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Technical Details
- Inkjet printer produces lab-quality photos as large as 13 x 19-inches
- 125-sheet tray holds paper from 4 x 6-inches to 13 x 19-inches; includes specialized tray for three common photo sizes
- Up to 32 pages per minute for black-and-white draft-quality letters; 95 seconds for 13 x 19-inch color photos
- Five-ink system lets you replace only the colors you need; 2.4-inch color LCD lets you review, select, and enhance photos without your computer
- One-year limited hardware warranty; one-year of technical phone support
Product Details
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Product Description
Amazon.com Product Description
Amazon.com Product Description The HP Photosmart B8550 Inkjet Photo Printer makes it easy to produce lab-quality photos as large as 13 x 19-inches at home. Enjoy the versatility of printing from your computer, from a supported memory card, or directly from your PictBridge enabled camera. And because this Photosmart printer also produces laser-quality text, you can rely on it for all your printing needs.
Print Directly From Cameras and Memory Cards
Printing photos and enlargements at home is convenient and cost-effective. The HP Photosmart B8550 Inkjet Photo Printer offers several printing options. With a 2.4-inch color LCD display, you can review, select, and enhance photos without the use of your computer. It features 15 convenient buttons that let you zoom-in to check out details before you print and perform quick editing tasks. With special HP technology, red eye reduction is as easy as pushing a single button, and the printer's four LED indicators let you know if anything needs your attention before you start printing.
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 Easy-to-access ports let you print directly from memory cards. |
 The HP Photosmart B8550 Inkjet Photo Printer produces lab-quality photos up to 13 x 19-inches. View larger. |
 Review photos using a 2.4-inch color LCD display. View larger. |
Printing photos and enlargements at home is convenient and cost-effective. The HP Photosmart B8550 Inkjet Photo Printer offers several printing options. With a 2.4-inch color LCD display, you can review, select, and enhance photos without the use of your computer. It features 15 convenient buttons that let you zoom-in to check out details before you print and perform quick editing tasks. With special HP technology, red eye reduction is as easy as pushing a single button, and the printer's four LED indicators let you know if anything needs your attention before you start printing.
Dedicated slots let you print directly from a variety of common memory cards, including Compact Flash, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo, Secure Digital/MultiMediaCards, and xD-Picture Cards. You can also print right from any PictBridge enabled camera or computer using one of the printer's high-speed USB connections. This printer also supports wireless operation with the use of HP Blue tooth adapters (not included).
Print Almost Anything, Fast
The 125-sheet main tray holds paper from 4 x 6-inches to 13 x 19-inches, including envelopes, standard letter paper, and legal-sized paper. A specialized tray makes it easy to load paper in three common photo sizes--3.5 x 5-inches, 4 x 6-inches, and 5 x 7-inches. Additionally, borderless printing is supported for prints up to 13 x 44-inches.
Document printing is fast, at up to 32 pages per minute for black-and-white draft-quality letters and 31 pages per minute for color draft-quality letters. Unlike with some multi-use printers, photo printing is quick, too. A 13 x 19-inch color photo may be finished printing in as little as 95 seconds.
Innovative Technology for Quality and Reliability
Four HP 564 dye-ink cartridges in cyan, magenta, yellow, and photo black provide vivid color images and high-quality black-and-white photos. For laser-quality black text on paper, a fifth cartridge contains black pigment ink. Combined with Advanced Photo Paper, these Vivera inks offer instant-dry, smudge-resistant photos. Plus, with the five-ink system, you only have to replace the cartridges you need, saving you money.
There's plenty of innovative technology behind HP's photo printers. Unique Auto Sense technology uses optical sensors to optimize settings based on what type of paper you are using. And when printing begins, dual-drop volume technology means the specialized print head delivers extremely small drops, allowing detailed images to contain smooth transitions.
