Photo quality but at what price? (HP Deskjet 980cxi)

Member Name: Plymyphil

Product:	HP Deskjet 980cxi
Date:	18/01/04 (281 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quality, Memory, Features

Disadvantages: Price

Thank you in advance for taking the time to read this opinion. My aim, as always with technical opinions, is to provide enough detail to inform a purchasing decision but without overburdoning the reader with the technical jargon that can be so off putting.
Whether I'm successful or not, you decide and let me know by leaving a comment.

I have used this printer sporadically for about a year now. I say sporadically because it is not the first printer I arrive at geographically at work and therefore only occasionally line up with my digital camera memory cards at the standalone computer linked to this printer.

I'm going to turn things about here and begin with the overall perception and work down to the detail.

OVERALL
This printer looks reasonable with enough curves to demonstrate it is from the more recent Hewlett Packard design stable. The white colour of the casing fits in with the standard desktop cases but contrasts starkly with the usual black colour of laptop technology. Fortunately for our sense of coordination this is located with a desktop computer at work. Overall I would recommend it to people looking to buy a quality photo printer. It has never failed to date and has had quite considerable use usually printing photographs onto plain paper or photo paper. The price (we paid a little over £200 but is is slightly cheaper now) is in the middle price range for inkjet printers but I feel this has provided value for money over the last twelve months.

SPEED
The printer is quoted as printing at 15 pages per minute for black and 12 pages per minute for colour. As with all speed claims they're slightly suspect. In comparison to other printers we use for printing digital photographs, this one seems slightly quicker. Two photographs printing to a sheet of A4 paper on standard quality takes about half a minute. This is probably about 95% paper coverage so this is an above average speed.

CONNECTIVITY r>We connect this to a standalone computer running Windows XP. It is connected through USB. In this configuration the installation was a breeze with XP immediately realising exactly what was connected. Setup took a couple of minutes and has never needed correcting or reinstalling. The printer can also connect to Windows 3.x, 95, 98, ME, 2000, NT4.0 or MacOS 8.1 or later. It also includes a parallel connector in the box for those running systems too old to have the advantage of a USB port.

QUALITY
This printer is one of the smartest inkjet printers I have used and produces an exceptionally high quality output. It uses a Hewlett Packard technology called PhotoRET III. This stands for Photo Resolution Enhancement Technology and takes the true resolution of 600 dots per inch (dpi) to a simulated figure of 2400dpi. This in essence means superb quality prints where it is almost impossible to discern the individual dots that are making the image. In other words, close to photo quality. It also has technology I have never seen before but certainly believe is worth the money - ColourSmart III. This technology allows the printer to assess what media is in the tray and print appropriately. This may seem small fry but is incredibly handy in the workplace. There is no training required as the printer can tell the media and therefore you don't need to go in to the setup screen and do the job for it as is usually the case.

OTHER FEATURES
The best feature here for digital photo printing is the large memory. With 8Mb built in as standard, this printer takes what is sent and then hands over control of your computer immediately. Printers with no built in memory or less built in memory stutter as they print as the data is constantly being passed backwards and forwards between computer and printer.
The manual is detailed and covers everything you might need to know and being Hewlett Packard you also get a great big colourful poster that on one side show
s you how to connect the printer and on the other side, how to install and use the software.

OVERALL (AGAIN)
A very good quality product. The only significant downside is that a year on there are similarly specified products for less money. That said, I have been impressed at the quality and reliability of this printer and do comfortably recommend it.

Thank you for reading this opinion and I look forward to reading your comments.