HP DeskJet 990Cse Printer

by HP

Product Details

Product Manual [2.06mb PDF]

• Item Weight: 16.6 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 19 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: B000063W95
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: April 30, 2002

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The Hewlett-Packard 990c photo-quality color printer is ideal for small businesses or busy households. It produces sensational color documents at high speeds with HP's exclusive PhotoREt III color-layering technology. It can print black text at up to 17 ppm and blazes through color documents at 13 ppm, with up to 2,400 x 1,200 dpi resolution on photo paper. The 990c features infrared printing from PDAs, notebook computers, and other mobile devices. Plus, using the 990c with a mobile device couldn't be easier--just point and print.

The highly versatile 990c is robust enough to handle challenging print tasks. It has 8 MB RAM, a 150-sheet input tray, and a print duty capacity of 5,000 pages per month. The 990c also has automatic two-sided printing and an optical sensor that selects paper size and type for you.

The 990c comes with a power cord, reference guide, setup guide, software CD-ROM, and all the print cartridges you need to set up shop. It is compatible with Microsoft Windows 95, 98, NT 4.0, and Macintosh 8.1 applications. The HP 990c also has a one-year Express Exchange warranty.

From Winmag(r)

It was only a matter of time before a printer came to market that didn't require you to tell it what kind of paper you were using. The HP Deskjet 990Cse does just that, using its optical paper sensor to get the optimal output from this addition to its printer arsenal. This is just one of the features that makes this Deskjet so interesting.

Designed to make your work easier (achieve better productivity in marketing jargon), the 990Cse does bring to bear several important time- and effort-saving features. In addition to sensing the paper type, you'll find infrared capability for grabbing pictures from a digital camera and taking information from a palmtop, laptop, or other mobile device as long as that device also has infrared capability and will work with the printer (the online User's Guide uses the word "some" when referring to compatible devices and there are apps on the installation CD to help configure your IR device). Not bad! There's also a module for two-sided printing in the box.

Let's start with print speeds and output quality. In Normal mode our standard 20-page text document took 4:32 (4.4 ppm) to produce very good black output on inexpensive paper. In Draft mode, the document flew (literally) out in 2:25 (8.3 ppm). Calling on the two-sided printing module substantially increased the overall output time. A note flashes on your monitor saying that before pulling the paper back in, the printer adds some drying time. You are also notified that with two-sided printing, the top margins may be affected and you can select whether to have the printer create additional pages or reduce the size of the content to maintain the original number of pages. Our text document took 10:17 (1.9 ppm). It's nice, however, to be able to walk away while the document prints. Needless to say, even with a ten-line business letter, I could not get the unit to print "up to 17 ppm" touted by the manufacturer. The closest I came was 6.5 ppm in Normal mode and 10 ppm in Draft mode. I will say, however, that draft mode quality is good enough for everyday work--I'd use it for almost all monochrome printing.

Our mixed text and graphics document using inexpensive copy paper printed at 2.4 ppm; using HP's Bright White inkjet paper, output clocked at 1:12 (2.5ppm). On the better paper, the output was, as you'd expect, sharper and colors were brighter.

I slipped in some photo paper and sent a graphics file to be printed, relying on the printer's sensing feature to come up with the right setting. In three minutes a 6-by-7.5-inch image emerged with reasonably good detail and color rendition, though a bit on the dark side and with an emphasis on blue. I then selected the glossy photo paper option from the menu and the overall color output was much better--but oranges and purples were not as good as I expected. A few digital camera images caught on the fly and printed using the included HP PhotoSmart Photo Printing application looked very good on bright white inkjet paper and even better on glossy paper. I should point out that if you select the Automatic option, the PhotoREt and 2,400 x 1,200 dpi options aren't available.

The printer driver's default settings worked fine for most things, but you can manipulate the saturation, brightness, and color tone for color images. If you do select the photo paper setting, options become available for HP's PhotoREt technology to automatically determine print speed and quality, or you can set the output quality for 2,400 x 1,200 dpi--according to the manufacturer, this setting is for source images higher than 600 dpi and you'll need at least 400 MB or more of hard disk space.

