Customer Reviews

HP Photosmart D7160 Printer

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

For the longest time I was skeptical of all inkjet printers. I thought I knew the game; they get you to buy the printer and then you end up paying and paying for ink cartridges. What's more, the wonderful output they promise usually turned into good output "some of the time". However, after reading about the D7160 I decided to give it a try and was pleasantly surprised.

One of the features that I liked from the start was the low-cost ink cartridges. The printer uses 6 different cartridges that run about $9.95 a piece. The second feature that sets it apart is the fact it comes with a separate 4x6" photo tray below the main paper tray. Now you don't have to align up the photo paper "just right" before printing a photo out. The tray itself will align it and pick it up with a special grabber.

The print quality itself is beyond compare. The photo output rivals and exceeds that of many photo processing labs. The colors are clear, vibrant and jump out at you. Nobody will believe you printed your photos at home.

Finally, it has slots for various memory cards as well as a PictBridge (USB) port for hooking your camera up directly. The color LCD screen on top of the printer allows you to select and print directly from the card or camera without the need of a PC! A great time saver and almost fool-proof way for the entire family to print photos without having to learn a complicated piece of software.

For the money you can't go wrong with the D7160. This printer delivers way more than the box promises for an extremely low cost, both up-front and in the long run.

This is the best photo printer I have ever owned for 3 reasons, very easy to use,no computer connection required,and most importantly the best quality photos ive seen(If you use hp glossy photo paper)supplied with printer. First time I have bought an electronic device and have nothing to complain about.

- Photo quality: Very good, just like any other printer if you use their own paper
- Text quality: very good, an improvement over my last two printers.
- Set-up: the USB port is covered with a sticker for a reason; read the instructions and there is no problem, it is very easy to do. With the features on newer printers they are not all plug and print anymore.
- Ink set-up: 6 individual tanks so you only replace what is empty. So far I have not had to do any special alignment when I change tanks and everything looks great right away. I have however had to change the yellow tank frequently, and I'm not using yellow a lot. I tossed 3 yellows and 2 magentas before I've used up my first black; get used to using the black ink only option when you can, although then the text doesn't look nearly as good.
- Paper set-up: Two trays, both front mounted, one for 4x6 and one for full sheets. Once you are used to putting in the paper upside-down it is no problem.
-Paper compatibility: Mixed. Will work well with other plain or photo papers, but I am having a very hard time with Neato CD label paper, which has never been a problem on my 3 previous printers.
-Service: -The good: the on-line supplies service is amazing, I had a big box of ink tanks and paper sent in one day, no shipping charge, and at competitive prices or better. This is an excellent service, and a real plus for HP.
-The bad: Phone tech support is terrible. The tech's I've spoken with are not fluent in English and do not know more than what is in the FAQ's. My questions were not in the handbook, so they were lost, and I was not then passed to someone who could do better. E-mail support is the same.

Summary: If you only plan on using HP Paper and HP software then the printer does a good job. Ink use is more expensive than my last printer, but the results look better too. But as I design and produce media packaging on a small scale, I need a printer that works with other paper and other software, and this does not seem to be able to do that, and their "support" services can't seem to explain why.

I loved the printer. I pulled it out of the box, setup it up on a shelf and started printing photos directly from my memory stick (no computer needed). I love that feature. But, the photographs were stunning. I've been taking photographs professionally and for family over 40 years - these color photos are hard to tell from the original lab prints I have (for comparison purposes, the digital images I printed were created at the same time the photo lab printed the 4x6's I compared to). The color accuracy is amazing.

The blacks are rich and dark, the contrast is impressive, and the Yellows, Gold, and Orange tones were perfect (very hard for most printers, even the professional lab systems to get right).


Then I installed all the software and hooked it up to my Mac. It intalled alot of software and integrated perfectly. The ink cartridges installed quite easily and are fool-proof. There are 6 of them and they are keyed so that you can't install the wrong color.

The touch screen is larger than preview screens on earlier or similar printers. That makes a HUGE difference to older people who can't see or figure out the odd arrays of buttons.


I had my 77 year old Mother print several photos without much coaching. She has never used a computer or a digital camera. She found the simple touch screen directions to be sufficient.


Cons:

I hate the tiny paper tray. I have never understood the logic of designing a printer that only holds 20 sheets of paper (unless it was designed to be portable).

The ink is very sensitive to touch - be careful. It's hard to tease out the 4x6 prints from the tray.

The paper tray design is nuts - cheap and awkward to use.

It took me 20 minutes to figure out where the special 4x6 Photo tray was located (Under the output tray). Dumb design, HP!


OK, I have another gripe. The software drivers have way too many options, but worse, the installation did not make this printer the primary or default printer, as I think it should have. And, more importantly, the Photo (4x6) tray where I have the photo paper, is not the default tray or the choice for "automatic" ? Why not - the primary attraction on this kind of printer is 4x6 photos, not 8x10 !?

Last insult - HP gives you 2 free 4x6 sheets to print on !! TWO
Wow, how cheap can you get.

The printed has an external power supply. (Sorry, I hate external power supplies of all sizes and shapes, but especially on computer equipment. My floor is cluttered up enough with a tangle of dusty and poorly marked cables)

On the other hand, HP now ships printers (again) with a USB cable.

HP went through some bad times when they didn't even ship with Mac drivers or USB cables. Thank goodness they are past that ugly stage in their history.


GOOD NEWS: You can and should buy extra printer cartridges. Not individually, at first, but get two of the VIVERA packs for about $35 each. They have 150 sheets of 4x6 photo paper and all 6 ink cartridges.


I was going to buy the 8250 (introduced this time last year). It was out of stock and the prices are coming down on both of them. This printer has a much better touch pad screen - well worth the extra bucks and extra space.

If you're buying this printer for anything other than printing photos, don't!

If you want to spend a ton of money on ink then this is the printer for you.

I saw this printer in the store because I needed a new printer to print reports on and such. I thought it would be fun to print some photos that have been on my computer for a while as well, so I bought it. It was working great for about a month and half when my black ink ran out. I also noticed my yellow ink was low as well (which is weird in itself since I mostly print reports in black ink only). When I went to the store I purchase the $22 black ink, but decided to pass on the $12 yellow ink, since I don't do too much photo printing. A few days later the yellow ink ran out and now I can't print my reports out in black ink, because the yellow ink is out! I contacted HP support and they said all ink cartridges need to be at least 30% full to print at all! I asked why I needed yellow ink if I have it set to print in black ink only. Also whether you use the ink or not it gradually runs out anyways. I barely use photo printing, just once in a while for fun, but my yellow is all out and my purple is almost out too.

I asked HP for a software update where it allows you to print in only black ink if you want, but they weren't into that. I understand that printer companies make the bulk of their money on selling ink, but this is ridiculous. Requiring users to buy 5 color ink cartridges just to print in black ink is crazy.
I don't recommend this printer for anyone who wants it as their primary printer or who wants it to print more than just photos. It will stop you dead in your tracks just when you need it because the ink dried out.

This printer is everything and more. It prints to 8.5x11 bleed, 4x6 and the Cartridges 02 are reasonable in a pack (around $35.99 for 6 & often time the pack comes with free 4x6 photo paper) or individual($9.99). I had other HP and hated the cost of ink but loved the print quality. This HP is sharp and I love the value for my money.

HAVE BEEN USING PRINTER FOR 3 MONTHS WITH NO PROBLEMS.
PHOTO'S COME OUT GREAT.THE PHOTO TRAY IS VERY CONVENIENT FOR 4X6 PHOTO'S.
PRINTER WAS EASY TO INSTALL AND DIRECTIONS FOR USE ARE STRAIGHT FORWARD.
HAVING 6 INK CARTRIDGES HELP ON COST OF INK AND ARE EASY TO CHANGE.
HAVE NOT USED THE PRINTER BY ITSELF FOR PICTURES, HAVE DONE ALL THRU THE COMPUTER. GREAT PRINTER BY HP.

I had a Canon i950 photo printer for 4 years which printed outstanding photos but poor text. I had to supplement my Canon i950 printer with an older HP 932 Deskjet printer. When my son took my HP 932 Deskjet to college and my Canon i950 broke down (Canon wanted $70 for a new printhead), I wanted a printer to do both. After much research, I decided on the HP D7160 because it used 6 ink tanks to save ink cost just like my Canon i950 and because it was an HP so I expected better text. I am happy to report that the photos are nearly as good as my Canon i950. The HP photos had better color but the Canon i950 photos had slightly better resolution. However, when printing text and internet pages, the output was excellent which means I did not have to buy a second printer. As far as speed, both text and photos prints a lot faster than my older printers which is expected. I am very happy with the speed. I could not give it 5 stars because I still believe Canon printers produces slightly better photos than HP. In addition, the text output were not "resume-quality" so I will probably use a laser printer at kinkos for that rare purpose. However, for people shopping for an all purpose printer that prints both text, internet pages and photos well, then this printer is recommended. Just be aware that the quality is slightly less than a laser printer for text and slightly less than a top of the line Canon photo printer.

One of the few rare and cheap printers that has support for Windows XP X64 Edition, as well as Vista

The printer works well and does it's job.

Good job HP for developing printer driver support for x64

it replaces my photosmart 7960, and prints much faster and more quiet. output quality is excellent, though it is not obvious that it is better than the 7960.

driver would not installed on windows XP SP2 because I set my default language to traditional chinese. i had to uninstall the driver, change the language setting to english before i can install the driver. it took a long time for driver installation.

initially had a lot of problems printing on costco (kirkland) photo paper. the printout appears to have some green/blue tint. (no such problem with photosmart 9760). eventually, i found out that the D7160 only have problems with the old costco paper that is made in Switzerland, but works beautifully with the current paper made in the USA. So everything is working the way i want it now