HP CM1312NFI Color LaserJet Printer

• Full-color All-in-One can print, copy, scan, and fax
• Print at speeds up to 12 ppm black and 8 ppm color at 600 x 600 dpi
• 24-bit color scanner scans up to 19,200 dpi
• 150-sheet paper tray and 50-sheet automatic document feeder
• Built-in 10/100 wired Ethernet network connectivity

This is NOT in the same class as the much more expensive 3500 series color MFPs, and it is not supposed to be. At a cost of 1/5th the bigger printers, you need to lower your expectations, but you still get a lot of printer for the money. I''ve had many inkjet printers and installed many color and BW laser printers. The first laser printer I used was an Apple LaserWriter in about 1987, so my experience with these devices is quite extensive. I have this installed in a home office networked via a simple wireless router and print/scan with XP, Vista, and Win7-64.

Positives:

+ Much faster and sharper printing than even high-quality inkjets when printing typical office documents

+ Prints evenly and consistently even large areas of highly saturated color on plain paper, unlike the banded printing from inkjets on plain paper

+ Easy to install on XP, Vista, and Win7 64 as both a USB and network printer

+ Quiet

+ Sheetfeeder is convenient and reliable

+ Prints at the same speed and quality regardless of how long it sits idle or off, unlike an inkjet printer that often needs cartridges replaced or cleaned after sitting idle for a couple of weeks.

+ Doesn''t spew gobs of ink on paper at random intervals, which many inkjets do, especially after they''ve been sitting idle for some time

+ EXCELLENT print output very sharp even at small print sizes and fine lines

Negatives:

I have the same problems as others when scanning using the sheetfeeder: Scans always come out as 8.5 x 14.

Low paper capacity. Why doesn''t EVERY printer come with a 500 sheet bin? Do manufacturers really save any money by making the smaller bin?

Manual feed is not easy to use. Basically, you need to pull out the drawer and put what you want printed in the regular drawer.

Scanning from front panel isn''t working for me, which should be easy to do. Perhaps this is the problem others indicate when they say it is hard to set up. Scanning is fine when you start it from the computer.

Won''t email without talking to a computer. I really like that feature in the more expensive models, and it shouldn''t be that difficult to implement.

Wont'' print truly photo-quality as well as a photo inkjet, but the prints on photo paper are still VERY good.

Do I REALLY need a THREE HUNDRED megabyte package of drivers and software just to print? How about a light-weight software option HP? Better yet, how about building the drivers into the printer''s built-in web server so that I don''t have to get those monster packages from the Internet? Why can''t I manage ALL settings from the built-in web pages?

-+ I wasn''t satisfied with the default scan settings, but after tweaking to boost the image quality, I am happy with the scan quality and speed.

Regarding the price of prints: Although a set of cartridges sets you back about 260 bucks, that will not get you anywhere near the $1.00+ price per page others talk about. My conservative estimate at cost is about $0.15/page in color including paper, less in B/W. If you force B/W printing for most output, you will be closer to $0.04/page. Having spent a ton of money on ink cartridges for inkjets, only to waste much of the ink on cleaning and reprints when gobs of ink land on my output, I think the overall cost of ownership will be close to even or better when compared to a typical inkjet. Counting the cost of time and frustration in the cost of using an inkjet will further weigh the cost per print in favor of the CM1312nfi.

Some other "negative" points are speed, lack of duplex scanning/printing, and some other bells and whistles mentioned in other reviews. I don''t count these negative points against this printer since these are features that you really can''t expect in this price class. I looked long and hard at the HP CM2320, but the much higher cost of entry didn''t seem to pay off for me. Including a set of cartridges, the 1312 costs 30-50% less than the 2320.

I compared this printer to Brother and Samsung MFPs at a local office supply store. The output quality, speed, and overall build quality are significantly higher than similarly priced competitors. The output quality of a color brochure copied on each of the brands is what sold me on the HP the CM1312 output is MUCH better than the other brands. I also expect to be able to service and purchase supplies for an HP long after Samsung and Brother are forgotten about.

I''d give this printer a solid 4 stars if I could get the scanning from the front panel and the auto page size recognition to work. I won''t count things against this printer that it really isn''t designed to handle, like true photo quality and high speed. Anticipating being able to work out the bugs with scanning and page size, I''ll give this a 3.5 and round up to 4 stars.

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I purchased this printer instead of the 2840 due to bad driver reviews associated with the 2840. Unfortunately, the drivers for this device are bad too. Beginning with the minimum install size of 400 MB. Yes, the driver automatically installs all sorts of maintenance and other applications. No, you cannot deselect them during or after the install. The drivers also add 32 seconds to boot time for every PC I installed them on.

The upsides are that the color prints coming out of this machine are amazing. The color copy feature is awesome too. The device draws only 7.5 watts in sleep mode and it is very quiet (no loud fans running during sleep mode).

