Customer Reviews

HP DeskJet 9650 Color Inkjet Printer

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

 

 

This is an awesome printer for the price I paid. The other reviews that I have seen ignore a few things about this printer. First off, any wide format printer is going to use a lot of ink. Find the ink kits and learn how to refill your cartridges. It'll save you a ton of money. The cartridges may be small, compared to some other printers, but they are quite refillable, much more so than the larger HP cartridges I have used in the past. The printer manufacturers don't want you to know about that. I know as I have been refilling the same cartridges this printer uses for 2 years already. Having had experience with my HP Deskjet 5550, I have only purchased one extra cartridge in the last 2 years. I finally wore out the #57 Tricolor cartridge. This printer comes with all 3 of them. My 5550 only came with 2.

Secondly. if you use the maximum dpi setting, the printer is slow. But I have found that the best setting is excellent, at 600 by 600 dpi, it takes about 5 minutes to do a 12 by 18 inch print. Unless you have a 14 megapixel camera. this print resolution is beyond your 5 megapixel camera to begin with. And, if you have a source that can generate a true 4800 dpi print, I have seen a review that states that it is worth the wait. I believe the claim.

Since I bought the printer, I have only been able to get my hands on 12 by 18 inch plain paper,(an artist's sketch pad at Wal Mart). The results on this paper are stunning. I can't wait to get a hold of some Super B 13 by 19 inch glossy. One of the reasons I prefer this type of printer over the likes of Canon and Epson, which both make printers of this type, is the ability to refill the cartridges. Don't try it with theirs. Once you clog the print head, it'll cost you more than the printers worth to replace it. The HP's have the print head built into the cartridge, so if it ends up bad, you just need a new cartridge.The only reason I can think of not to buy this printer is if you don't want to be bothered with refilling the cartridges. They can be refilled up to 18 or more times.

I picked this unit up as a factory recertified unit that came with the full 1 year warranty, for half the list price of the HP msrp. Just a guess on my part, but I think a lot of these were sent back due to issues with the XP drivers that had some flaws. I can't find a disagreeable issue with this printer and I have had it for a week now and have printed a couple of dozen 12 by 18 inch prints, using both the new and my own refilled cartridges.

By the way, I also use Windows ME, like a reviewer below. But I won't end up with the same issues of the ink warnings, because I know how to fool the printers cartridge memory. It can only remember 2 of the same carts, and it's easy to find the info on how to reset the ink level indicators. As far as the scrapbooker below, he must not have set up this printer properly. The photo results are incredible,on plain paper, even with just the black and tricolor cartridges. I have used an HP 1220c also, and I can say that this printer is better on photos than the 1220c. However, each person has their own views, and also their own ways of trying things out. This printer has a lot of options. Be sure to check them out. The auto settings work very well, but you have to select things like the "Best" setting. You can custom establish your favorite settings as default in the toolbox. Otherwise it might do a fast draft print, which sounds like the corrugated cardboard complaint below.

So far, I highly recommend this one. I've always wanted a printer that I could frame a print and view it from across the room, or from the next room for that matter, and not need to walk over to figure out what it is a picture of. These prints are large enought to satisfy that desire, you won't beleive the difference, compared to an 8.5 by 11.5 inch print.

Now, if I don't run out of wall space and money for more frames a Wal Mart.........?

I probably have as much experience with 11x17 capable color printers as anyone in the world and I've got to say this is easily the most difficult and unsatisfactory printer I have ever dealt with. HP's last 11x17 product (1220c) had amazing print quality, was faster, and lasted me for 3 solid years of heavy use. By contrast, the 9650 is MUCH slower for "best" print setting and MIND BOGGLINLY SLOW for its "maximum DPI" setting...try 35minutes for an 11x17 plot. Unacceptable. Not to mention that my printer is now broken and wont print at all.

I love my HP deskjet 5550 printer for high quality photo prints. The 9650 sounded like the same system with a larger paper size. It's not. HP doesn't make 13x19 photo paper and this printer doesn't want to feed other brands. The ink consumption is high, but the ink cartridges are the same size as for smaller printers - a $60 set of cartridges is good for about 10 pics! When the ink cartridges are low, annoying warning messages pop up on the screen of my WindowsME PC and come back again as soon as I dismiss them (have to find the Task Bar icon, right click and pick EXIT) - this is Bill Gates kind of helpful! Right now I can't print or communicate with the printer because it's busy flashing low-ink error lights (on my 5550 I can get many good 8x10 pics out after the first ink warning). It's a fight to get a print every time I use this printer. If you like Epson colors (I don't - they're too red for me) get one of theirs.