When you select the "best" print quality option for color or black and white, this Photosmart printer prints up to 1200 x 1200 dpi. For photographs, it can render images with up to 9600 x 2400-optimized dpi color (when printing from a computer on selected HP photo papers and with 1200-input dpi).
This HP Photosmart printer is backed by a one-year limited hardware warranty and one-year of technical phone support.
What's in the Box
HP Photosmart B8550, Printhead Assembly, HP 564 Black Ink Cartridge, HP 564 Photo Black Ink Cartridge, HP 564 Cyan Ink Cartridge, HP 564 Magenta Ink Cartridge, HP 564 Yellow Ink Cartridge, power cord, Software CD, Photo media sample pack, Start Here Poster, User Guide, and Creative Projects Guide.
Product Description
From amazing photo enlargements to high-quality documents, this is the only printer you need. Print photos from 4 x 6 to 13 x 19 including 12 x 12 scrap booking pages. It's easy to use, efficient and delivers the long-lasting photo quality you demand.
Available Warranties for This Item
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
115 of 123 people found the following review helpful
Great combination of print quality, speed, and price in a large format photo printer.
September 25, 2008
Amazon Vine™ Review
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Fuzzy Wuzzy's Summary:
**** Recommended with warm fuzzies.
This printer joins my home office in addition to a Canon Pixma Pro9000 Professional Large Format Inkjet Printer (9995A001) large format photo printer and an older Epson RX500 All-in-One printer/scanner/copier. I tend to mainly use the Epson for low-color non-photo printing since it seems to be the most wasteful with ink usage (replacing its 6 ink cartridges is not cheap and the printer annoyingly always uses some of the 5 non-black color inks even if you are printing a black-and-white text-only page), with the HP B8550 and Canon Pro9000 being used exclusively for photo printing. I am a serious amateur photographer with way more DSLR cameras, lenses, and gear than can be justified given that I have never earned any income from my photography, but I enjoy printing everything from 4x6 photos to 13x19 enlargements. I frame the 13x19 photos and circulate displays of photos on walls around my house, as well as print photos for friends, so I suppose that is my "payback" for this hobby. My photography interests include people and pets, travel and vacation photos, nature photography and macro close-ups, and John Fielder-inspired wide-angle shots of landscapes and wilderness.
The B8550 printer's size is typical for a large format printer. At 23 inches wide, it is overall smaller than my Canon Pro9000 since the Pro9000 also has a top-feed paper tray whereas the B8550 input and output trays both are in front of the printer. In fact, it is probably one of the smallest and lightest photo printers available that can print on 13x19 paper. But if you place this printer on your desk next to your computer, the footprint of this printer will likely occupy a large portion of your desk. My home office consists of one desk, one computer workstation table, four 2-drawer file cabinets, and several bookshelves. Both the Canon Pro9000 and HP B8550 printers now sit on separate 2-drawer file cabinets.
Like many printers, the B8550 does not include a USB cable (my Canon Pro9000 also did not include the USB cable, even though I think that it is lame for manufacturers to not include the cable with their printers). I actually had to combine a 10-foot A/B plug USB cable with another USB extension cable in order to place this printer on another 2-drawer file cabinet that was farther away from the USB hub sitting on my desk. When used with the optional HP bt500 - Network adapter - USB - Bluetooth 2.0 EDR , you can connect this printer via Bluetooth. But I have not always been happy with the consistency of Bluetooth connections, and so I decided to use an extension USB cable instead. Another connectivity option that I considered was to use the HP Wireless Printing Upgrade Kit (Q6236A) , but judging from the widely varying opinions about that product, I also stayed away from that option.
I found that the top of the 23-inch-wide printer made for a convenient place to put 13x19 photos right after they are printed to ensure the inks are fully dry for a short period before further handling. And one nice aspect of 13x19-inch photo printouts is that they are very similar in size to the full-screen image that I preview on my 22-inch widescreen monitor. I also have to admit that after looking at my digital photos both on a 22-inch widescreen monitor and by selectively printing out 13x19 photos, I rarely print 4x6 or 5x7 photos anymore; 8x10 photos are now the smallest size that I print out.
