What a workhorse! (HP Deskjet 970cxi)

Member Name: robant

Product:	HP Deskjet 970cxi
Date:	04/08/02 (1330 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good workhourse, fine everyday printer, still going strong!

Disadvantages: it doesn't make tea or coffee

This printer is in HP's Professional Series of stylish desktop colour inkjet printers

I'm just changing this review to add that it is still going as strong today as it ever did. It must have printed many thousands of pages for me over the years, and although I don't believe you can buy it new anymore, it should still be considered if it comes up on the second hand market. Of course, check it's in good working order, and there's nothing broken - but if it works, it works well!

It sports a duplex unit as standard, for double sided printing. The only advantage in not fitting the unit is an overall reduction in the printer's footprint by about 2½ inches. For reference, the entire footprint is just a smidgen under 1ft 6in by 1ft 6in. It is less than 8 inches high.

Over the past few months I have really come to appreciate what a great workhorse this printer can be. It takes 100 run mail merge print outs and double sided brochure printing in its stride. It is quick, quiet and has excellent print quality.

It can be put into an extremely high-resolution mode, but doing so is really only recommended if you?re going to print out a single photograph and don?t mind hanging around for a while. But I will say this; it is really good, if you do. For everyday use, the more usual settings of draft, normal & best offer exceptional quality. The very high-resolution mode is only available if you specifically select a photo paper from the driver options.

Be careful if you're doing a large run. While the paper tray can hold 150 sheets, the output tray is only rated to hold a maximum of 50. You could end up with a snarl-up if you simply left it running overnight. Fortunately this hasn't happened to me, and I have no intention of trying it just for the experience!

Which leads me on to how extraordinarily quiet this printer is. The only sound is the swish-swish-swish of the print head going back and forth
, interrupted by a few mild clunks as the paper is ejected, or pulled back through the duplex unit. My neighbour is very sensitive to noise (although she uses a clanky old electric typewriter herself), but she's never once complained!

Unpacking and setting up the printer was extremely easy. I had the duplex unit installed, the printer connected to the PC, drivers installed and was printing away merrily wit
hin just a few short minutes. I haven't needed to alter anything since, and that must have been at least 18 months ago now. Just remember to be aware of those hidden polystyrene blocks and sticky tapes. A glance at the quick install guide is all you need to find them.

There is no real need to select paper type before printing, if you set the print type by default to automatic, a nifty blue lamp and optical sensor fitted to the carriage, sweeps across the paper, checking the type and altering the printers response, before commencing a print run.

Be aware that automatic paper type sensing, and automatic double-sided printing won't work on Windows 3.x machines! I don't know why this is, and similarly, I don't know if this means that double-sided printing is completely out of the question, but I doubt it. I haven't had a 3.x PC for many years, so I can't check this for you.

If you do want to do a relatively largish run, and you can't afford windowed envelopes, you can load up to 15 in the paper tray and it will run perfectly satisfactorily, but when 400 windowed self-sealing envelopes can be had for about £10 from Staples, it probably isn't worth bothering.

I have found that this printer works equally well when connected directly to the PC you are printing with, or if used over a network either in a Peer-to-Peer situation, or even when connected to a File Server. It certainly works very well with Novell's directory print service (NDPS), when connected to the servers parallel port.


This printer has bi-directional communications via the parallel, USB or infra-red ports, so, as is the norm with HP's inkjet printers, it has a management system that is really at its best when directly connected to a Windows or Macintosh PC. Using the printer with a server is perfectly satisfactory, though, and I haven't missed using the management software.

It takes two ink cartridges, one black
and a tri-coloured. These can be quite expensive, but they do have a reasonable capacity when compared to some others. However, I've found that remanufactured cartridges are perfectly useable, and a lot cheaper and greener. (They let you send the empty cartridge back - free).

Removing and replacing an ink cartridge will trigger a test print.

Warnings given by HP and other service companies, about non-authentic ink cartridges voiding the warranty are entirely unreasonable. If the cartridges don't work, simply swap them out. The print head mechanism is in the cartridge itself, so if that fails it is a fairly independent matter. This isn't true of all printers, though; so don't take it as read.

If you have a Palm Pilot, Windows CE Jordana or HP PhotoSmart digital camera, you can print directly from it using the infrared ports. For me this is of limited value, but I can imagine it being quite useful in some circumstances.

Hewlett Packard's support for the printer is excellent, and if you have the Adobe Acrobat PDF reader, you will find all the manuals on-line here: http://www.hp.com/cposupport/manindex/hpdeskjet921 701_eng_man.html including international versions and supplementary documentation. This is also the location for finding up-to-date, and Windows XP, drivers.

The manual is also excellent, even reminding you to uncheck double sided printing if you intend printing envelopes. But the printer pre-dates Windows XP, so it isn't mentioned. This is no real problem though, bec
ause XP already knows about it, and there is a web page accessible from the above link (via the FAQs) with all the information you'll need about XP.

All in all, highly recommended by me, particularly for use in a small workgroup or at home. Don't expect this to replace your 5,000 pages a week laser printer though. It is durable and tough - but not that tough! It is actually rated as being capable of withstanding
about 5,000 pages a month.

Rob Anthony

Summary: