HP DeskJet 3650 Color Inkjet Printer

by HP

Product Details

• Item Weight: 5.1 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 8 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B00009X7EA
• Item model number: C8974C#A2L
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: June 26, 2003

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

HP's DeskJet 3650 color inkjet printer offers a great package of basic features, perfect for home or office use. Delivering 4,800-optimized dpi or optional 6-ink color printing at up to 17 ppm black, 12 ppm color in draft mode, the 3650 offers reliable performance in a compact, space-saving design. A single fold-up 100-sheet paper tray easily handles a wide range of media, including plain and photo paper, envelopes, transparencies, cards, and more in a variety of sizes and weights. Onscreen controls let you select from five print modes (speed/quality), monitor ink-levels, and cancel print jobs, all to help you maximize your time and money.

The DeskJet 3650 has a single USB port for connecting to your PC or Mac, and comes with separate Windows and Mac reference guides and set-up posters. The HP DeskJet 3550 is backed by a one-year warranty on parts and labor.

What's in the Box
HP DeskJet 3650 color inkjet printer, HP no. 27 (C8728A) tri-color inkjet print cartridge, HP no. 28 (C8727A) black inkjet print cartridge, printer driver CD-ROM (PC and Mac), reference guides, set-up posters, additional software and Internet links

Product Description

HP DeskJet 3650 Color Inkjet Printer

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Compact, Great Deal, Fast Performance, September 2, 2003

By 

Charlie (MI, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: HP DeskJet 3650 Color Inkjet Printer (Office Product)

At the "FastNormal" setting, the print quality is close to LASER quality while the speed is incredible. I upgraded from a Canon BJC-4000 that has pumped out thousands of pages for me since 1994 and has put me through grade school, high school, and a 4 year engineering university. If it (the BJC-4000) were a live person, I'd buy it a six-pack - so it doesn't come easy for me to say that the 3650 is a big step up from the BJC-4000.

I have not put the 3650 through any longevity tests, but installation, performance, and quality are superb. I ran into zero problems installing it on an XP Pro SP-1 PC, and didn't run into any problems sharing the printer over a LAN.

I did run into an annoyance:
When printing with just the black cartridge installed, it would always tell me that I'm missing the color cartridge.

Also whenever the printer attempts to clear the print head, it would blow out a huge wad of ink onto the pad on the left side of the printer. Each HP #27 cartridge is only 10mL (the BJC-4000's BC-20 was 22mL and would last me approximately 1000-1500 pages at draft quality text) so each drop that it wastes costs me a few dozen pages.

You must install the drivers FIRST before connecting the printer to your PC via USB. I've tested this printer on my Dell Inspiron 8100 laptop and my self-built AMD XP 2100+ PC. Both use Windows XP Pro. The printer also works flawlessly over a LAN.

After several weeks of testing I'd like to add the "X" button on the printer is a true godsend - it's for cancelling print jobs. Rather than going to the Control Panel to manually cancel a job, hitting that button stops the job and clears it from the queue w/o any problems over a LAN.

Also if you print over a LAN and the printer is OFF, it will turn on by itself. This is a big plus because I don't always have the luxury of working at the PC where the printer is physically installed.

The only complaints I have is that the paper loading mechanism sounds like someone banging on plastic pots and pans - it's very very loud!! Also it tends to gobble ink cartridge fluid rather quickly but it prints faster than the HP Laserjet V I have at work, and with the quality set at NORMAL or FastNormal, it rivals that of laser printers.

Overall I give it 5 stars out of 5 - if you know how to properly install USB devices on PCs then you'll get it to work. I wouldn't recommend installing it on an older PC that isn't running Windows 2000 or XP.

UPDATE: After using it for a longer period of time, I did in fact notice that the small ink cartridge capacity limits its maximum time for operation in an office environment.

The cost is not an issue since I found a bulk supplier of ink refills that would save me a bundle. What was important was the ease of changing cartridges (pull the lid and the cartridge holder comes into changing position) and the quality of printing w/ non-standard ink.

Make sure you clean the cartridge if you start to see lines in the print out. I noticed a strip of dried ink on the head unit and cleaned that off with some water and a tissue.

Overall the printer is STILL exceeding my expectations.

My impression of this printer:
Low price, Hewlett Packard quality + reliability.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fine Printer for the Price, August 29, 2003

By 

celes_knight (United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: HP DeskJet 3650 Color Inkjet Printer (Office Product)

This is a good printer for the price. It has a low, unobtrusive profile. It's fairly quite, and has a fairly average print speed. Black text is nice, and photo printing is very, very good.

This uses three cartridges: "27" which is a dedicated black, "28" which is dedicated color, and "58" which is a mixed color/black used for printing photographs. Unfortunately, you have to remove the black to use the photo cartridge. The whole process takes several minutes, so this is a poor choice for someone intending to do a lot of mixed black and high-quality color printing.

I do not recommend doing any sort of quality image printing without the photo cartridge. I printed the same image using just the black and color cartridges, and then with the color and photo cartridge. The difference was incredible. In the first image, a tree trunk looked like a solid dark-brown smudge. The leaves were a solid green with brown smudges, and a bird house looked like a drop of blue ink somehow fell on the page. After printing it with the photo cartridge, everything was very clear and nice, but a bit too light. I reprinted it for a third time on photo paper and the result was indistinguishable from a real photograph. The colors were vivid, and every detail was clearly visible.

The power adapter is bulky, and could easily block your outlets, so make certain you have room before buying this. Also, this connects to the computer using a USB cable, which is not included.

This uses ink fairly rapidly, so someone who intends to do a lot of printing should look elsewhere. For someone who will only print occasionally, and is tech. savvy enough to swap cartridges on a regular basis, this is a fine printer for the money.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good printer for the money., January 23, 2004

By 

FredL "fredluff" (Sacramento, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: HP DeskJet 3650 Color Inkjet Printer (Office Product)

This is a very good printer for the money. It's very fast in Draft mode but more surprising is how good the black and white print quality is in Draft. In the Normal and Best mode I can hardly tell the difference between the 3650 and my Laserjet 6L. Others have commented on my two major complaints: (a) the "hidden" cost of the USB cable you have to buy separately and much worse (b) the VERY short life of the print cartridges. My first black ink cartridge only lasted a few weeks with only moderate use. Plan on finding an ink refill kit if you plan to use this baby much. One other nuisance; if you run out of ink the last document can get "stuck" in the printer without printing and XP won't let you cancel it. It's stuck there until you replace the cartridge.