Overall printing 5 stars and driver 1 star, so I rated it in the middle. One more thing. Just FYI, I found the HP Color Laserjet 5M driver works for this printer and does not add 32 seconds or 400 MB to my PC operation. I am sure there are some features missing, but...

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This is an awesome printer! For so many reasons.

1.) It''s an all in one or better yet, a 4 in one (print, copy, scan, fax). Many of the newer printers haven''t included fax recently.

2.) It''s compact shorter than the HP 2840 which is a huge monstrosity. The toner cartridges are secured horizontally (front to back) rather than vertically (top to bottom). This saves a lot of room.

3.) It''s simple and the most user friendly printer I''ve ever purchased from HP. It''s Vista operative and the software that comes with it is more of a help than a hindrance. The organization of the buttons and functions on the front panel makes sense. The color LCD screen is also easy to navigate. You won''t feel like every navigating decision will be binding like some display screens. HP combined modern technology, simplicity, and the traditional needs of an all in one to arrive at their best printer yet.

4.) It''s affordable too in comparison to the HP 2840 all in one. The toner is also less expensive than the Q6000 series of toner that is needed in the 2840 and other related LaserJet printers.

I highly recommend this printer if you have a small/home based business! Or if you just like having it all... all in one.

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I received this printer as a birthday gift and looked at the reviews here before opening the box. I must admit that I was somewhat leery after reading all of the complaints, but since it was a gift I decided to give it a try. After about a month of use, I have to say that I don''t understand what all the griping is about. I have had no issues with this machine at all, using it in a home office environment.

I am using it as a network printer with drivers installed on Windows 7 (64-bit), Vista (64and 32-bit), and Mac OS-X platforms. I downloaded all of the drivers from the HP support site. Yes, it is a 300M download, but is that such a big deal these days? The one problem with the HP site is that the names of the files are somewhat cryptic. I installed the first item in the Software section that had "Full Solution" and "AM" in the title. Don''t be tempted to install the much smaller Universal Print Driver unless you are not interested in scanning.

As far as noise goes, I don''t advise switching the machine on and off frequently. Each time you do that, the printer will go through a calibration cycle that takes a few minutes and is a bit noisy. Not overly so, but perhaps enough to wake someone in an adjacent room. I checked the standby power to see how bad it was to leave it on all the time. In its deepest sleep mode it consumes about 15 watts (roughly $1.50/month). If you do decide to turn it off, you can send a print job and then walk over and switch on the printer. Your job will print before the calibration, although there is a bit of a start-up delay. When printing, it is no noiser than my old HP inkjet and several times faster. I haven''t bothered to check the actual page/min rate because the thing is so much better than what I was used to.

One thing that I have not tried is the "Additional Software" installation option that comes in the driver bundle. I think this installs scan/OCR utilities, but don''t know for sure. I''m guessing that the additional software accounts for a big part of the 300M download size. Since I already had a program that I was comfortable with (PaperPort) I just stuck with that. Network scanning works great. One of the first things that I tried was using the automatic feeder to scan a multi-page document. 600 dpi scanning is a bit slow, but 300 dpi grayscale scanning is fast and of sufficient quality for most tasks. There were some complaints about not being able to do 8-1/2 x 11 pages. I did not find that to be a problem, but I did have to go through a setup wizard in the scan software to get it to work.

As far as toner usage goes, I haven''t owned it long enough to say much. I did see several people on eBay selling refill kits in the $50 range that had good reviews. Print quality is great for text. Photos are OK, good enough for a quick print, but not a replacement for photographic paper or dye-sub printers.

Overall I am very glad that I decided to open the box. Sometimes you have to ignore the 1-stars and try it for yourself.

They missed some of the basics on this machine. There is no manual feed operation, only one paper tray. Must remove all existing paper and realign paper tray guides to print a single envelope or any other size or type of paper. This funchtion misfeeds quite often. Takes some time to set up properly. Fax has no alternate answering machine but you can plug in an external answering machine. Print quality is good but very expensive to use. Costs about $1.25 per page in toner alone. Reliability is still undetermined. Our last three HP all-in-one laserjets failed within 3 months of new purchase. Not bad if you have another mono laser printer for regular use. Driver issues still unresolved. Noticed that many of the reveiws on this machine have been removed since I checked before purchase.

