- High speed color inkjet printer
- Up to 4800 dpi color printing, 1200 dpi black printing
- 8 MB built-in memory; imaging software bundle included
- USB interface; optional networking and wireless adaptors available
- PC and Mac compatible
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Connectivity is offered through a standard USB port, and optional wireless and networking accessories are available to expand versatility. Other convenient features include a print cancel button, on-screen ink level monitoring, one touch screen shot printing, and an optional duplexing unit. The DeskJet 5150 comes with a handy bundle of photo and imaging software, and a one-year warranty.
What's in the Box
HP DeskJet 5150 color inkjet printer, HP no. 56 (C6656A) black inkjet print cartridge, HP no. 57 (C6657A) tri-color inkjet print cartridge, power supply, power cord, software on CD-ROM (PC and Mac), reference guide, setup poster, media pack.
I have framed a couple of color prints printed on the 5150 (on HP photo paper), as they are equal to conventional photographic printing to the naked eye. My only caveat on the photo printing is that I can't vouch for the life of the prints, so far so good, but I know that some inkjet prints fade badly over time.
I am pretty hard on the 5150. Because I am in in the throes of researching and writing my Master's thesis right now, I am printing copious amounts, and running at least 500 pages a week through the 5150, and thus far have had no problems with it.
The one minor and completely unanticipated, annoyance I have with the 5150 is the shelf that holds the printed sheets is too short. HP provides a rickety pull out/fold over contraption to help hold printed work, but in my experience it is inconvenient at best (it almost doubles the frontal area of the printer), and is a real space hog on my desk.
Aside from that one small critique (which is the reason I gave it four instead of five stars) I think the HP 5150 is an excellent little printer at a bargain basement price.
Things that impressed me about it:
--The box it comes in. It's not too big, and all the specs and technical info you need are printed on the outside. (And although others complain about it not having a USB cable and I don't have the box in front of me, I'm sure that it specifies that on the box itself. Besides, no USB cable has been an industry standard since USB printers first rolled off production lines.)
--The size. For an inkjet printer, it's quite small. It can also be used in low overhead areas, since the paper tray is underneath the output tray. My Epson Stylus 740 is, for all practical purposes, 13" high and 5" deeper than it would otherwise be, because of the paper tray.
--Software. Software for Mac OS X was simple to install.
--Print quality is excellent. We threw in some sheets of white paper that had been lying around outside the wrapper and the test picture came out great. Black and white text bled a bit in normal mode, but I think that has more do to with the paper having been inadequately stored.
--Print speed. Quite nice, particularly for text in normal mode.
--I got this printer out of the box and working for my client in fifteen minutes.
Cons:
--None I can think of.
For a $100 printer, not bad at all.
Pushing the ink cartridges in takes some doing to make sure they are hooked in correctly. But if you'd had HP printers before it's probably easy because they are all done that way. I moved up from an Epson, so it took a little practice.
Setup for a single computer was relatively easy, although the included CD does not autostart. Instead, if you're using Windows XP the driver is already on your Windows system, and when you plug in the printer, turn it on, the Windows system detects it and installs the driver.
Setup for an older Windows 98 computer was more difficult. For starters, the older computer does not have the proper driver. But when you select "Have Disk", it does not browse correctly to the CD. Instead you must open the CD and run installation. If the printer is not connected and turned on, the installer crashes. I found this out the hard way because I was trying to install the driver on my Win98 but using it remotely from the network and could not do so because the installer would crash. Finally, I had to unhook the printer from my XP computer, hook it up to my Win98, install the driver from the CD, and then unhook it and put it back onto the network.
Printer also has strange quirks. For example, sometimes the arrow button on the left would blink for no good reason. Just press the button and printer will start. Other times the ink drop light will blink (and my ink is full since I just bought it). Just open the lid and push back down, and it'll print.
The output is great though, so if you can live with the quirks, and with the low price, it's still a worthwhile purchase.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|