***** Excellent 5-fuzzies feature ratings:
***** The HP B8550 is a quality printer with a variety of thoughtful features built into it that accentuate its usability for those looking for a mid-range large format photo printer. If your main interest is in printing lots of 4x6 photos or if you are just using a low-resolution digital camera with a tendency to take blurry photos, you may be just as happy using a less expensive photo printer since a 13x19 photo will accentuate the imperfections that were caused by a bad camera shot. Also, if you print more documents than photos, a photo printer like this should not be your only primary printer.
***** Unlike the Canon Pro9000, the B8550's control panel includes a 2.4-inch color LCD display. It has a surprising variety of built-in functions. You can insert various memory cards into the printer and, just using the control panel without needing to access the computer, perform functions such as:
o Perform "Red Eye Removal" editing on your photos.
o Print out ruled notebook paper, graph paper, music paper, a task checklist, and even a fairly challenging maze.
o Clean and align the printhead.
o Print a "Printer Status Report" that shows the printer's model and serial number, how many pages you have printed so far, and the date when you installed each of the 5 ink cartridges.
o Set language and country/region preferences for the displays.
o Create and assemble photo album pages, create panorama prints, create wallet and passport photos.
o View and edit photos that are on your memory card. Rotate, crop, resize, perform a "Photo Fix" adjustment (which I did not really ever find to be useful), adjust brightness on the photo, add a "Color Effect" of Black&White, Sepia, or Antique, perform a Print Preview, add a date stamp to the photo being printed.
While the basic photo-editing functions suffice for printing 4x6 photos without needing to use the computer, if you are printing larger photos (especially 13x19 photo paper), you really should be editing your photos from your computer where you can see a much larger screen since the 2.4-inch LCD display only allows rudimentary previews of photos similar to the 2.5-inch LCD on digital cameras. But it is nice to at least give the user the option to insert memory cards or a USB storage device into the printer and immediately start printing after performing some basic photo editing. You can also connect a PictBridge camera to the USB port on the front of the printer.
***** Installation and set-up of the B8550 printer hardware went smoothly. In addition to the included "Start Here" set-up instructions, when you first turn on the printer, the LCD screen also guides you, using short animated videos, through the installation of the printhead and ink cartridges, and the loading of the paper into the two trays, the "photo tray" that holds 4x6 and 5x7 photo paper and the "main tray" that holds the larger paper sizes on up to the 13x19 paper.
**** Good 4-fuzzies feature ratings:
**** Taking into account the mid-range price of this printer and the fact that it is one of the most inexpensive 13x19 photo printers, I would rate the print quality quite good. I selected various scenery and nature photographs that were taken using a Canon EOS 40D 10MP DSLR. On 4x6 photos, the B8550 output is pretty much identical to my Canon Pro9000. When comparing 13x19 photos using the best quality settings for both printers, however, my Canon Pro9000 does have better color quality, better color accuracy, and clarity than the B8550. But the differences are usually very subtle... which is a very pleasant surprise since I was comparing the output from the 4-ink-color (cyan-magenta-yellow-black) B8550 to the output from the 8-ink-color Pro9000. During these 13x19 photo comparisons, I was printing photos on the B8550 using both HP Advanced Glossy Photo Paper and HP Premium Plus Photo and Proofing Gloss paper. And the Pro9000 was printed using Canon papers. The Pro9000 is also about 40% more expensive than the HP B8550. Canon's Pro9000 is also packaged with far better software (aimed at the pro or serious amateur photographer) compared with what is included with the B8550.
