The Good the Bad and the Pricy (HP Deskjet 930c)

Member Name: shewhosmiles

Product:	HP Deskjet 930c
Date:	16/06/02 (579 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Print Quality, Durability, Compact

Disadvantages: Cartridge Prices, Over enthusiastic feed, printable area reset

I paid £150 for my Hewlett Packard 930c in September 2000 when the model was new. Since then I've seen them priced as low as £70 in the Viking Direct sales catalogues, great value for money for the printer itself.

The quality of the printed material is excellent if I use the correct cartridges. I have tried refill kits and compatible cartridges but the quality isn't quite as good. They are adequate for most things but not for master copies that go on to be photo copied or printed. Refill kits for the coloured cartridges were a disaster, my printer won't work using them.

I normally pay around £20 for black cartridges though I have seen them on sale for up to £28, and get approximately 240 A4 sheets from one cartridge. I have no idea how many sheets a coloured cartidge would produce if used all the time, certainly not many if variations of the most popular colour blue was used regularly.

What I found annoying was that the same black cartridges were used for the 930 as the 820 which I upgraded from, but the colour cartridges were different. Higher priced and containing less ink. When I bought the new printer the cartridges were 'short' cartridges with only a small amount of ink in. Meaning that I had to go out and buy new cartridges a week later, much quicker than expected. A change from when I bought the 820, those cartridges were standard.

The first colour cartridge that I bought was £29.99, £6.00 more than I had been paying. That cartridge ran out within a few weeks, faster than any previous coloured cartridge that I'd used as I mostly print in black ink except for a small logo on my letterheads. I went to buy another and the price had risen to £39.99 in every shop in the town. I bought one begrudgingly, the printer had come to a standstill. I was told by one of the assistants that the cost of cartridges were so high because they and not the printers make the profits for the companies. Such a steep rise
seemed more like profiteering to me.

I turned the colour off but the cartridge nearly empty warning came all too soon. I scoured the internet and every discount catalogue that I could get my hands on. Everywhere the price was at least £39.99. I ordered one to be delivered 3 days later but in the meantime the old cartridge ran out. My printer came to a standstill again - just as I had completed a big design order for a very good customer and needed to print off the master copies for him. It was 2 days before I was able to go into town so I was completely stuck.

Furious because I couldn't complete for my customer as planned I emailed Hewlett Packard and complained about there being less ink in these cartridges and the hefty price increase. I finally got an email back one week later. They told me to do what I had already done and turn off colour printing. They also told me that even with it turned off small amounts of the coloured ink is used with every black print out, so eventually even if you don't use colour the cartridges will run out.

About 9 months ago the price of coloured cartridges dropped again to between £25 and £30 (sigh of relief!) As I didn't see any dramatic price increase or drop on any of their other cartridges I am left wondering why there was such a price hike on that particular model.

A cable wasn't included with this purchase, but fortunately I hadn't thrown my old printer away and was able to use the cable from that which had been supplied with the 830. I think that 'extra' should always be supplied with every purchase. Imagine buying a computer and printer together and finding that you have to trek out again to buy a cable before you can connect your printer to your computer and can use it. Always a good idea to check when buying if you need a cable.

The feed on the 930 is better than the 820 but I still have problems occasionally when more than one page is drawn in a
t a time. When that happens the print starts lower on the sheet and part of what is meant to be on one sheet goes on several. Sometimes up to 10 sheets, wasting a lot of paper.

Another problem that I have is wider margins or unprintable areas on the right hand side of A4 landscape pages. Or wider margins at the bottom of A4 portrait. I have tried many times without succeeding to alter the unprintable areas following the instructions. That could be me so if anybody knows how to do it I would be grateful for 'simple' instructions.

Despite the problems I like this printer because of the printed quality and its reliability. The speed isn't brilliant but that isn't important to me. HP deskjets are tough printers, my first one churned out an unbelievable amount before it broke down after 2 years use. That might not sound long but for most of the time I was printing at least 1,000 A4 pages a week. I don't print as much now because I acquired a cheaper to run photo copier to do the donkey work, but I still use it a lot and nearly 2 years later its running like new.

Summary: