Customer Reviews

HP Photosmart D7360 Printer

5 star:		(30)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

This printer produces drop dead gorgeous photos when using HP Premium Photo paper. They are practically dripping with glossy eye popping color! Text is also sharp and crisp. Normal copier paper is passable, but buying the special HP paper really makes a noticable improvement. (personal plug: you can buy paper and inkjet from HP's website with free overnight shipping with no minimum purchase!)

The touch screen makes printing from memory cards very easy. It also reduces the number of buttons on the printer itself -- which accounts for its sleek Mac-inspired styling. The printer can also fix exposure and red eye right in the printer! No need to connect it to your computer. In fact, I find myself copying photos from iPhoto to my memory card and then printing directly from the card (it seems easier than going through all the options in the print dialogue box). You can even print photos directly from your iPod with your USB dock cable! (Now, if I only had an iPod!)

The D7360 also uses HP's new inexpensive 6 color "02" inks -- which means you only need to replace the inks you use, and they won't cost a fortune. It's a fast printer -- but I take points off because the printer really shimmy and shakes your desk when it's printing -- like a little earthquake! Also paper handling is a mixed bag. There is a nice built-in tray for 4x6 photo paper as well as one for everyday 8.5x11 paper. Unfortunately, the paper trays do not fold up when not in use. And it's a bit of a hassle to remove paper when you just want to print one envelope or 5x7 photos. Lastly, the printer itself is rather large considering HP's all-in-ones add a scanner but are the same size.

I was deciding between this printer and a few others that were older models while at a popular brick and mortar store. The tipping point for this model was the speed of prints, ease of printing 4x6 photo's "stand alone", as well as the innovative LCD touch screen. The ease of use factor is very high, which means the rest of my family should be able to figure it out and print the millions of photos that we have had sitting on the computer for the last 3 years. I am a long time buyer of HP products- this is my 3rd HP printer.

I got this printer home and unpacked it promptly. There are 6 cartridges that you have to put in- it was very simple to do so. The 6 cartridge design seems like a good idea- you only replace what you need to. I still think it ends up netting out about the same price as a printer with combined cartridges, because the individual cartridges are $10 each. You can also buy them all in a pack for approximately $8 each.

Getting connected to my PC was the next step. This is why I gave the review a 4 start as opposed to 5. Prior to installing this HP printer, I was upgrading my older 932c printer which ran fine on my PC. My PC happens to be running Windows 2003 Server, which I found out is NOT supported by this printer. I never could have imagined that HP would specifically disable a printer from running under Windows 2003 server- I guess it is because they think that they can get more money selling server grade printers. After trying to install the software, I got a message saying I needed to be running a supported OS (basically any desktop OS since Windows 98). I went to the HP web site to see if there were any "work arounds" to getting it working on a Windows 2003 server OS, but nothing was listed. I then tried the online chat. I got in right away, but had to ask my question 5 different ways before the support person understood what I was trying to do. Her first answer was "install a supported OS". Great suggestion! NOT. She eventually gave me some instructions on how to install another driver for a 990c printer. I did not bother with her instructions as this was for a different model and I wasn't sure if those were good instructions. Instead, I tried to add the printer driver from the CD manually using the add hardware wizard from the conrtrol panel. The driver added just fine, and my printer now works in both black and white and color mode. However, I am still unable to install the software under windows 2003 as there is a restriction built in to the software. That means that I will not be able to take any advantage of the HP software (such as easily printing 4x6 photos from my PC).

Problems w/ the OS aside, I am still extremely pleased with this printer. I was able to print my pictures directly from devices that had USB 2.0 cables- such as a camera and even my personal GPS-r device. You can also pull out the memory card and plug it directly in to the printer, but it's easier just to plug in a USB cable to the front. The nice thing about it is, there are plenty of options. Just about every popular memory card is supported.

So far I have printed out 21 pictures in batch mode off a portable device using the USB cable, w/o using my PC to print. It took about 30 minutes to do so- and that was at the best quality. Using a "Better" setting on my 5.0 megapixel camera, the pictures were as good a quality or better than what I've seen from going to photo places. You can't see the "dots" on the picture unless you look extremely close. I was using some fuji film gloss 4x6 paper, which worked really well. 30 minutes to print 21 pictures seems really fast- definitely faster than driving to the local store and paying 37 cents a photo. I'm guessing the cost per picture is probably around 20 cents (HP says 24 I believe).

I also tried printing directly from the card. There are features you can go through to print pictures. Supposedly there is a built in red-eye reduction, but when I did "batch mode" I still had a few photos with red-eye in them. There are a lot of settings that you can change on the lcd screen, it's probably an option that needs enabled that I haven't found yet. One setting I wish it had was the ability to control how long the printer stays on before it goes into power save mode. It automatically dims the LCD screen after a little while, then it eventually shuts the screen off. I'm not sure what the time frame is for that, but it seems like it could be shorter. Can't find a setting to change that value.

Overall, I definitely recommend this printer. The convenience factor, speed, and photograph quality are the best features and they are done EXTREMELY well. These features far outweigh the not being able to install the printer software on Windows 2003, which is an annoyance that I hope but doubt will be addressed.

First things first - if you are a hobbyist photographer - get this printer. Now.

With that out of the way my opinions on this machine:

The negative reviews of this machine are funny; its as if they bought a basketball, and was stunned to learn it didn't make for very good tennis balls - sure its round, and can be hit - just not very far. If your main concern is hitting tennis balls, buy tennis balls.

The Photosmart D7360, despite its capability, is a high-end consumner PHOTO printer. Can it do text pages, sure. But that's not the reason to buy the machine, and obviously not what it was designed to excel in. If you need a B&W text printer to handle your high volume text-printing needs, get a laser-printer. This thing is designed to print photos - period. Anything else is a happy suppliment.

And boy does it print nice photos. I picked this up with a couple packets of 4X6, 5X7 and 8.5X11 paper, and the prints have been excellent. Are there better printers out there - of course. But you're going to pay a little bit more for them as well as the paper to print it on. However, if your goal is to print out excellent photos to be distributed to friends, family or collected in an album - this printer will get the job done everytime. I was initially skeptical on the ability of a sub 100 machine (because that's the price you can get it for lately) being able to give print-shop style prints, but that was laid to rest with my first test: sharp blues in the sky, and nice soft warm tones in the skin. My machine was delivered at work, and we were all absolutely impressed with how quick the machine spit out seemingly complex photographs in seconds. Proofs/drafts are also quick, w/o using lots of ink, but still producing photos that are of good enough quality to see what you'll be getting on actual photo paper.

As for the negatives:

Long load times: If you haven't used the machine in perhaps days, and have it shut off, then yes - it is going to take perhaps over a minute to boot up because its dumped its memory cache. However shutting it off, and picking it back up a few hours later is not going to result in the (in my opinion) over-exaggerated load times. Or just dont shut it off; its not going to be draining dollars while in power-save mode (similar to your computer).

Installation: With updated Service Pack, Windows installed the printer in less than a minute. No driver conflicts, and the printer was ready for use after that.

The Software: The software is 100% not needed to use this printer, and I would suggest getting Picassa (a free software by Google) to use for picture management. Still install the driver support obviously so that you can adjust page-setup - but when it prompts to install the (overbloated - 350MB) software, simply hit cancel and finish the rest of the setup. The software should be a non-issue since there will always be better software than the default that comes with any machine.

Photo Paper: The machine will print to ANY photo paper so long as the dimensions are correct. Any suggestion that only HP paper can be used is erroneous (but then HP is pretty good quality and cheap).

No USB cord: Indeed a negative. Not so much for me since I had one laying around, but I can see how this would be a problem. Be sure to order one when you pick this up.