Even though HP advertises that their "Vivera inks offer instant-dry, smudge-resistant photos", I left one slight thumbprint on the very edge of one of my first 13x19 printouts using their recommended HP Advanced Glossy Photo Paper when I immediately picked up the sheet the moment it fully came out of the printer. But if I carefully lifted the just-printed photo from the bottom and let it sit by itself for a few minutes, the photo ink did admirably live up to the smudge-resistant claim as I was able to vigorously rub my thumb over dark areas of the photo without creating smudges.
*** Not-so-good 3-fuzzies feature ratings:
*** The one aspect of the printer that I consider to be a mechanical design flaw is in the way the output tray and paper extender lock into place when raised up to a 45-degree angle. The output tray and paper extender are housed in one unit that sits above and covers the main paper input tray below it. To access the main paper input tray, you pivot the output tray up and it clicks into place at a raised 45-degree angle, allowing you access to place paper onto the main paper input tray. But the output tray is held at this 45-degree angle with such a loose grip that a slight bump of the printer can cause the output tray to slam back down hard to its horizontal position. This happened twice on my printer and, both times, the output tray swung back downward with such force that I had to check that the plastic hinge on the output tray did not break or crack. Luckily, the tray remained intact, but I learned the lesson not to leave the output tray propped up at its 45-degree angle for too long and to carefully lower it back down with my hand underneath it whenever I load new paper into the main paper input tray. Read more ›
**** Recommended with warm fuzzies.
This printer joins my home office in addition to a Canon Pixma Pro9000 Professional Large Format Inkjet Printer (9995A001) large format photo printer and an older Epson RX500 All-in-One printer/scanner/copier. I tend to mainly use the Epson for low-color non-photo printing since it seems to be the most wasteful with ink usage (replacing its 6 ink cartridges is not cheap and the printer annoyingly always uses some of the 5 non-black color inks even if you are printing a black-and-white text-only page), with the HP B8550 and Canon Pro9000 being used exclusively for photo printing. I am a serious amateur photographer with way more DSLR cameras, lenses, and gear than can be justified given that I have never earned any income from my photography, but I enjoy printing everything from 4x6 photos to 13x19 enlargements. I frame the 13x19 photos and circulate displays of photos on walls around my house, as well as print photos for friends, so I suppose that is my "payback" for this hobby. My photography interests include people and pets, travel and vacation photos, nature photography and macro close-ups, and John Fielder-inspired wide-angle shots of landscapes and wilderness.
The B8550 printer's size is typical for a large format printer. At 23 inches wide, it is overall smaller than my Canon Pro9000 since the Pro9000 also has a top-feed paper tray whereas the B8550 input and output trays both are in front of the printer. In fact, it is probably one of the smallest and lightest photo printers available that can print on 13x19 paper. But if you place this printer on your desk next to your computer, the footprint of this printer will likely occupy a large portion of your desk. My home office consists of one desk, one computer workstation table, four 2-drawer file cabinets, and several bookshelves. Both the Canon Pro9000 and HP B8550 printers now sit on separate 2-drawer file cabinets.
Like many printers, the B8550 does not include a USB cable (my Canon Pro9000 also did not include the USB cable, even though I think that it is lame for manufacturers to not include the cable with their printers). I actually had to combine a 10-foot A/B plug USB cable with another USB extension cable in order to place this printer on another 2-drawer file cabinet that was farther away from the USB hub sitting on my desk. When used with the optional HP bt500 - Network adapter - USB - Bluetooth 2.0 EDR , you can connect this printer via Bluetooth. But I have not always been happy with the consistency of Bluetooth connections, and so I decided to use an extension USB cable instead. Another connectivity option that I considered was to use the HP Wireless Printing Upgrade Kit (Q6236A) , but judging from the widely varying opinions about that product, I also stayed away from that option.
I found that the top of the 23-inch-wide printer made for a convenient place to put 13x19 photos right after they are printed to ensure the inks are fully dry for a short period before further handling. And one nice aspect of 13x19-inch photo printouts is that they are very similar in size to the full-screen image that I preview on my 22-inch widescreen monitor. I also have to admit that after looking at my digital photos both on a 22-inch widescreen monitor and by selectively printing out 13x19 photos, I rarely print 4x6 or 5x7 photos anymore; 8x10 photos are now the smallest size that I print out.