I don't normally buy HP printers but was looking for a speedy model for use in a work environment and was told this would be a good fit. First off, if there's a slower printer on the market today I would be amazed. My 4 year old Epson 880 will print 3-4 pages per minute faster than this unit, and the prints look far better on the Epson. Have not found 13x19 paper so I cant say how this works. The ink cartridges run out too fast to be of any use. For the price there aren't any good reasons to buy this unit. There has to be better large format printers out there, keep looking.

If you are thinking of buying this printer because of the capability of printing on 12 x 12 inch paper for scrapbooking, DO NOT PLAN TO USE IT TO PRINT PHOTOS. The photo quality is actually worse than my old 3-color, HP 700 series printer. The horizontal markings from the printing are so bad it looks like you have printed on corragated cardboard. The image quality is fuzzy, and the colors are not true-to-life.

Ever since I opened the box to this printer, which I've had for a year, I've been overwhelmed with noise. It's loud and shakes when printing. The printer is slow, uses too much ink, and doesn't print photos on glossy paper well. I use this printer in my office to print drawings on 11 x 17 paper quite often. After one year, the text is printing at an angle, the feed takes more than one sheet of paper at a time, and the ink cartridges randomly get stuck at each side during printing and between pages. I spent the past 75 minutes on the phone with HP trying to get help for the printer's problems and it was beyond frustrating. I've never had a problem with HP printers but this one kills their reputation for me. Oh yeah, and the laserjet 4101 doesn't help improve it. Does anyone else miss the 1120C and 1220C? They were perfect. So much for the "upgrade".

This printer is the biggest piece of garbage I have ever owned! Every time I print, it sounds like all of the springs are about to explode out of the side of the thing. Half of the time it will just spit out a blank piece of paper. The rest of the time it grabs anywhere from 2-6 sheets and spits THEM out! I've reverted to using my old $100 722C for everything other than 11x17. What a joke!

I'm going to find another printer by epson or someone else and actually throw this one in the dumpster.

I managed to test this on some 13x19" Staples Professional Photo Paper. I would deem the quality acceptable and pretty good, although for the cost, I may as well go to a photo lab.

Using a standard black and color cartridge, I printed two 13x19 inch prints and two 8.5x11 prints.

Do not use the photo cartridge, print speed was faster, and colour was okay, but for some reason I get streaks when using the photo cartridge.

Printer functions well, I do get occasional jamming when printing long banners, ink cartridge prices are high, and it uses a lot of ink when printing photos, but sometimes the ink indicator sensor is incorrect as I've been able to print sometimes quite a bit more even though the cartridge is shown as nearing empty.

Overall, decent printer, probably cheapest wide format out there and taking that into consideration, it does the job for the price you pay.

I have not even got a chance to test this printer b/c when I opened the box there were no ink cartridges. I check everything and they were no where to be found. This is after fedex took three tries to find my address, which we get deliveries to about 2-3 times a week. Anyway I called HP, and they informed me that they would have to replace the whole printer in order for me to get those cartridges. Fedex would have to come to pick it up and then a new one would be delivered to me, no way! I decided to get my money back and return the printer. The sales rep was nice and she gave me no problem with the return. However I'm still waiting for the printer to be pick up and my credit card refunded so lets see how that goes. This marked the first and last time I will ever buy an HP product. I will purchase the canon i9900 instead and it got much better reviews. (note I bought the 9650 off of hpshopping.com and not amazon.com)

Used this printer for two years now and very few problems.

Pros:
13 x 19 Capability is very useful to me.
With proper drivers, has lots of flexibility and control
Good print quality even with photographs
Parallel and USB connectivity
Reasonably priced

Cons:
Small ink cartridges
Noisy
Slow print speed

Other:
Occasionally to rarely loses it's mind and spews out page after page of one line gibberish. This may be an application or driver issue - still troubleshooting. Press clear document button and clear print queue on PC to stop.