You can also choose to print in gray scale and with a black-only option. Both choices showed banding--the High Quality gray scale setting showed narrower banding and a tint in the red direction; Black Only exhibited wider banding but very good grays.

I liked having the two-sided printing module available. It attaches to the back of the printer (we saw its introduction a year ago with the Deskjet 970Cse) and is an added-value feature. You can also manually print two-sided output and the driver will pop up a screen telling you how to reinsert the paper. With two-sided printing you can select "book" or "tablet" binding. You can likewise print two or four pages per single sheet, with or without borders (these are the only possibilities). You can tell the printer how many copies to print (up to 99), as well as print posters in 2x2, 3x3, and 4x4 configurations. You can also reduce the size of the printed document or rescale the document to fit the paper in the printer.

The almost-15 pound Deskjet 990Cse doesn't take up much room. With the printing module attached it measures 7.72 by 17.32 by 17.13 inches (HWD); add approximately 2.25 inches with the paper support extended. It accepts a wide variety of media, including transparencies, labels, cards, and envelopes. With 8 MB of built-in RAM, there isn't much delay after you click the print button.

There are some nice HP apps included on the CD: Instant Delivery, Photo Sharing, Photo Printing, By Design Office, and Office in Color 2.0. I could have done without the shills for AOL, CompuServe, AT&T Worldnet, and AT&T Canada that appear at the end of the install process.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Good print quality - bad mechanism, July 8, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: HP DeskJet 990Cse Printer (Office Product)

I bought this printer new, when it was HPs top of the line. I have been very disappointed in it from day one.
The print quality is fine. The duplexer is a joke. It needs the bottom of the page to grip the paper, so it can not print on that area. The driver software gives you two options to deal with this - print everything at about 90% scale to squeeze the content into the printable space, or re-sort the pages allowing the SW to move the page breaks. Neither is appealing, so I found that I reverted to manual duplex mode - taking the paper out and reversing itself myself.
The biggest problem I have with the printer is frequent paper jams. Even when using HP brand multipurpose paper, I find that the printer jams about 25% of the time. In the quest for speed, the paper load mechanism is just too fast, pulling in many sheets of paper instead of just one.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Good print quality - bad mechanism, July 8, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: HP DeskJet 990Cse Printer (Office Product)

I bought this printer new, when it was HPs top of the line. I have been very disappointed in it from day one.
The print quality is fine. The duplexer is a joke. It needs the bottom of the page to grip the paper, so it can not print on that area. The driver software gives you two options to deal with this - print everything at about 90% scale to squeeze the content into the printable space, or re-sort the pages allowing the SW to move the page breaks. Neither is appealing, so I found that I reverted to manual duplex mode - taking the paper out and reversing itself myself.
The biggest problem I have with the printer is frequent paper jams. Even when using HP brand multipurpose paper, I find that the printer jams about 25% of the time. In the quest for speed, the paper load mechanism is just too fast, pulling in many sheets of paper instead of just one.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One of the best, but not the best!, August 22, 2005

By 

80sGuy (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP DeskJet 990Cse Printer (Office Product)

Over the years, I have used no other but only HPs for all my printing tasks and relied heavily on their "layered technology" printers. The 990cse is my latest printer and I must admit that the print results are as good as any HP printer should be -- the quality of prints (texts) are laser-sharp, graphics & pictures printed on plain paper documents are excellent and true-to-life, however, the biggest drawback about this particular model was indeed as we all know by now is the design mechanism. Occasionally, I would encounter a few paper jams here and there and can relate to most previous reviewers' about envelopes jamming up during printing and ready to feed out...indeed this is the most frustrating part. Due to the reason, the unit will not get 5 stars because of its design mechanics.

PROS:
Print quality (unbelievable laser-like texts -- on any paper type!!!)
Rich colors and true black texts.
Print speed
Infrared link printing capability
Full Duplex built in and removable (Automatic 2-sided printing)
Duty cycle: 5,000 pgs/mo (does not make one difference to me)

CONS:
Very expensive unit ($400)
Bulky design
Bad mechanical design
Noisy
Sways back and forth while operating (this is very common with HPs)
Jams envelopes at most times & papers sometimes
EXPENSIVE INK CARTRIDGES!!! (In the course of owning this printer, I have spent over $600 just on ink...and counting)!