A No Thrills Printing Solution For The Home. (HP Deskjet D1460)

Member Name: boredindunoon

Product:	HP Deskjet D1460
Date:	18/12/08 (198 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Cheap To Buy & Run.

Disadvantages: Slow. Noisy. No Extras.

To be honest, I really wasn't expecting much from this printer. I believe that you get what you pay for these days, and what can you expect to get with a price tag just over twenty pounds.

I do most of my professional printing at home with my monstrous Epson R2400 (an A3 printer that costs more than a mid-range laptop, and makes me cry every time I have to buy more ink for it.)


But why did then did I buy this printer?

Two reasons. The first was because I'm now printing an increasingly large volume of text documents, the second because I've also been printing a lot of documents that only needed to be drafts. As I've mentioned my Epson printer is ridiculously expensive to run, therefore I decided that I needed a second printer that could handle all the tasks that were otherwise insulting for my Epson to do. Plus one that was far cheaper to print with, one that I wouldn't feel guilty about wasting ink with.

With the sheer range of printers available, the only reason I purchased this one, was because it was one of the cheapest I could find.


But was it worth it?

Well the basics are covered. It connects to your computer through the USB interface. It offers borderless printing, an ink level indicator, and has an 80 sheet capacity. But don't expect any extras such as a built in card reader or Print Image Matching.

The D1460 uses only two ink cartridges (one black and one colour). They are reasonably cheap to buy (both originals and compatibles) and can be found easily, so full marks for value.

The disk provided didn't have the 64-bit Windows XP driver, so I had to go online and download it, which was easy to find and only took a few minutes. After that installation was straightforward and problem free. Actually using the printer is very easy and user friendly. It start up time from cold, and the time it takes before it actually starts to print a document are both reasonably fast.

The quoted print speed is 16ppm (pages per minute) in draft black, and 12ppm colour draft. The draft mode is dire to say the very least. Yes print speed might be very close, but you can't really make out much at all from the printed sheets, making draft mode a complete waste of time. On 'normal' settings expect far, far slower print speeds (more like 2-3ppm), and even less if it's a full colour photograph.

The ink-level indicator is not reliable. It told me that my black cartridge was empty but I still managed to print nearly twenty more pages perfectly before the quality started to fade. So watch out for this, or you'll end up throwing out half empty (or half full) cartridges.

The quality of text printing is excellent for a printer of this price. Colour is less impressive but still not that bad considering. Providing your not attempting to print a black and white picture (which was pretty much a disaster,) or a photography with very fine details, then there is nothing wrong with the printers capability.

The design of the printer itself is quite nice. It's small, light, compact, and has a minimalist quality to it.

If like me, you'll seeking a no thrills printer for casual day to day use, that cheap to both buy and run, then this HP D1460 is well worth considering.

(I'm a reviewer on Amazon, and some my reviews are copied from there to dooyoo. Please feel free to check out my Amazon profile under my real name of Mr Andrew M Kerr.)

Summary: Thanks For Reading.

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