Customer Reviews

HP DeskJet 5650 Color Inkjet Printer

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

I purchased this printer to use at my office, because I needed something that could print color brochures and flyers quickly while producing a good quality image. I've had it for about two months now and I'm very pleased. I had a bit of trouble installing it on my ancient laptop which was running Win98 and had only 32MB of ram. According to the box, my laptop had the minimum requirements, but when I ran the software it told me that I didn't, and refused to install. I played around with it and finally got it to work and haven't had a problem since. I also notified HP about this problem since the software and the box say two different things. They are looking into it.

This printer is fast, does great quality prints and is pretty quiet. I also really like the sleek design. The picture above does not do it justice. I've been getting compliments from co-workers about how cool it looks. It really is nicely designed and doesn't take up too much space.

I've used HP printers for years and have always found them to last an extremely long time. I usually replace mine because I want a faster one before I replace one for breaking down. Also, I want to mention that I bought an Epson about a year ago because I heard about how great they were and I was very dissapointed. The Epson ink cartridges do NOT have new printer heads on the bottom of them, like HP and many other brands do. Because of this, the Epson print heads routinely dry out, get full of gunk and refuse to print, or cause a lot of smearing on your documents. I've had to take my Epson apart twice to remove gunk from it, and I am still not satisfied with its print quality. All other things aside, you should pick HP over Epson just for the shear fact that every time you put a new cartridge in you are also replacing the print head.

I brought my 5650 home tonight because I needed to print something on my home computer and my Epson was acting up again. Installation on WinXP was a breeze. I didn't have my cd with me so I just downloaded the software from the HP website and had no problems.

Bottom line: This is a great printer for the price and I recommend it to anyone looking for work or home office use.

First off this is the easiest printer I have ever encountered. Installation took about 10 minutes at the most. I have Norton anti-virus program and was never asked to disable it (don't know why you would). Also we have a home network with 3 computers and everyone can use the printer with no problem (2 computers running on XP home and 1 on XP Pro.) As for the pictures they are amazing. It takes about 2 seconds to swap out the black cartridge for the photo cartridge and your off. 4X6 borderless prints at the maximum dpi (4800X1200) in less than 60 seconds and 8X10 in about 90 seconds. Its fast and no one will never know that you printed the photo. I have had family members ask me where I had my digital pictures developed. The pictures are just amazing you will be in shock when you print the first one.

Yes, there is a lack of directions but just do a little poking around and you can figure out how to use the printer.

This was a gift to me and I would recommend if you know someone who wants a photo printer to get this one or another HP. HP makes the best photo printers as far as I have found. And the ink is much cheaper than any other printer manufacture (about $19.99 for black, $24.99 for photo and $34.99 for tri color).

Lastly paper does matter. If you want to frame a photo buy the good stuff. The price seems steep but $20.00 for 60 photos' is really not that bad (just a lot to shell out up front).

Happy Printing!

HP printers have been my favorite for many years, but this particular printer is subpar. It's construction is noticeably flimsier than previous models, and it has compatability issues with a number of programs, including at least some versions of PrintMaster. I installed this printer on three different computers running two different operating systems (XP and ME) and the software installed differently on all three computers, even the two that are both running XP. HP's troubleshooting and maintenance software used to be excellent, but with this model it is difficult to figure out how to print a self-test page, much less troubleshoot any problems that might arise.

Also, this model is extremely particular about what paper you feed it. My old 722C would take anything, but the 5650 doesn't. I wasn't able to print at all on colored inkjet paper! Even HP Photo paper tends to jam in this printer! The automatic paper detect feature has a tendency to detect banner paper despite the fact that I have never used banner paper and this tends to cause the printer to lock up when I try to print.

The only reason the 5650 gets a two star rating from me rather than a one is due to the fact that it does print very nice photographs, particularly with the photo ink cartridge. Photos on the 5650 print sharper and clearer than even on previous HP models. That is, they do when the photo printer paper doesn't jam in the machine.

I have had difficulty with Canon in the past, but my father has been using Epson printers for about as long as I have used HP and he has some very nice results. Also, Epson is addressing the true digital photography lab with many of its newer products. I think it is time for me to switch ....

Just got a new Dell computer (October 2003) - was a little worried after reading the first Amazon review by jackbmichael. The printer was fairly easy to set-up and self-installed after loading the enclosed HP software - just thought I'd let any other Windows XP Home Edition users out there know.

About 1-1/2 years ago my not-so-old Epson stylus stopped printing, clogged inkheads=garbage.

So, I purchased an HP printer, which began giving me problems within the first three weeks. I contacted HP tech for help, but alas, after hours of trying this and that (you know the drill) it was determined that I needed to return my printer to Best Buy, a mere five miles from my house. I still had a week for a simple exchange...but NOOOOO, the man (from another country, probably India) insisted that they didn't want me to go through the trouble! Please let us send you a replacement via ups. I thought that was silly but he insisted. I told him that I could exchange this printer in less than an hour, but I caved and allowed him to send it to me

I did have another printer I could use in the meantime (my ancient Canon...it's still ticking after seven years...) so it was no huge deal.

About one week later, UPS drops an HP box off on my porch.
The first thing that I notice is that it has a large sticker on it that says, "REFURBISHED IN MEXICO"

My thoughts were "WHAT THE ****!" REFURBISHED?

I refused the package (never opened it) and UPS picked it up a few days later.

I contacted HP and spoke to a rep who kept insisting that it was a good as new. (scripting, scripting, AAARGH!) I DIDN'T WANT as GOOD as NEW! I wanted NEW since that was what I had!! I was not happy and went in circles with them, reminding them that it was over the 30 days now in which I could have EASILY exchanged my HP at Best Buy. I was hugely insulted and felt very deceived.