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Polaroid Pogo Instant Digital Mobile Printer (Black)

• 2" x 3" borderless, sticky-back prints. Bluetooth, PictBridge compatible
• Smudge-proof, water-resistant, tear-proof photos. Fade-resistant, long-lasting images
• Prints in about 60 seconds. Rechargeable lithium-ion battery
• 15 prints per charge; 25 C battery is replaceable. Bluetooth (Class 2) OPP USB 2.0 USB A connector
• Uses ZINK Paper

We had been searching for one of the old-time Polaroid instant cameras to use in our Vacation Bible School so we could make instant pictures of the children for use in a craft. We discovered the Polaroid PoGo printer and since it was so inexpensive, we decided to give it a try. Wow, we are really impressed with this little printer! We are able to print out instant photos from our cell phones, our digital camera, and after getting a bluetooth adapter we can print from our laptop computer too! This printer makes excellent high quality photos without using any ink. Of course the higher the quality camera makes better photos so don''t expect professional looking prints from your cell phone camera, but, when printing photos from my Canon Digital SLR the photos are extremely sharp.

The re-chargeable battery life is not very long (about 15 pictures worth) but you can leave it plugged up to the AC adapter and print all day long.

We have been able to connect to the Bluetooth feature with Blackberry, and through a D-Link bluetooth adapter connected to our laptop. We have used it connected via USB with our Canon Digital SLR camera, and a Kodak Easyshare camera.

The zink paper is fairly cheap, around for 30 sheets. Right now Amazon has an 80-pack for about 25 dollars. We love the fact that you can peel off the back of the sheet and stick the photos in scrap books and on various crafts.

We highly recommend the PoGo.

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I was very disappointed with this product...it doesn''t work with any of the Apple products and none of the reviews I read told me that. I wasn''t until I got it, opened it and tried to use it that I found out it won''t work with any iThings. SInce I had opened it, I was charged a restocking fee...which I suppose is fair, but there was no way to know (that I could see) that it wouldn''t work with Apple until I got the package open and read the detailed instructions. VERY DISAPPOINTING AND FRUSTRATING!

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Printer was packaged up fine but was obviously sitting on the shelf for a few years as the battery was totally dead and wouldn''t charge and the paper packs included expired in Jan 2010 and I bought this in January 2013! Seller was good enough to refund battery costs so I could purchase another one elsewhere but this was a bit of a let down as this whole package was intended for a gift so the recipient was made to wait until it was all sorted out

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I found the unit by itself for nearly $50 but then came across this for only $80. Case, 40 sheets of picture paper and unit for only $40 than the unit by itself? Yes please!cant wait to see my fiancés face when she opens it!

*update 12/30/12*

So either Amazon deleted my updated review or the seller did, so I guess I''ll write it again...

If you''re buying this to go with your iPhone, don''t. It doesn''t work with iPhones. It uses a type of Bluetooth that Apple doesn''t use. That''s kind of crazy how most of everyone in the world has an iPhone haha, oh well. Highly upset that it doesn''t have a list of phones it does and doesn''t work with. Probably wouldn''t of bought it knowing it didn''t work with her iPhone. Oh well, it''s here and the packaging was already thrown away. So, after some trial and error we got it to work with her Canon Rebel t2i. No the quality isn''t great, and sometimes the pics come out looking over exposed, but, for what it does, it does it well, I''m very satisfied with its prints from the canon, does it do it justice? No. Does it print cute, itty itty poloroid type pics fully developed in under 2 minutes? Yes.

Just beware if you''re buying this for an iPhone (3, 3G, 4, 4S, 5) it will NOT WORK.

Will update after many uses.

This printer is very small, quiet, good toy.

The image quality is low.

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Paper, Smooth Gloss Save 22% off

• Smooth glossy surface
• Instant dry (nanoporous)
• Superb photographic image quality and consistency
• Heavyweight look and feel of a real photograph
• Excellent compatibility with all good quality pigment and dye based inkjet printers

If You need Glossy professional paper, nothing beats this. Great price great professional quality. The skin tones on this paper are just absolutely superb. To say its vibrant is an understatement. WOW

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I agree with Professor Bubba''s review. I stumbled across this brand once in an outlet store called Big Lots. I got a box of 115 sheets of 4x6 smooth gloss for $7.00. I wish I had known then how great this product really was! That price was a steel for the quality of this product and I would have bought more. I''ve been trying to find it sold everywhere, finally found it here on Amazon.

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This paper performs great with my Epson R1900 printer. It''s quality is as good as the Epson paper at less cost.... Be sure and go to Illford''s website and download the icc profiles. That made the pictures go frome great to awesome....

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Epson Stylus C88+ Color Inkjet Printer (C11C617121)

• Fast black text printing--up to 23 ppm
• BorderFree photos in popular sizes (4x6, 5x7, 8x10 and 8.5x11)
• Up to 5760 x 1440 optimized dpi with ink droplets as small as three picoliters
• High-capacity 120-sheet input tray
• Convenient individual ink cartridges

I purchased this to replace an Epson C82 that worked great for several years before finally clogging beyond repair. This newer model prints borderless on all media and with great visual results. It is also a bit smaller than the previous model which is great because I actually keep it in a drawer out of sight, and just pull it out and turn it on to print. Epson improved the ink overspray by putting foam under the entire print path. Previous models had only a few spots to soak up extra ink, and borderless prints often left ink places that could soak into future prints. So this is another improvement. Over all a good printer for the price. I expect this one will also last several years.

