Customer Reviews

HP CP1160 Color Printer

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've started up a small newsletter recently that has some complex layouts and lots of hi-res graphics, but also a lot of small text. The history of consumer-grade printers has been that to get the clean text, you have to give up the good photo output, and vice/versa. This printer throws all that away. It does it all. In fact, the text is so sharp my printouts were better than the commercial printer I had run it off.

Its also a very attractive unit. People always say "is that a printer?" Not that it matters that much, but it does look cool.

Bottom line: if you need top-notch quality in both photos and text, and have the [money], do it. If you're just printing your everyday text docs and/or photos, you can get everything you need in a cheaper model.

We were looking for a business-class printer that could handle volume, and produce quality marketing materials for my wife's consulting business. After extensive research, I narrowed the field to three HP's, the 990sce, and the higher-end 2250tn, but ended up choosing the cp1160 after seeing the superb color print quality. It's on the higher end cost-wise than most consumer level printers but the money is well worth it in the long run in regards to cost per page due to the four-color process this printer employs. To the untrained eye the printout is near publication quality. Sharp text, rich, calibrated color for photos and artwork. It's fairly quiet for an ink jet and the stackable design is a total plus. I just took my low-end printer and put it on top of the cp1160, set up an A/B switch and I have an automatic low-print proofer. Highly recommended for anyone looking for high quality output, low-industrial usage of 1-3 person home/office environments.

I have been looking at this printer for months and finally purchased it today. I have been using my work horse HP Deskjet 820 Cse for the last three years with little problem. Besides the slick new look and speed, this printer has many options that influenced my purchase. 1) the printer cartridges can be accessed from the forward swinging cover compared to the earlier models where the lid lifted up. 2) it can be placed in a smaller area (in a bookshelf for example) making this printer easier to store. 3) the display on the front tells you how much ink you have left - no more being caught off guard in the middle of a big print by running out of ink! In my opinion, the speed and accuracy of this printer is worth the money. Think of it as an investment in your desktop publishing capabilities...that's what I did.

Fantastic quality and performance but I'm going through a color ink cartridge every two weeks in moderate usage that I could normally go a couple of months with my old HP 830c. You should factor this cost into your budget.

Noah

...the new drivers must have fixed all the problems because the duplexing problems mentioned in other reviews are not true anymore, mine works like a charm. As far as ink use goes I guess it is relative to your own experience because it has seemed very normal to me and the ink cartridges are relatively cheap compared to my past printers. All in all I am very pleased with the product and would highly recommend it. The photo printing is outstanding on photopaper and very nice even on plain paper, which was a pleasant surprise. ...

I bought this printer as a photo printer, everyday printer, and for the occasional newsletter.

The photo quality is as good as I've seen on any printer in this price range and it prints relatively quicker than some.

The text printing is exceptional and again doesn't take much time.

The printer is much quieter than the Epson I had previously and the lower paper feed is a better design.

Setup wasn't as easy for my iMac. It took about an hour to get it properly working vs. 10 minutes with the Epson. Although some of the config settings with the Epson conflicted with the HP, so most people probably won't run into this issue. Furthermore, if HP support was open I would have had the issue resolved much quicker.

Overall, good quality printer, quiet, and does everything well.

A while ago, our faithful old Apple StyleWriter finally bit the dust after years of service, and I suddenly found myself looking for a new printer. I spent a lot of time researching before settling on the cp1160. The result: My family simply loves it. It's quiet, it has decent quality output, and the auto-duplexing feature is very nice. I've worked out my cost per page to be somewhere around three cents for black, seven cents for color (YMMV). Works flawlessly with Mac OS 9 and OS X. It fits nicely in a fairly tight space, and I can even stack the network switch that it connects to on the nice, flat top surface.

I have had my CP1160 now for about 3 years, first for small scale home office/graphics use, which it is fantastic at. And now as a full time PhD student--running tons of PDFs and text document through it. In both capacities, this printer has been amazing. Even now, after it's been discontinued by HP and the inkjet market has really taken off, it's still the best thing out there. I wouldn't trade it in for the world.

The text quality on this printer is fantastic... even as small as 8 points in footnotes. Always clear, even at low quality settings. It runs graphics beautifully--clean, clear, crisp. Autoduplexing is a god-send, although a little slow. It never EVER paper-jams, something that I am still surprised at the way I abuse this thing. It takes thick cardstock, envelopes, labels, everything.

Plus, for what is a relatively large inkjet these days, it has a flat-top which means you can stack things on top of it and it runs just fine. HP says you can handle 40 lbs on top of it--I don't know how much weight I've stacked on it but it never blinks an eye.

It's been moved, stacked, stored, driven across country in the back of a van, and it's perfect. It even fell off a shelf once and still prints really well.

The only negative things I've found is the shaking. Somebody else said it shakes like a washing machine and that's true. It needs a sturdy place to live. But it's quiet, prints great and is well-designed. No curvey bubbley looking design that dates its shape. Also, for the amount of printing I do now (about 5000 a month, the high end of its recommended use) it uses relatively little ink. Just make sure to continually check ink usage settings and don't use the high resolution mode unless you need it. Honestly, on photos if you use photo quality paper, the Normal setting is almost nearly as crisp and vivid as the high resolution.

If you can find one of these printers, buy it. If I find another, I'll buy it just so that I won't ever have to use another printer. My laser does nothing but collect dust. This printer can beat the output of a home laser without any problem.

I'll make this short. I love this printer. It has the best text printing I have seen on any inkjet yet and I have seen many over the years. It's only 4 color so although it doesn't do too bad in the graphics department either I'd still suggest a photo printer for photos. One bad thing is the ink doesn't last too long. Too bad. I thought the replacement ink cartridges would be cheaper than most because HP uses seperate print heads while most brands, including HP, use cartridges with the print heads built in. Well, it seems the savings is marginal. Still, if you want top notch, as close to laser text printing as you can get, then this is the one! I love printing on two sides of the page as well! Very nice.

Recently, our small business purchased this printer to speed up our label printing ability, assuming that a faster, more expensive printer would actually be an upgrade. We were sorely mistaken.
This printer ruins one out of every 5 sheets of labels, requiring that someone "babysit" the device for it to work properly. The same problem occurs when printing mulitple pages at a time on regular paper.
Often, it will not print anything, sending the error message that the ink cartridge cannot move, which then moves upon hitting the cancel button, with a loud snap and grinding noises.
To add further insult, after contacting HP's customer service (and waiting on hold for over 30 minutes), we were rudely told that their printer doesn't claim to be able to print labels, so it's our problem.

The CP1160 is a constant source of frustration, intensified by it's high cost. If you're looking to upgrade your small business printer, I strongly caution you against purchasing this one.

After this experience, our company will never purchase another HP product again, ever.