***** Excellent 5-fuzzies feature ratings:
***** The HP B8550 is a quality printer with a variety of thoughtful features built into it that accentuate its usability for those looking for a mid-range large format photo printer. If your main interest is in printing lots of 4x6 photos or if you are just using a low-resolution digital camera with a tendency to take blurry photos, you may be just as happy using a less expensive photo printer since a 13x19 photo will accentuate the imperfections that were caused by a bad camera shot. Also, if you print more documents than photos, a photo printer like this should not be your only primary printer.
***** Unlike the Canon Pro9000, the B8550's control panel includes a 2.4-inch color LCD display. It has a surprising variety of built-in functions. You can insert various memory cards into the printer and, just using the control panel without needing to access the computer, perform functions such as:
o Perform "Red Eye Removal" editing on your photos.
o Print out ruled notebook paper, graph paper, music paper, a task checklist, and even a fairly challenging maze.
o Clean and align the printhead.
o Print a "Printer Status Report" that shows the printer's model and serial number, how many pages you have printed so far, and the date when you installed each of the 5 ink cartridges.
o Set language and country/region preferences for the displays.
o Create and assemble photo album pages, create panorama prints, create wallet and passport photos.
o View and edit photos that are on your memory card. Rotate, crop, resize, perform a "Photo Fix" adjustment (which I did not really ever find to be useful), adjust brightness on the photo, add a "Color Effect" of Black&White, Sepia, or Antique, perform a Print Preview, add a date stamp to the photo being printed.
While the basic photo-editing functions suffice for printing 4x6 photos without needing to use the computer, if you are printing larger photos (especially 13x19 photo paper), you really should be editing your photos from your computer where you can see a much larger screen since the 2.4-inch LCD display only allows rudimentary previews of photos similar to the 2.5-inch LCD on digital cameras. But it is nice to at least give the user the option to insert memory cards or a USB storage device into the printer and immediately start printing after performing some basic photo editing. You can also connect a PictBridge camera to the USB port on the front of the printer.
***** Installation and set-up of the B8550 printer hardware went smoothly. In addition to the included "Start Here" set-up instructions, when you first turn on the printer, the LCD screen also guides you, using short animated videos, through the installation of the printhead and ink cartridges, and the loading of the paper into the two trays, the "photo tray" that holds 4x6 and 5x7 photo paper and the "main tray" that holds the larger paper sizes on up to the 13x19 paper.
**** Good 4-fuzzies feature ratings:
**** Taking into account the mid-range price of this printer and the fact that it is one of the most inexpensive 13x19 photo printers, I would rate the print quality quite good. I selected various scenery and nature photographs that were taken using a Canon EOS 40D 10MP DSLR. On 4x6 photos, the B8550 output is pretty much identical to my Canon Pro9000. When comparing 13x19 photos using the best quality settings for both printers, however, my Canon Pro9000 does have better color quality, better color accuracy, and clarity than the B8550. But the differences are usually very subtle... which is a very pleasant surprise since I was comparing the output from the 4-ink-color (cyan-magenta-yellow-black) B8550 to the output from the 8-ink-color Pro9000. During these 13x19 photo comparisons, I was printing photos on the B8550 using both HP Advanced Glossy Photo Paper and HP Premium Plus Photo and Proofing Gloss paper. And the Pro9000 was printed using Canon papers. The Pro9000 is also about 40% more expensive than the HP B8550. Canon's Pro9000 is also packaged with far better software (aimed at the pro or serious amateur photographer) compared with what is included with the B8550.