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I have always been a big Epson fan. However, I have been extremely disappointed with this printer. First of all, it burns through ink cartridges, which gets expensive. Secondly, I am constantly having to clean the nozzle heads to prevent gaps (which uses even more ink) so that the text on my documents is legible. It''s so bad I have to clean them before almost every print job, and even then I rarely get a page to print out cleanly. Also, the printer has major problems with the paper feed mostly when trying to print double-sided. After *every* page I have to push the paper feed button. Very annoying for large documents. Finally, when printing photos or anything that has a lot of ink coverage the colors are terrible. It''s been so frustrating I am thinking of forking over for a laser printer. Avoid buying this printer!

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I originally purchased this printer for our phone server at work. I was hoping a newer design would install without making me reboot the system (it didn''t) . The picture quality is typical Epson ,and I''m very happy with it.

I just print an occasional color graph or chart ,and it rocks. It''s quiet ,it''s small ,and it takes readily available ink. The cartridges are the newer sepperate component type cartridge . It doesn''t like cheap copy paper ,and will jam eventually. It was easy to unjam and clear however ,i was able to slip my ape like hands down into the printer ,without having to curse ,scream or apply a band-aid.

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I absolutely HATE this printer.

Once again, the ink has run out. Why does this make me so mad? Because I just bought all 4 new cartridges (costing me over $35) less than 6 weeks ago and I haven''t made very many prints. I''ve printed 0 photos. All my prints are mostly B&W, and I set the printer to "economy" setting on the ink. I turn the printer off when not in use (as the manual recommends to avoid drying out the cartridges). I shake the cartridges, and they''re still half full.

But for some reason, this monster wants MORE INK.

For the amount of money I spend constantly refilling the ink, I might as well just but a brand new printer each time instead of buying new ink!

The MOST annoying thing about this printer is that it "locks up" if even one of the cartridges goes "empty". I want to print a B&W document, but it won''t let me because the Yellow cartridge is "empty". ARGH!

If you are a casual printer, this is not the machine for you.

If you plan to print alot of B&W documents, color documents, or even (gasp!) an occasional photo, this printer may cause you to become Amish.

If you want a really shiny paperweight, this printer is just what you''re looking for!

Be aware that Epson engineers its ink-jet printers to use small amounts of the color inks even when you only print in black and white. Eventually one or more of the color cartridges will run out and the printer WILL NOT WORK until you buy new cartridges even if you have never used color.

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HP LaserJet Pro P1606DN Laser Printer

• 341.675
• 136.67

Recently I bought the Hp Laser Printer 1606dn from Amazon. I needed a printer with an automatic duplexer which this unit does duplex, so far and I have duplexed about 1,000 pages. When I tried to print cardstock the ink does smudge and I have tried it several times with the same problem. When buying the printer it does state that you can use cardstock.

Another strange thing about the printer....when printing an envelope you hit print and the printer does not print, after you hit print you have to push a small icon (page with folded page located on the printer) and then the envelope will print. I am somewhat disappointed in the printer, but it does work and does duplex, you just cannot use cardstock. I do not think it will last as long as my previous HP 2200d printer lasted.

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Brother MFC-7420 Flatbed Laser Multi-Function Center

• Multi-function unit prints, copies, color scans, and faxes
• Flatbed design for quick and easy copying and scanning
• Print and copy speeds up to 20 ppm; up to 2,400 x 600 dpi resolution
• 35-page auto document feeder for copying, scanning, or faxing multiple-page documents
• Dimensions: 17 x 15.6 x 11.6 in. (WxHxD); weighs 20.8 pounds; 1-year limited warranty

I wanted a sturdy machine that uses ink affordably, feeds paper accurately and reliably, and not too slow. I didn''t need color. This machine fit the bill.

I haven''t owned it long, so I don''t know about reliability. Paper handling is excellent. Printing is fast and looks very good -dark and precise. Ink costs will be much lower than an inkjet. It seems carefully designed and more solidly made than most inkjets. It''s Macintosh-friendly (I guess Brother makes a point of being friendly to Macintosh and Linux.) Scanning, faxing, printing all work seamlessly with OS X.

It''s got a flatbed scanner for irregular originals, and a sheet feeder for scanning, faxing or copying multiple pages. The sheet feeder seems to work very well. This is really an incredible deal, considering the low price. This is a perfect machine for the user who has office work in mind, more than printing photos and other "home user" needs.

Follow-up, six months later: This machine has worked better than I could have hoped. Paper feed is very reliable, print quality is excellent, the fax function is quite reliable, and the cost of ink per page is remarkably cheap. I haven''t experience a single problem with it.

