Customer Reviews

HP OfficeJet 7130 All-in-One Multifunction

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

I recently purchased this printer after reading favorable reviews in PC publications. I was mainly interested in photo printing but wanted more versatility in order to reduce the clutter on an already overloaded desktop. I've been nothing but impressed with the printer since taking it out of the box.

Setup was easy, although the steps are in an unusual order compared to other printers/peripherals that I've installed in the past - pay attention to the setup poster.

It prints beautiful photos with vivid color and crisp detail. However, the speed has been the pleasant surprise: I typically print a 4x6 at the highest resolution in about a minute and an 8x10 in under four. Plain paper printing is also very good for everyday documents.

The copier, scanner and fax functionalities all work as they should. An intuitive control panel and LCD display make every function very easy to use. The bundled software also allows control from your PC console and it's one of the nicer ones that I've seen (i.e. you can program your fax numbers from the PC rather than the printer's keypad and can even instantly import information from Outlook).

The gripes that I have are minor compared to the output that this machine produces. First, it is a very big printer - the pictures don't do it justice. Second, it jerks back and forth while printing enough to cause minor vibrations in my desk. I recommend figuring a way to put it on its own dedicated printer cart. Third, for the price, it would have been nice to have the second paper tray thrown into the deal - every now and then I waste a piece or two of photo paper on the grocery list because I forgot to swap out the paper.

To recap,

PROS
* Excellent print quality for both photos and documents
* Print speed
* Ease of use

CONS
* Bulky unit doesn't belong on most desktops
* High price doesn't include some extras that it should

My last HP Printer was the OfficeJet 1150c that never gave me any problems. I finally donated it after 6 loyal years to purchase the HP 7130xi because I expect the same great performance.

The HP OfficeJet 7130 printer has way more options than one would need! I love the improved photo quality and quietness of the printer, but I did run into the issues below...

As for things folks should watch out for:

1 - The Automatic Paper Feeder (APF) wasn't assembled correctly on my unit and I've been waiting 3 months for HP to send replacement parts (4 calls to TS so far). So for now I can only manually scan ;(

2 - The memory slot reader is nice, but it seems to have problems with large SD/MMC cards (64mb & 128mb). The transfer speed slows to a crawl so I end up using a USB card reader instead.

3 - Printer cartridges ink level can be checked online, but it will keep printing a large spool file even if it should stop. I ran out of color ink and wanted to switch to printing in greyscale mode (black ink only) and it wouldn't let me. You have to have enough of both inks to start new jobs.

4 - Don't stockpile ink cartridges. HP has some kind of expiration date that the printer won't honor after their expiration date. The cartridges that came with the printer are good for slighlty more than 1 year. You can check your expiration dates on the status page. I think they do this to prevent folks from refilling or buying re-manufactured cartridges.

5 - Adobe Acrobat 6's "Scan to PDF" feature doesn't seem to work with this printer. My guess is that since both products are new they weren't tested together. I hope Adobe & HP can work together to get full Acrobat support for the 7130 in a future update from either company.

Haven't used the fax feature so I can't comment.

Perfect for small business, this printer combines all the functions of the previous "d" series by Hewlett Packard and adds a new one to the mix: A six-in-one memory card reader. It now has the economy of the high-yield #14 cartridges and the versatility of the units more targeted for home use (2210, 6110).

The unit comes with a duplexer, a part that has to be bought separately in the other HP printer/copier/scanner/faxes. It is easy to use and it reduces paper consumption. This unit has enough memory to store up to one hundred faxes, has speed dial, and a document feeder; each making it quite the capable fax machine as well as a good all around printer. The 48 bit scanner makes it a great machine to capture photographs and documents with amazing detail.

The copy feature has done nothing but improve in these machines over the last few years. The user has the ability to scale up or down the size of the copy that is being made. The copier is faster than it has ever been with clarity not unlike some high-end, "business" machines.

This machine could be used in many practical home and business applications. Real-estate, insurance, and a million other businesses could benefit by having a machine that can easily take the place of four.

epc

My last HP Printer was the OfficeJet 1150c that never gave me any problems. I finally donated it after 6 loyal years to purchase the HP 7130xi because I expect the same great performance.

The HP OfficeJet 7130 printer has way more options than one would need! I love the improved photo quality and quietness of the printer, but I did run into the issues below...

As for things folks should watch out for:

1 - The Automatic Paper Feeder (APF) wasn't assembled correctly on my unit and I've been waiting 3 months for HP to send replacement parts (4 calls to TS so far). So for now I can only manually scan ;(

2 - The memory slot reader is nice, but it seems to have problems with large SD/MMC cards (64mb & 128mb). The transfer speed slows to a crawl so I end up using a USB card reader instead.

3 - Printer cartridges ink level can be checked online, but it will keep printing a large spool file even if it should stop. I ran out of color ink and wanted to switch to printing in greyscale mode (black ink only) and it wouldn't let me. You have to have enough of both inks to start new jobs.

4 - Don't stockpile ink cartridges. HP has some kind of expiration date that the printer won't honor after their expiration date. The cartridges that came with the printer are good for slighlty more than 1 year. You can check your expiration dates on the status page. I think they do this to prevent folks from refilling or buying re-manufactured cartridges.

