Compaq C3 1000 3-In-One

by Compaq

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 10 x 17 x 18 inches ; 15 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 22 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S. and to APO/FPO addresses. For APO/FPO shipments, please check with the manufacturer regarding warranty and support issues.
• ASIN: B000055XZD
• Item model number: 212486-001
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1999

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

Perfectly sized for the home office, the Compaq C3 1000 combines a scanner, copier, and printer in one convenient package. With the scanner's 36-bit color and optimized resolution of 9,600 dpi, your images will come through vividly on Web sites, e-mail messages, and many other Windows-based applications. Also, while using the printer, you can simultaneously scan images, saving you time and improving office efficiency.

The C3 1000 reduces and enlarges color copies at the touch of a button, and they always maintain their crispness with 1,200 x 1,200 dpi resolution. Print speeds are acceptably fast for most small office or personal uses, with a color speed of 4 ppm and black speed of 8 ppm. The C3 1000 accepts a wide variety of papers, including photo paper, labels, and transparencies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars STAY AWAY!, July 1, 2001

By 

Krazy Dragon (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Compaq C3 1000 3-In-One (Office Product)

Stay away, there are much more efficient and FASTER multifunctional printers on the market.

This machine has a very boring and bland design, one that will make you reconsider even buying it. Then you look at the price, and say hey, what the hell? Looks arent all that important. Compared to the Hewlett Packard v40xi and the Xerox m950 (read my reviews on those) this is the second largest, and by far the lightest of the bunch.

Hooking the printer up to my computer was a snap, but when it came to installing the software...what lacked in difficulty with the physcial connections were made up by software connections. Being a computer science major, and having played around with computers for the last 10 years, I couldnt imagine installing a printer could give me this much trouble. This is the worst install disk I have ever come across. Keep in mind, I had JUST gone through three printers within the last 48 hours so it should have been even more simple.

Aside from the installation being long and unproductive (the install disk gives out so you have to begin again, this would be okay except for the time needed to complete the installation is extremely long. It takes 2.5 minutes completing 14% of the installation), the print speed is slow enough to decrease your metabolic rate. By the time it got done printing ONE color picture, the hair on my head had grown down to my shoulders, and this is a bit weird because I had just shaved my head.

The first assignment that I gave this machine was to photocopy one of my DVD movie covers (only the front face of the DVD cover). Unlike the Xerox m950, which successfully photocopied a full sized color picture in about 40 seconds, this machine took approximately 3 minutes to copy the front side of the DVD cover (half of a page). The reason this took so long, unlike the m950, which just photocopies what you want copied, this machine colors the entire page in ink. If the material you want copied is only 1/8 of the page, then the remainder of the page will be colored in black ink. This is what happened with my DVD photocopy. This depletes your ink supply really fast. Furthermore, the picture was extremely grainy.

It is not only the coloring of negative space that makes this printer painfully slow, but just the speed of the print. Compaq claims that this machine can dish out 4 color copies a minute, I beg to differ. With several color pictures printed out on plain paper, and several more printed on glossy paper, I can honestly tell you that there is NO WAY IN HELL that this machine can print 4 color pages per minute. The fastest print completion of a colored page was approximately 2 minutes. Please note that pictures that I printed ranged from and 1/8 of the page being colored to 1/2 to 3/4 to full pages of colors. Much like the photocopy, the wait for the print was not worth it. The print quality is terrible. If you are looking to buy this machine and using it primarily to print up color pictures, your money will go to waste even though this machine is quite cheap. From personal use and comparisons, both the qualities of the Xerox m950 and the Hewlett-Packard v40xi are far superior. Even on the highest quality print, it pales in comparison to the HPv40xi (which is only second best to the Xerox m950).

Not only does the color pictures suffer from grainy imagery, but the black and white print performs just as poorly. Again, the speed of printing for a black and white picture is not what is claims to be on the box. It took approximately 1.5 minutes to print a simple black and white full length picture in which not much black was needed. I printed the same image on the HP v40xi and this machine, and was shocked to see how much unrefined the image had turned out on the Compaq C3 1000. Where the picture was supposed to be grey, the picture was more...like when you use a stardard wooden pencil and color heavily in the same area on a white piece of paper, so that there is a thick black rich layer of lead, and then you erase through it, the color that remains by erasing, the light white greyish color is the color that printed in place of heavy grey. And in the areas of the image where black was needed, luminous white spots were visible. I tried to remedy these problems by ajusting the grayscale to the highest level of gamma 2.2 (one of the three black and white level options for the printer), but the picture still looked the same, with maybe a tinge of darkness, but thats up for debate.

Overall, this printer is the worst in quality for both black and white and color images when held in comparison to the Xerox m950 and the HP v40xi. Not only does this printer place last in quality, but in time and ink efficiency as well. Dont think that this is a close race. This printer is still at the starting line while the others have already reached the finish line. This printer is definitely not worth the money. If you want to purchase a printer for printing images, both black and white and color in high quality, look towards a Lexmark, Epson or an HP. These printers are around the same price range as this one, but the rungs are much higher on the ladder in terms of quality. I cant stress this enough, STAY AWAY!

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pleasantly Surprised!, April 23, 2001

By 

Denise (COLUMBUS, OHIO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Compaq C3 1000 3-In-One (Office Product)

I do alot of scanning, digital photos, and copying. So, in order to make sure I was getting the right machine that matched my home office needs, I went to all the stores in town and on the internet to check out related items in order to make a wise purchase. I read great reviews about the HP DeskJet 932C and was strongly considering purchasing one because of the quality in printing photos. But after purchasing and using my new Compaq C3 1000 Multifunction device (a space saver), I was pleasantly surprised! So much so, that I've been sharing digital photos that I would have just printed out for myself, with other people who are in the photos as well. Right away, they want to know what printer I used to get the job done--they are so bright and vivid when useing both color and photo ink cartridges together. The quality is excellent in my critical opinion (being a perfectionist). I no longer feel the need for an extra printer just for photos. Also, the print quality for documents are very clear. I am enjoying every element of this office equipment.

4 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars one thing does it all, January 30, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Compaq C3 1000 3-In-One (Office Product)

Hey if you have a home job, or have any kind of office at home, you need this. it does everything you need. my bud has one and i use it all the time, it is a life saver,