Another follow-up. Now, it''s October of 2011. I''ve replaced the drum twice -affordable, and the toner cartridge many times -cheap compared to ink for ink-jets. It still works reliably, and just as well as ever.

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Here is my review for the sister model of MFC7420 (7820N), the only difference in 7820N is better scan resolution & Networking capabilities, the rest is the same, so my review should apply to MFC 7420 as well.

WoW ! This must be the best MFC out there. I have owned several canon, hp, lexmark MFC, photo printers, fax machines etc. This machine is it. All you need is this MFC & a separate photo printer. you are all set.

1. This is a laser MFC scan(color), copy, fax, print

2. very fast for home/small office use

3. very compact very space saving

4. Network ready other computers on network can use all functions of this.

5. unlimited tech support. not just 1-year like HP/canon.

6. Machine feels sold & feels it will last long

7. All fax,copy, scan can be operated either from machine buttons or pc software interface.

8. installation was breeze

9. software is top notch. very intuitive

10. tested print, copy, scan & fax AWESOME AWESOME.

11. they don''t outsource cust support to india

12. only regrets: no duplex, no separate output tray, but from a compact machine like this, you can''t expect output tray.

13. This MFC is clearly the winner. nothing else.

14. $50 cartride takes you upto 2,500 pages. not bad

15. Auto feeder works flawlessly

16. buy from local office depot store when they give $40 gift card with it.

17. you can connect any answering machine, so all you need is one line for phone callss & fax. this machine shows whether it is a phone call or fax. can use distinctive ring too.

18. backlit LCD menu

19. if you network with this printer, you don''t need to buy USB cable

20. 32mb memory for printing, huge memory for fax.

21. super fast fax speed

22. Excellent looks.

23. DEDICATED MAC SUPPORT, although i only used it for Windows.

why didn''t i know about Brother earlier ?

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My wife and I love this machine. I have had it for over six months and have had no problem with it. I had to replace the original toner cartridge after only six months of use, but they always give you less toner in the "starter" cartridge than in the replacements. It prints faster than the old dedicated laser printer I had and the copier, scanner, fax functions work flawlessly. I also found it relatively easy to set-up with an external answering machine so that I can always have the fax function standing by on the same line as my home phone. Unlike others, I had no trouble with the included software.

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For the first 2000 or so pages I was very pleased with the printer. It is a little loud and tends to throw paper all over the place on larger print jobs. But overall it performed well considering the cheap price tag.

However, at a little over 2000 pages the printer just stopped half way through my current print job. A message indicating the toner was low appeared. I tried to get it to finish the print job but the stupid thing refused. It was an important print job that I needed to turn in in a couple hours and I had no spare toner cartridge.

Finally after much frustration and after almost destroying the cartridge trying to shake the toner to the front to try to finish the current job I discovered a way to circumvent the low toner "feature". I placed some tape over the little laser "eye" on either side of the toner cartridge. After that I was able to not only finish the current job but print hundreds more pages without any fading. I''ve gone through another 500 page package and still have not replaced the cartridge.

If brother included this "feature" to sell more toner cartridges then I consider their tactics dispicable. In any case I will pay a little more next time and avoid the brother brand on principle.

I suggest you avoid this one....but if you buy, be sure to have replacement toner cartridges handy....or some electrical tape.

Finding multi-function units that are compatible with Apple is not easy. I first bought a Canon MF-4150 (about $250). Gorgeous unit, everything worked great until I tried to scan...no luck, no matter what I tried. Finally contacted Canon customer service, and they responded that Canon machines don''t support scanning on Mac. I took it back (thank goodness for Staples'' return policy...no questions asked, they just exchanged it for my next choice, a Samsung SCX-4725FN). Again, all the right features, but again, no luck getting it to scan. So last week, I exchanged the Samsung for a Brother MFC-7420. Seems Brother takes great pride in their support of Apple, according to another reviewer. (Again, awesome customer service from Staples on the return.) Got it home and spent 2 hours trying to get everything hooked up but NO SCANNER. After 40 minutes on the phone with Brother tech support, I learned that it does indeed support Leopard 10.5, but needs a bit of tweaking, accessed by the tiny little icon that loads at the very top of the monitor to the left of the clock. Once I clicked on that, a whole new world of scanning opened up. Very sad that this bit of information isn''t anywhere in the manual, setup brochure, or disk. But once tech support told us what to do, the machine runs like a champ. Admittedly, I haven''t used it much yet, but I am absolutely thrilled with this unit. You can scan directly into an e-mail, or into a folder, or onto your desktop. Scan is very flexible. Great Automatic Document Feeder, and flatbed scanner (ANY printer you buy must have a flatbed scanner if you plan to scan books, checks, photos, receipts or anything else, other than standard-sized paper, because without a flatbed scanner your original must be fed through the document feeder.)