All in all I would effortlessly recommend this printer for someone looking for a photo print option. Do not buy it as an all-in-one, multi-purpose machine, because you will be disappointed and their are cheaper options for this. Buy it so that you can have a dedicated photo printer and not have to head to the lab everytime you want prints of your photographs.

When I was looking for a printer to replace my Photosmart 1215, I looked at both the Canon Pixma and Epson products before deciding to buy the D7360. This printer produces gorgeous photographs on photo paper, and excellent quality text on normal inkjet paper. Graphics and photos printed on normal inkjet paper also look very good.

The printer is very easy to setup and use, and the touch screen makes it as easy to print photos directly from the printer as from the computer.

There are some gotchas, however. Unless you turn off HP's photo fix, which is on by default, all photographs have a bronze cast, which is especially noticeable in skin tones. There seems to be no way to tell the printer to leave photo fix off by default. Also, although the printer powers up quickly most of the time, every once in a while it goes through an internal setup sequence. This usually takes about 10 to 15 seconds and is very, very noisy.

The printer uses significantly less ink than my Photosmart 1215. HP says you can get 150 4 by 6 photos using one set of ink cartridges, and they sell an ink and photo paper package for $36.00. I found that I had to replace the yellow ink while the other cartridges were more than half full (approximately 80 photos). Maybe I just got a bad yellow ink cartridge.

Other than the issues mentioned, I'm very pleased with the printer, and compared to my last printer, I'm saving a bunch of money on ink cartridges.

First off let me say that i have worked for a printing company that has some of the top of the line printing equipment. I did my own research on the lot of photo printers out there on the market right now, between the range of $200-400. I can say without a doubt that the HP Photosmart D7360 Printer for the price and quality is amazing. I printed a photo on 8.5 x 11 HP high gloss photo paper, taken with a 6.0 Mega Pixel camera, on the HP-D7360 and a machine at work that we ues to print photos for clients. I showed both of the photos to 4 fellow co-workers and asked them which one they thought we should present to the client. Three of them picked the one printed on the HP-D7360, the fourth was undecided at the time, when i informed them what i had done they were none the less shocked. They had a hard time believing that a store bought printer (for under $200) could produce a picture that clear, sharp, in focus and true to color. I had to print one in front of them just to prove i wasnt joking. The average price i found for this printer was around $180.00, bought it on Amazon for $136.99 great price and super fast shipping. If your looking for a great all purpose photo printer (that doesnt even need to be hooked up to a Computer) this is the unit for you. And as far as the problem with it running out of paper, then destroying the next 2 or 3 prints. Not sure if they have fixed it since then, but i have ran it out of paper on purpose more than 10 times and it printed perfect right after that. My personal CPU experience is over 20 years (MCSE, business marketing).

I bought this printer after doing a bit of research and per Consumer Reports recommendation, and I have been very pleased with the print quality and features so far. Of exceptional note is the photo print quality. When using the HP Photo paper, the results are simply superior. You cannot tell that it was printed on an ink-jet and not from a professional photo print service. With that said, the HP software installation was a nightmare. I have a year old Dell XPS 400 running Windows XP and had to install the HP software three times before it would work properly. It was a frustrating, and to me, unnecessary experience. If HP can build such an outstanding printer, they should be able get the installation drivers right, especially since XP has been out for so long. If not for the software, I would have definitely given it a higher rating. So, 5 stars for printing (especially photos), 4 stars overall. Note to HP: Get the installation drivers right.

After much reviewing of printers online and debating about whether or not to get a large format printer, whether it be HP or Epson, I went to the store and ended up bringing the HP D7360 home. I have always trusted HP and have heard some bad stuff about Epson and their ink and clogging heads. I decided against a large format because of the extra cost, they are huge and the larger paper is so expensive, if I want an 11x14 or 17 photo, I can order it for alot cheaper. I sell photos, and have had one order in one year for a larger print, and it was 16x20, so I would have to order that anyway.