5 - Adobe Acrobat 6's "Scan to PDF" feature doesn't seem to work with this printer. My guess is that since both products are new they weren't tested together. I hope Adobe & HP can work together to get full Acrobat support for the 7130 in a future update from either company.

Haven't used the fax feature so I can't comment.

We have had this multi-function machine since December 2004. The printer worked well, except for the feeder, which usually pulls through more than one sheet at a time. The scanner WAS really good. The fax is really good; however, it is effected by the feeder and the scanner. The card reader has worked fine.

We paid $500 for this machine and after 15 months the scanner started giving "Scanner Failure" messages. To reset the scanner, the machine needs to be turned off and back on again, and you have to wait for it to shut down before you can hit the power button to turn it on. It also gets hung up with a message that the scanner is warming up (even if you just used it), and you have to turn the machine off and back on to clear it.

The Scanner Failure happens often, sometimes two or three times in a row before it will work. With faxing, you end up having to preview the fax before sending it just to make sure that it scanned something.

We spent hours working with HP on this, both over the phone and through online chat. We did partial resets and full resets, and we have the machine plugged into an outlet all by itself, but we still have the problem. HP finally said that our scanner bulb might be going bad. Okay, how much does one cost? They aren't available! On the off chance that you find someone who is willing to make one for you, it will cost more than $250 for the bulb. And we don't know for sure that the problem is the bulb. It could be an electrical malfunction in the machine or something else.

If you decide to purchase the HP 7130, keep in mind that the scanner (and faxing) will have a very short life. This problem is very common with all of the HP Multi-Function Inkjets that came out around the same time. I don't know if the new ones are any better, but HP has left a bad taste in my mouth. The product is obviously faulty (with so many common complaints), but since it is beyond the warranty period, we're out of luck.

Pros - Great features - very good scanning; Has both flatbed as well as automatic document feeder; good faxing; good printing both in color and b&w; Two sided printing works well; controls are well laid out; Accepts photo memory cards directly and prints a sheet for you to select which photos you wish to print - quite easy to use.

Cons - Quite large; though on a separate printer stand, this is not a consideration; photo quality while quite good, is not up to the 6 ink photo printers;

If your primary focus is photos - this is a tri color ink cartridge, not the 6 color - not quite as vivid colors that you would get with some of the photosmart. You might also look at the HP 6110 if photos are you main focus.

This printer more than lived up to its expectations. Install on an XP mahcine did take about 3/4 hour which is more than your standard printers. After one days use this has proven to be a good investment. Quite pleased overall

I needed to purchase a home copier for my home-based business and couldn't see using my old HP500 for this as it is slow to copy and be practical. I am soo impressed by the qualities of the photo prints and the ease of use of the memory stick feature. I had bought a digital camera and thought it was the camera that I didn't like until I printed photos off with the 7130. I was amazed!! I feel like I have come out of the dark ages.
The two-sided feature is great and helps me to save on postage. I am not so sure about the collating feature yet as it prints from the top of the stack and comes out reverse order. Perhaps I just need to figure that one out. So far I am pleased overall. I do worry about having to replace the printheads and the cost associated with that.

We use this in our home as our primary printer, digital camera card reader, copier, fax, and color scanner. The auto page feeder is incredible and it prints on both sides. It even prints 2 to 12 reduced pages on the same page if you like! The print quality is great and the versatility of the unit was a great surprise for us. Features we really like:
> Double-sided feeder and printing
> Reads digital camera cards and prints a proof sheet that you scan back in to print your photos
> Large range for reducing and enlarging
> Walk-up copying
> Scan to a number of packages on your PC. Select which package from the on-printer menu or from the desktop
> Set deafult print, copy, scan, photo options on the desktop
> Copies photos to a directory of your choice
> Great faxing options with auto-detect / auto-answer
> Great power-save mode (power-save mode stays on when you print!)
> Accepts HP JetDirect for networking

Great stuff for the price!

HP 7130 is a great multifunction device. It was super easy to set up with great instructions. It does everything it is supposed to do with ease. I especially like the print cartrage setup. You don't buy printheads everytime you're out of ink and it lets you know when ink id getting low. This is the first printer I've had since the old Deskjet 710 which is still working, so it's a great step up in speed and quality for me. Great photo prints also. I put off buying a multifunction when the D135 and 145 came out due to poor performance reports. If my machine is any indication, HP relsolved many of the problems they had with previous machines.

kcoyner

I've been using the HP OfficeJet 7130 inkjet printer for close to 1 year now. I am quite pleased with it. The features and printing performance meet most of my printing needs.

This printer replaces a 10+ year old Apple LaserWriter II laser printer. The resolution and versatility and color capability well justify the cost, which was actually less than the LaserWriter. I use an eMac with the Panther version (10.3.3) operating system and everything works very well.

When I encountered a problem installing an updated driver (after upgrading from Jaguar to Panther) I posted the problem on the HP website. Within a few hours HP promptly sent me detailed instructions which I followed and resolved the problem.

I frequently send and receive faxes and this printer has worked flawlessly, with excellent quality even on the normal quality setting. I especially appreciate the two-sided printing feature, which is great for creating documentation or reducing paper waste. Scanning, copying and printing all work marvelously.

It would be great if this printer supported CD printing like some of the Epson printers do (Epson Stylus Photo R300, for example). But the Epson printers don't deliver as much overall value as this good looking HP printer does.