Anyway, the Brother manual is written extremely clearly, with great diagrams and flow charts, and not full of typos like the Samsung manual was. There are higher levels of instruction that you must access from the CD-ROM, but you can get all the basics just by reading the manual, and lots of what you''ll be doing is intuitive. Features, quality, dimensions and footprint are great. Brother has been making faxes for seems like centuries, and they''re wonderful units. I''m only sorry that I didn''t just go with this unit originally. A note on fax machines in this category: it seems (to me anyway) hard to find a multi-purpose unit with fax that will co-exist with an external answering machine. With most of these units, you have to plug the answering machine directly into the unit, or they ''fight'' over which one answers the phone. I found an almost perfect solution with this one: you set its fax machine to ''manual'' (it won''t answer when the phone rings) and then if you answer your phone and hear it''s a fax, you just type *51 on your phone''s keypad and it activates the fax machine. It works like a charm...only down side is that you can''t get a fax if you''re not home to manually answer the phone first, so this option isn''t for those who get many faxes. This machine has a ''brother'' unit which I think is identical other than it is dark gray in color and that it can be networked; It''s about $40 more.

If I have any problems down the road with this one, I''ll update this review, but I have a feeling I''m going to be thrilled with it. If you''ve tried to find a Mac-compatible printer (laser or inkjet) you know what I''ve gone through...but for me, at least, it appears my search is over. Thank you Brother, and thank you Staples! (no offense to Amazon, but I spend enough money there already to not feel guilty).

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HP Officejet 7000 Wide Format Printer (C9299A#B1H) Save 29% off

• Print on various paper types and sizes from 3.5 x 5 inches up to 13 x 19 inches - plus get stunning borderless photos with HP Officejet inks.
• Maximum letter print speeds up to 33 ppm black, 32 ppm color2.
• This HP Officejet printer consumes up to 40% less energy than letter-size laser printers5.
• Save money by replacing only the individual ink cartridge that runs out.
• Lowest cost per page among wide-format inkjets up to 13 x 19-inch using HP Officejet inks1

Please be aware, before buying this printer, that it uses traditional four-color (cyan, magenta, yellow, black (CMYK)) technology. While four-color printing is the standard for offset color printing (i.e.: the process used by commercial printing plants), this printer is not capable of producing the lifelike continuous tones of a six-or-more color printer designed for printing photographs. That doesn''t mean it''s bad for its intended use--the speedy printing of typical business documents on plain paper, or getting output that simulates the four-color offset printing process--but it does mean that shoppers looking for photographic-quality output should look for a different printer better suited to that objective.

On behalf of a family member who works as a commercial artist, I wanted a large-format printer to replace a pair of ancient Epsons that constantly clogged. I bought a new large-format Epson (Workforce 1100--see my review) thinking that 15 years of development since my old printers were made would mean Epson had solved the clogging problem. I was mistaken--it clogged almost immediately and took multiple ink-consuming cleaning cycles to clear before it clogged again--so I returned it.

I was somewhat wary of this OfficeJet 7000, since it has gotten some very articulate and feature-specific negative reviews on Amazon. However, I took a chance because A. there are very few large-format inkjet printers available, and B. those that HP sells specifically for graphics users (DesignJets) hover around the $1000 mark--They may be very good printers, but I didn''t want to spend that much.

Making sure that the local store I bought my OfficeJet 7000 from had a reasonable return policy, I dragged the large box home and began to unpack it. The first thing that surprised me was seeing that it has built-in ethernet--a rare feature among printers in this price range. While I don''t need to network the printer at the moment, and I don''t know how well it works, it''s nice to know we have that option down the road, without buying additional hardware. I connected it via USB (you''ll need your own cable), and got to work.

Installation of the printhead and supplied starter inks was fast and easy, and the software installed quickly on my Mac (OS X). As I recall, the printer then started its own ink priming/calibration routine that took about 15 minutes--a one-time thing, unless you want to manually run it again later (I have not had to).

With its print driver set to maximum quality, output quality on the 7000 (from Adobe Illustrator on a Mac) is very good--Again, for its intended use of printing business documents and graphic designs with solid blocks of color, not photos intended for framed art. In general, output colors are very bright and close to what I see on the screen--and this is on plain paper--although darker colors (like deep browns) appear just a bit washed out, and there is no setting I can find in the print driver to directly fine-tune this density.

Speaking of software, the 7000 comes with a decent CD that not only inserts the usual controls for various basic printer settings into the OS-level print dialog (OS X, in my case), but includes gadgets that let you run utilities on the printer such as head cleaning and additional calibration cycles (haven''t needed it) and track what you''ve printed and how often you''ve interacted with the printer for such events as ink cartridge changes. Just keep in mind, if you are a user looking for endless print output tweakability, this software doesn''t have much--It was clearly designed for the simplicity that business users want. The good news, as I mentioned above, is that I''ve found its output to be quite color-accurate without a lot of tweaking, even if the dark mixed colors suffer a bit (black is fine). However, if you really want press-proof quality output, check out one of the HP printers designed for the graphic arts.

