Customer Reviews

HP DeskJet 3650 Color Inkjet Printer

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

There were several mentions of the ink cartridges not lasting long for the 3650, so I looked it up at HP. My old 882C workhorse's cartridge is 42ml (in black) and lasts a very long time using draft mode. Cost? $29.99 HP retail price. The cartridge for the 3650 is 10ml and costs $17.99. You can do the math.

So, this may not be the best printer for you if you do a lot of printing and will be replacing ink often. I thought some folks might like to know the story if they are computer shopping.

The photo ink cartridge (not included with the machine) is about $24.99 if I remember correctly.

The Deskjet 3650 is good for general text printouts using a word processor on plain paper. It fails miserably on doing special tasks like printing sheet labels and the like. I've wasted tons of hours re-aligning my layouts just to print right -- and even then, this printer doesn't offset properly. If you're looking for a general text printer that's affordable and you don't do specialized printing often or can afford to waste time re-adjusting layouts, get this one. If you're busy and have about a 50% need for special formats like envelopes and labels, get something else. My old Deskjet 810c performs 100 times better than this junk.

I switched to HP from EPSON because of the frequent, annoying and expen$$ive clogged printer heads. The HP printers have the advantage that the cartridges have the heads so you get fresh heads with each cartidge. The problem with this one in particular is that it works fine with plain paper, but don't even try to print labels (cd labels, or mailing labels, etc...) because you'll go crazy trying to align things up, since it prints perfectly in plain paper while you're aligning your artwork, but when you finally switch to the special label sheets, the alignment will go bonkers and absolutely unpredictable. After wasting plenty of label sheets in frustration, I accepted the fact that I just couldn't print labels with this printer. On the other hand, I could print on glossy photo paper just fine, and the quality was quite acceptable. UNTIL it began jamming. After close to a year of not too frequent photo printing, it began jamming to the point that I havent been able to get a single complete photo printed. I'm beginning to think that printer manufacturers should add "disposable" to their product description, since all inket printers seem to be made to last no longer than a year. I'm looking forward to trying a Canon now.

I purchased this printer over a year ago and it started out as a hardy little machine. As a student, I print out lecture notes daily and average 200+ pages each week. Like other reviewers have noted, I quickly discovered that my toner cartridges had to be replaced far too often at too high of a cost. Still, I managed to cut costs by printing everything in B/W and in draft form as well as utilitizing a universal inkjet refilling system (which is very easy to use and saved tons of money). I thought my problems were solved until this year when the HP deskjet became THE BANE OF MY EXISTANCE.

My printing needs remain about the same but my printer now EATS PAPER. Literally. I have probably wasted three whole trees of wasted paper in paper jams. To remedy the situation, I have tried to alter the settings - switching from fast to normal draft forms (and slowing the feed mechanism). This worked for a day but the printer quickly returned to its typical hungry self. I have also switched to higher quality paper - but the printer seems to like feed on that just as much. On average, the printer jams every 3 pages and takes 30 sec. to restart after each jam clearance. What should take 5-10 min of printing each day has turned into a 1.5-2 hour nightmare.

Unfortunately, all of my problems started as soon as the warranty ran out. It is like the printer knows when to taunt me.

I am giving up and purchasing a laser printer. The slightly lower costs of this inkjet are surely not worth it.

To be fair, I have never used it to print photos or to print color images. I should have also realized before purchasing this printer that it would not satisfy my bulk printing needs. But beware! You might like the printer at first and then it turns on you like a conniving monster within a mere year.

The printer has been moderately used for black and white prints, and after 13 months it encounters a mechanism error, not printing at all. It is not worth fixing it, but buying a new one. Quality of prints was good, but life of the printer very short.

I recently bought the HP 3650 printer and it's great. It is light, compact and looks nice. The paper feeds in and feeds out from the front so you don't need much space behind it (just for the cords). The print quality in normal mode is good (I haven't tried the higher quality settings) and this printer is quiet!

This is a great printer. Its speed and quality is just as good as that of my office's laser printer. Its sooo easy to install with Windows XP. (I have XP Pro SP1.) It looks nice and the X cancel button on it is great. Just press the button to cancel a job, and without wasting that piece of paper like some do when you have to go into the print que on your computer. I only have three minor issues: 1. Came without USB cord, just a bit of a hassle. 2. The power plug is twice the size of a normal one. 3. Eats ink. (Ink cartrages are relatively well priced.) This printer is great! These few problems are far outwieghed by the benefits! Good luck with your search!