Even though HP advertises that their "Vivera inks offer instant-dry, smudge-resistant photos", I left one slight thumbprint on the very edge of one of my first 13x19 printouts using their recommended HP Advanced Glossy Photo Paper when I immediately picked up the sheet the moment it fully came out of the printer. But if I carefully lifted the just-printed photo from the bottom and let it sit by itself for a few minutes, the photo ink did admirably live up to the smudge-resistant claim as I was able to vigorously rub my thumb over dark areas of the photo without creating smudges.
*** Not-so-good 3-fuzzies feature ratings:
*** The one aspect of the printer that I consider to be a mechanical design flaw is in the way the output tray and paper extender lock into place when raised up to a 45-degree angle. The output tray and paper extender are housed in one unit that sits above and covers the main paper input tray below it. To access the main paper input tray, you pivot the output tray up and it clicks into place at a raised 45-degree angle, allowing you access to place paper onto the main paper input tray. But the output tray is held at this 45-degree angle with such a loose grip that a slight bump of the printer can cause the output tray to slam back down hard to its horizontal position. This happened twice on my printer and, both times, the output tray swung back downward with such force that I had to check that the plastic hinge on the output tray did not break or crack. Luckily, the tray remained intact, but I learned the lesson not to leave the output tray propped up at its 45-degree angle for too long and to carefully lower it back down with my hand underneath it whenever I load new paper into the main paper input tray. Read more ›
42 of 44 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
I use this printer with Vista 64. I'm a web designer and have strong graphic artist skills (have been using Photoshop for over 15 years). I have several printers in the house but I wanted a printer that I felt that could generate decent prints and have a lower cost of ownership than my Epson printers.
The HP B8550 got my attention because of the good reviews and the ink system. 5 inks with one a photo black and regular black and the option of bigger ink tanks for a good cost was what I was looking for. It's almost impossible to get consistent cost per page numbers across different brands as that depends a great deal on what kind of cost you can find on the ink. If you can get great deals on ink for printer A and not for Printer B that alone can change your cost of ownership.
As a general rule Epson has the best photo printers and I have confirm this many times. Canon is usually second place and HP tends to be third in photos but first in text quality. After using the B8550 I can clearly say things are changing.
Good: This HP 5 ink printer (only 4 inks for Photos) took on my Epson 6 ink printers and matched it (And maybe even surpass in some cases). The photos looked great and the printer was fairly fast. Print quality is the final measurement of any printer and this printer did as expected (I had high expectations).
Bad: Oh, HP, when will you get your act together with your drivers? The Window drivers have no ICM profiles. The Mac versions do so this is just not acceptable and I was counting on them. In Photoshop the printer would forget settings and revert to older values (who does the QA for this stuff at HP?). Since I had no ICM profiles I could not let Photoshop control color reproduction and had to use the printer color logic. The saving grace is that since we have fewer inks fine tuning the default color profile was not hard. After like 20 small prints I had found a color combination that matched my monitor colors with great accuracy.
If HP ever gets updated Windows drivers with ICM profiles and that they remember changes better in Photoshop this would be a 5 star printer. The hardware and print quality is all there, all they need is to show better love on their drivers.
Get the XL inks, worth the extra money. The HP paper is very expensive. Consider paper from other brands and test. The difference in print quality is not much (if any) and the price difference can be significant.
The HP B8550 got my attention because of the good reviews and the ink system. 5 inks with one a photo black and regular black and the option of bigger ink tanks for a good cost was what I was looking for. It's almost impossible to get consistent cost per page numbers across different brands as that depends a great deal on what kind of cost you can find on the ink. If you can get great deals on ink for printer A and not for Printer B that alone can change your cost of ownership.
As a general rule Epson has the best photo printers and I have confirm this many times. Canon is usually second place and HP tends to be third in photos but first in text quality. After using the B8550 I can clearly say things are changing.
Good: This HP 5 ink printer (only 4 inks for Photos) took on my Epson 6 ink printers and matched it (And maybe even surpass in some cases). The photos looked great and the printer was fairly fast. Print quality is the final measurement of any printer and this printer did as expected (I had high expectations).