Like all inkjets, the OfficeJet 7000 is built on the model of selling you the printer relatively cheaply, then making money for the manufacturer on your future ink purchases. I can accept this reality, and the less-than-perfect color calibration (of dark colors) if I know the printer will work reliably, and so far this 7000 has been a champ. After years of dealing with the endless clogs (and unreplaceable printheads) of Epson printers, I am luxuriating in the sheer joy and novelty of a printer that just uncomplainingly puts ink down on paper without clogging every ten minutes. It''s been six weeks and not a single clog. And while I would characterize the 7000''s actual printing speed as "pretty fast" compared to my retired Epsons, the biggest improvement in overall output speed has come from simply not having to take time out to unclog the old Epsons'' finicky heads.

As for reviews that mention paper jams, I can only guess that such reviewers got lemons, because my 7000 has been jam-free from the beginning, even with light cardstock that has to bend around a paper path that starts with the front-load tray. I would have preferred a printer with the option of a straight-through paper path (like the Epson Workforce 1100) for heavier stock, but that''s a minor quibble when you consider how much more reliable it has been.

Update from 12/2011:

Everything I''ve said in the review above remained true until a few months ago, when the printer began having problems feeding the last few inches of a sheet of paper. Remember, this printer is capable of borderless printing, something I use regularly to print designs to the edge of the paper. Suddenly, the printer began stopping its normal paper feed when the print head was an inch or two from the end of the sheet on such a borderless print, while the print head would continue going left and right and laying down ink as if the paper was moving. When it was done with the print, it wouldn''t eject the paper, either--It just sat there, and when you physically yanked out the paper, you''d find a muddy mess of ink which reflected the non-movement of paper.

Fortunately, I had purchased an extended warranty from the well-known national office product retailer I had bought the printer from. After horsing around with their online and on-phone tech support and extended warranty claims organization for a few hours, they finally agreed it was something not worth printing, and they refunded my original purchase price. (Although I was grateful for their honoring of my extended warranty, I was less than thrilled with their services. Not to mention any names, but I will say that their extended warranty claims organization did not exactly "Max" out my satisfaction level.)

I applied the refund toward a new copy of the same printer from the same retailer (amazingly, for $100 less than last time), and within hours I was having what appeared to be USB communication issues (switching to ethernet bypassed the problem, but didn''t fix it). More importantly, the new printer began to exhibit (within days) the exact same paper mis-feed issue that the old one had! This time, I was obviously within HP warranty and received courteous phone support. After going through their standard firm-grasp-of-the-obvious questions (Is it plugged in? Are the ink carts installed? Did you press print?), they agreed to send a replacement refurb unit if I send the apparently defective (new) one back to them. I will keep you posted on whether the new (refurb) one they send displays the same problems or not.

Update from 3/2012:

Since my last update, nothing about the paper feed issue described above has been resolved. The HP support group (based in a Canadian call center) has been professional and competent, but they cannot fix the problem of paper feed. I am now on my second refurb replacement provided by HP, and it has the same issue that extends back to the original model that I wrote the original review about. HP understood my frustration and offered a choice of next steps, one of which is a refund. After reading other reviews by users frustrated with similar paper feed issues, I have opted for the refund and will try a different brand, or possibly upgrade to the HP DesignJet model.

In summary, everything I said about my original copy of this printer is true, and that one deserves its original four stars. However, when it failed after nearly two years, no replacement copy of this same model has ever performed as well again in regard to paper feeding, despite their consistently good print quality preceding the last few inches of borderless output. I will conclude this review by changing my rating on this printer to three stars and giving sincere kudos to HP''s hard-working support organization, which has undoubtedly spent far more on servicing this issue and shipping printers back and forth than they ever made as profit on the device (of course, I have bought a few hundred dollars worth of ink from them in the last few years). If you get a good copy of this printer, it is very good. If you get a bad copy, it is maddeningly annoying for large-format/borderless paper feed, and therefore almost useless. Read all reviews and make an informed choice before you bite this hook.

Buy HP Officejet 7000 Wide Format Printer (C9299A#B1H) Now

We were very excited to buy our first wide-format printers. I am a designer and photographer and my husband is an architect so we needed something to meet both our needs. The cost seemed amazing $ on sale from $ but the quality of the images that came out was far worse than our 10 yearold less than $printer.

First off we did many testsprobably about $ worth of paper and ink. Tried it with all the special HP recommended papers tried several settings, printing from different programs, different papers. Everything looked grainy. The vectors and lines looked ok so long as they were not inverted (white lines with black background).

-If you just want to print AutoCad 13x19 drawings (black vectors)then you should be fine.

