print, an A4 picture can take up to 25 minutes, where as the HP 930C can do the same picture in around 7mins. So, if you're printing a few pictures the time saved is a lot!

The downside to this printer (HP930C) is that the cartridges are expensive. The colour cartridge can cost between £20 - £28 and the black can cost about the same. But to justify this, when you change the cartridge you get a new print head, so therefore the print quality is the same as the day you bought it! Unlike Epson where if the heads get blocked, you're looking at a hefty bill!

You can get non genuine cartridges but I have generally found these to be of inferior quality.

If you think this is the printer for you, the only consideration is do you spend the extra and go for the 950c or even the 970CXI. Well the latter models have full size pape
r trays, where as the 930C has a folding tray, which is handy if you have limited desk space. Also the 950 and 970 are slightly faster and the 970cxi is optimised more for photo work.

Personally I would go for the 930c, it is at a great price point (around £110) it's compact when folded up and very, very quiet. So much so, that you sometimes have to check if its on! Something Epson users don?t need to do!

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