Back to the D7360, it prints beautifully. I have tried several different papers and my paper of choice is HP Premium Plus. Now, the Advanced paper that comes with the cartridge set when you buy the multi pack works really good also. In fact, I have tried several different settings with this paper, the automatic setting with the Advanced paper prints in 12 seconds and the best setting takes longer to print, but if there is hardly any difference. The main difference I saw when I printed the same photo of my daughter on the different settings was that her hair had a little more color, darker looking. I figure for everyday photos you are printing, use the 12 second one, or automatic, and if you sell photos or really want an exceptional print, then use the Premium Plus paper and the best setting. I printed a picture pack on the soft gloss premium plus paper, it looked PROFESSIONAL! I have tried some other papers, non-HP that is, and they looked grainy. I read on the HP website that the HP inks are designed to work with HP paper, makes sense!

And I do not know what everyone is griping about the noise, it is not bad at all.

I just purchased this printer to replace a dead Canon i860. I considered two printers when making this purchase: this one and the Canon 6700, based on expert reviews and user experience. Given the persistent paper handling problems I had with the i860, I decided to give the HP a try. Very glad that I did. So far I have printed a couple of text pages at the lowest quality and they shoot out of the printer in about 2 seconds (with single spaced text). The text quality, remember this is at the LOWEST quality was acceptable to my standards. Text print speed and quality at the next level up is excellent, I see no reason to go to the highest level. I printed about four 4 * 6 images on Canon Photo Paper Plus through Photoshop CS and through the HP software. The photos printed at the "best" setting blew me away. The color is gorgeous, detail remarkable, and speed is quite acceptable (about 45 seconds for 5MB JPG files). I also printed one 8.5 * 11 @ best quality and it is stunning ( didn't time it, but around 3 or four minutes).

Wow, I am very impressed with everything so far. I find the build to be what I would expect for a $150 printer - it is fine. Set up is a breeze, though software installation took some time. Yes it is big, yes the paper capacity is limited, but it's not like HP is deceptive about this. That information is available in the specs and I can live with it given the quality and speed of the output. Nice work HP on pushing the envelope on printer design and integrating some nice features into this affordable powerhouse. Give it a try, I doubt you'll be disappointed.

UPDATE:

Just to let you know, my initial version of this printer developed a problem within the first month of US. HP support quickly sent a "new" (refurbished one) that arrived DOA. I was able to get HP to refund my money. Very disappointed! Back to Canon printers for me... cheaper ink better quality. If I could change my stars on this one, it would be: 1*.

The HP D7360 is an excellent "Photo" printer. In response to the two latest user reviews, what did you expect from a "Photo" printer? Duhh!!!

This printer is not designed as an all-around, multi-purpose printer. It is designed to be a "Photo" printer, that also has the capability of printing other types of documents. But it is foremost a "Photo" printer. It does an excellent job printing photos. I compared this printer to the new Canon Pixma i6700D and the HP D7360 produced much better picture quality. I also took a few digital photo files to a local high quality photo lab and compared them to the print-outs of the D7360, and again, the D7360 produced better photos. The colors are vibrant and the level of sharpness and fine detail is just amazing. And this printer is fast!!! My previous HP printer was the 5550, and it took about 10-12 minutes to print out a high resolution 8 x 10 photo. The D7360 takes about 4 minutes for the same photo. It's not the quietest printer, but it does produce awesome photo results. And it does a pretty good job with text documents. The text comes out sharp and crisp, just not as dark black as an all-round printer.

I highly recommend this printer if you do alot of photo print-outs and if you also need it for printing out text documents and web pages.

I purchased this printer based on reviews of others,which is how I make most purchases from Amazon (great feature!). It is a great printer, I love it. I put out a montly newsletter and the images printed on this machine is so superior to any thing I have used thus far. It makes my canon pixma ip4000 and it's documents look like a piece of junk.