-If you want low contrast color pictures and you don''t care if the shaded areas are a bit grainythen you should be fine.

Anything else for the HP officejet 7000 just falls short.

Read Best Reviews of HP Officejet 7000 Wide Format Printer (C9299A#B1H) Here

The printer has very good quality. I like the fact that the software integrates well with the hP solution center so you can go to one place to view things such as ink and cleaning of print heads (I also have an officejet Pro 8000). The only thing I had a problem with was I thought it would print borderless on all formats up to the maximum size (I think it was 13 x 19). I made a custom brochure using Adobe Indesign and built it at 8.5 x 14 to give me a little more area to work with but could not find the setting to print borderless at that size. It supported 8.5 x 11 and 11 x 17 borderless. It would have been nice to have all sizes borderless. Maybe HP could put out an updated driver that would allow for that. Otherwise, it is a good printer for the money.

Chuck

Want HP Officejet 7000 Wide Format Printer (C9299A#B1H) Discount?

And I don''t say that lightly, folks. I''ve owned perhaps 25 printers over the last few decades, and this one is by far the most unreliable. Sure, it will give you a nice-quality 11 x 17 print--if you have 45 mintues to stand over it, fiddling, refeeding the paper time and time again, and praying to a Deity of your choice (and I''m not religious).

If this delicate, irritable, hypersensitive printer detects even the slightest thing it doesn''t like (even if you are fortunate enough to place the paper on the 11 x 17 line with a precision that would put a Swiss watchmaker to shame), such as having two sheets too many, or two sheets too few (it seems to prefer around 21 sheets at last count), or even looking at it in a way it deems disrespectful, you''ll get the dreading blinking yellow light from hell and a loud beep informing you that you have a "paper jam" (which you don''t). Guaranteed to have you on the edge of a cerbral infarction within 10 minutes (I should mention that I have two teenaged sons, and they seem docile and compliant compared to this printer).

Don''t get me wrong--I''ve had high-maintenance printers before, from all the major manufacturers, but this one is by far the most infuriating. Ideally you''d have to hire a full-time employee to get it to print three jobs a day. If I didn''t need it so much, I would have attached it to the back of my car and taken it for a long drive long ago.

I hope this will keep some poor soul from wasting his or her hard-earned cash on this loser. Definitely an epic failure--is there a way to rate something negative five stars?

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I bought my printer from Office MAX along with their warranty which is to me lifesaver,

After experience with Epson workforce 1100 printer and 7 minutes per tabloid size print in best photo mode I switched to HP 7000

Epson gave me small binding lines in every printing mode and printing sometimes 50 or more tabloid size prints with 7 minutes printing time simply is not what I can do.

With Office jet 7000 speed and print quality is great in best mode. In normal gives you some kind of reverse banding with overlapping ink creating regular darker lines.(experience with 5 of them) But best mode is fairly fast and nice quality.

THE BIG PROBLEM OF THIS PRINTER IS PAPER HANDLING. If you print on letter size text paper or even 80# postcard / cover paper the printer is ejecting the pieces mostly in normal fashion. The best part comes when you are trying to print on Tabloid size paper or better Glossy Tabloid size paper. Printer is not able to eject the heavy piece of paper after finishing of the print.

The small tiny metal rollers located on exit side of the printer (just after the space where the print head is moving) have no grip on #100 heavy paper (and "0" grip on glossy heavy paper) and are just sliding on the surface.

In effect if you do not remove the piece in the right moment the printer is sucking the paper back / sideways pressing on the edge of the next coming piece of paper and damaging the edge. After you remove the paper Next print is just about 2" piece of image ( wasted piece of paper) THIS IS MY EXPERIENCE WITH 5 pieces of this OfficeJet 7000. Since I had the warranty from Office Max having problem I simply replaced the printer. The last one I replaced had IDENTICAL HANDLING PAPER STYLE / ISSUES like the new one I brought home.

I called the HP support and after 2 days of disconnected phones and learning how to understand people in India finally I was taking to somebody who promised to send me REFURBISHED REPLACEMENT. I declined since it doesn''t solve the issue. Exactly same printer with exactly same paper handling mechanism is going give me exactly same problem.

Few days ago to my amazement I got another call from HP where nice girl (without Indian Accent) offered to send me as replacement

hp Photosmart B8550 photo printer. I checked this new printer on display in local Microcenter and it has exactly same paper handling mechanism. (This is just better version of the 7000 model) So I am going decline. This is going be same story new printer same paper handling problem.

Since there is no other comparable printer with 4 inks tabloid size on the market I think I am going try to glue to the tiny metal wheels some TINE PIECES OF STYREFOAM covered in rubber glue. It should increase the grip and hopefully solve the problem.

Is quite apparent that HP never actually fully tested their product before releasing. They should replace the metal wheels with rubber rollers.

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