Bad: Oh, HP, when will you get your act together with your drivers? The Window drivers have no ICM profiles. The Mac versions do so this is just not acceptable and I was counting on them. In Photoshop the printer would forget settings and revert to older values (who does the QA for this stuff at HP?). Since I had no ICM profiles I could not let Photoshop control color reproduction and had to use the printer color logic. The saving grace is that since we have fewer inks fine tuning the default color profile was not hard. After like 20 small prints I had found a color combination that matched my monitor colors with great accuracy.
If HP ever gets updated Windows drivers with ICM profiles and that they remember changes better in Photoshop this would be a 5 star printer. The hardware and print quality is all there, all they need is to show better love on their drivers.
Get the XL inks, worth the extra money. The HP paper is very expensive. Consider paper from other brands and test. The difference in print quality is not much (if any) and the price difference can be significant.
22 of 23 people found the following review helpful
I thought I got a deal on this printer at $[...], delivered, a few weeks ago. Now it's available for slightly less. Friends, this is a deal. Look at the prices for the top-end photo printers from HP, Epson, or Canon and you'll see that this model is a bargain.
I will not attempt to duplicate the many excellent reviews already posted. I will just post a few comments:
1. This printer replaces my Deskjet 9650, which also printed up to 13x19. Three gripes:
--The Deskjet had a rear-feed slot for straight-through printing of heavy papers or cardstock. The B8550 lacks this feature. It's not something I used often in the Deskjet, but it's something you miss when it's not there.
--You could specify a custom page length up to 50" on the Deskjet. On the B8550, it's 44". Question to HP: Why? C'mon, HP, panoramas are pretty popular these days. Why the reduced page length in the printer driver?
--No "Banner" selection in the printer driver. If this setting were available, several programs (like Qimage, which I find invaluable) would allow printing panoramas well in excess of the maximum page length in the printer driver.
I just got interested in panoramas a month or two ago, which is why I mention the gripes above. In reality, I can probably live with a 13x44 maximum page size. But I'm always puzzled by printer-driver limitations like this.
On the upside:
1. Haven't printed 13x19 yet (just received the paper), but prints on 8˝x11 paper have knocked my socks off...and have elicited comments from others like, "Did you have this professionally printed?" A noticeable step up from the Deskjet 9650, for which I paid $[...] (on special) in 2004.
2. HP has done a great job of optimizing their printers for the paper they supply. Don't curse them for this, as I used to do. Just go to your local Wal-Mart and buy the HP Advanced or Premium paper for about $0.50/sheet in 50-packs and use it. You can see the difference.
3. This printer is NOT an ink hog. Unlike most other HP printers, the printheads are NOT built into the ink cartridges. Instead, ink from the cartridges is pumped to the printheads...meaning that a good amount of the ink in the starter cartridges supplied with the printer will be used up by the time ink is pumped to the printheads--meaning that you will get "low ink" warnings very soon in your experience with this printer. Take my advice: order a full set of the 564XL cartridges the same day you order the printer.
4. The ink is not especially expensive. OEM cartridges are available on Amazon for FAR below retail...and even less than the $12.95 Walgreens charges to refill cartridges.
5. To those who complain about no cable being included, I must ask: Is this the first USB printer you have ever bought? Even if it is, every Staples & Wal-Mart on the planet carries the appropriate cable.
6. As clearly stated, this printer will print on 13x19 paper. If you open the box and discover that it's much bigger than you expected, you are dangerously unobservant. Read the specs, here and on the excellent HP site.
7. Stay around during the software installation for this printer. You actually have to push a button & do a couple of things to complete the installation (test print, etc.)
8. I have no idea why a few reviewers report installation problems and/or poor print quality. I was getting great prints 30 minutes after setup & installation.