I went to BB and explained the situation, giving them a copy of my online chat text with the rep. They were very cool about it and exchanged my printer for me, as a matter of fact I upgraded to an HP5650. In hindsight, I should have gone with another manufacturer altogether.

I contacted HP again and spoke to some higher up rep about this situation...and mind you, I don't swear at people and was polite but assertive with my complaint to this woman...she was witch from the get-go...I told her that I thought the service was deceptive and I had to spend an awful lot of time on the phone, calling them, UPS, calling them again, and exchanging my unit because of what they had sent me. I could have simply exchanged the unit on the first day and it would have been done.

She said, "Well, what do you WANT from us?" very very curtly,
All I wanted was to be heard, have them admit their error and to have the two new ink cartridges that I was told to open(by their rep) for testing in my printer replaced. She finally agreed.

They sent me only one of the cartridges. Losers.

So, here I am with my HP5650, which has a history of being temperamental, getting hung up (turn it off, wait an hour, try again) but printed text and graphics very well otherwise.

Yesterday evening the carriage froze up. I could barely get the ink cartriges out, obviously, things are messed up. I can't get the ink cartridges back in because the whole set-up in the carriage area is stuck. I've got two expensive ink cartridges left and this thing is now a piece of garbage. We even resorted to pounding on it. I am weary.

Never again will HP and I be associated in any way.

We purchased the printer and have been pleasantly surprised with the overall print quality.

Here are the negatives:
1) Limited setup instructions. No booklet or instructions
2) Printer drivers would not install on XP Home Edition. It should be automatic and this is the biggest complaint. I almost had to forfeit the printer, but resolved the problem by upgrading to XP-Professional.
3) HP ink can be pricey
4) No USB cable comes with the printer

Here are some positives:
1) Even the non-photo color cartridge prints fantastic quality pictures. It's hard to tell the difference between professional pictures and pictures printed on this printer
2) Large 8 x 11-1/2 pictures are as good as 3x5's
3) Text quality is excellent and prints very fast

In spite of the negatives, I'm still going with a 4.5 star rating because the print quality is all that really matters. There are no instructions on how to print to envelopes, but for now I'll live without envelope address print-outs.

I replaced an HP DeskJet 850 with a 5650, thereby replacing the large HP45 (39 ml) color and HP41 (41 ml) black cartridge with the tiny HP57 (17 ml) color and HP56 (19 ml) black cartridges. Worse than that, this printer simply eats ink, even in draft mode. With the 850, I was replacing cartridges every 8-14 months, minimum. I replace the cartridges on the 5650 at least once every 2 months. These tiny cartridges also cost more than the larger ones.

"View ink levels" doesn't work if you connect with a parallel cable and seems to be problematic even with a USB cable.

This is an excellent printer for the price (I paid $100), but be aware that the costs of keeping it in ink will significantly increase the total cost of operation compared to other printers. I would go so far as to say that HP is making printers like this to leverage their ink sales and has become somewhat unscrupulous in their methods.

Wanting to upgrade for two years, I looked at em all, every brand... then did the web and researched even more. Proof is in the pudding. This beauty was up and running on my XP Home PC in 10 mins. flat. Tried plain paper, semi & gloss paper, 4 X 6 borderless (this was amazing !) and envelopes. This printer didn't choke on anything I threw at it.
As will all new printers, the software print options are numerous... If you use them wisely, the 5650 won't cost any more than any other inky printer. One thing I have always liked with HP Inkjets. Every cart you get new print heads; this is a DEFINITE plus. Mess up the heads on other brands, you can pretty much throw your printer away. Get this, I have by old printer, DJ 935 on another USB port and I can swith back and forth with ease. With the current $ 20 rebate going from HP, don't pass the gem up.

This printer is one that caught my eye in the store. The price was fairly low and in my budget range. I liked the sleek look of it and there was only one left so it was either now or never. I went for it and brought it home. I had that printer running in like 10 min. Some people were complaining about there being no instruction manual. It is pretty simple, 1)plug in 2)insert ink 3)Insert cd and follow directions, it's easy!. The picture quality is awesome and so is the text quality. If the picture is important you can just make the quality right on the printer better! My computer isn't the best, I must say I have the lowest reccomended computer windows 98 but it still works fine. This thing is 1000 times better than my old crummy cannon color bubble jet (from like 1800's, don't ask). Ive had no problems so far and think I will not have any to come, good luck with your printer shopping!

I installed this fabulous deskjet 5650 on a WinXP Pro system to replace my old Deskjet 722c when the color cartridge ran out (why not?), so I just connected it with the parallel cable to save a USB port. That is one thing that the 5600 or most other models do not have.

I was totally convinced that manual duplex mode had been taken out of the driver so that you would have to buy the automatic duplexer accessory. However, much to my delight the manual duplex DOES in fact work. It is in the driver on the Finishing tab (the 2nd one) and it is called Print on Both sides. A window pops up to tell you to rotate the stack and put it back in the input paper tray. I can't imagine this works because I installed it on a parallel port but maybe so. I did have a problem the first time I used duplex mode as it printed the stack out and never told me to put it back in then I couldn't get it to continue as no window popped up. I couldn't seem to delete the job from the spooler either, even after I rebooted. I then deleted my old 722c printer from the LPT1 port and after another reboot it started working - don't know what the problem was and hope it doesn't come back!

Man this printer is fast compared to my last one. Haven't tried photos yet but I expect them to be great, and use a lot of ink. Oh well.