9. A basic test: Using the built-in card slots, print a photo directly from the printer. Print quality okay? If so, open the same photo on your computer and send it to the printer. Print quality NOT okay? Don't blame the printer, please. Color management is screwed up somewhere in your software. GI,GO.
10. I was going to end by echoing other reviewers: if you only occasionally print larger than 4x6 and 8x10, you don't need this 13x19 printer...but at less than $150, why not? Go for it.
Update, April 2010:
1. Still very happy with this printer and the quality prints it produces.
2. For photo printing, I have essentially switched over to the HP Advanced Photo Paper recommended for this printer. Packs of 8˝x11 and 13x19 are readily available from Amazon at a good price. Note: the HP Advanced glossy paper is very much so. The "satin-matt" would be more appropriate for some subjects or display settings.
3. 13x19 prints have exceeded my expectations. One caveat: I do all of my photo printing from Qimage, a printing utility with some very sophisticated interpolation algorithms. When you're printing large, it can make a noticeable difference.
4. Other papers: I have started making photo note cards using matte cardstock (coated for inkjet printing) from [...]. I did not know that it was possible to get that level of quality on matte stock. The special size and thickness feeds reliably through the B8550.
5. It's a bit quirky to set up a special paper size AND the printer settings which you wish to use for that special paper. The first thing you have to do is name the special paper you're setting up. As soon as you enter a name, the "Save" button lights up. The natural thing to do is click on it. DON'T. Don't save ANYTHING until you have entered ALL of the printer settings you wish to use with this special paper size. If you do, the EXISTING printer settings--which probably aren't what you want--will be saved and used with the special paper size you just set up. It took me 20 minutes and much cursing to figure this out.
6. Considering the price of 4x6 and 5x7 prints at photofinishers these days, I thought I'd never use the paper tray dedicated to these sizes. I was wrong. It's very handy for test prints (and test strips, if your photo-printing software has that feature).
7. You will get an "out of paper" message if the stack of paper you've loaded is not absolutely all the way forward in the tray. I think that sometimes just the vibration of the printer is enough to shift the paper back just a bit. No biggie.
8. I repeat that this printer is not an ink hog. The XL cartridges are available at reasonable prices. Note that if you're near a Staples store, you can recycle these or any other cartridges for $3 in Rewards after signing up for the program.
9. I considered buying a "true" professional photo printer from HP or Epson until I found out that a full inkset could run $240. This printer gives me knockout 13x19 prints, and that's more than good enough for me.
I will not attempt to duplicate the many excellent reviews already posted. I will just post a few comments:
1. This printer replaces my Deskjet 9650, which also printed up to 13x19. Three gripes:
--The Deskjet had a rear-feed slot for straight-through printing of heavy papers or cardstock. The B8550 lacks this feature. It's not something I used often in the Deskjet, but it's something you miss when it's not there.
--You could specify a custom page length up to 50" on the Deskjet. On the B8550, it's 44". Question to HP: Why? C'mon, HP, panoramas are pretty popular these days. Why the reduced page length in the printer driver?
--No "Banner" selection in the printer driver. If this setting were available, several programs (like Qimage, which I find invaluable) would allow printing panoramas well in excess of the maximum page length in the printer driver.
I just got interested in panoramas a month or two ago, which is why I mention the gripes above. In reality, I can probably live with a 13x44 maximum page size. But I'm always puzzled by printer-driver limitations like this.
On the upside:
1. Haven't printed 13x19 yet (just received the paper), but prints on 8˝x11 paper have knocked my socks off...and have elicited comments from others like, "Did you have this professionally printed?" A noticeable step up from the Deskjet 9650, for which I paid $[...] (on special) in 2004.
2. HP has done a great job of optimizing their printers for the paper they supply. Don't curse them for this, as I used to do. Just go to your local Wal-Mart and buy the HP Advanced or Premium paper for about $0.50/sheet in 50-packs and use it. You can see the difference.
3. This printer is NOT an ink hog. Unlike most other HP printers, the printheads are NOT built into the ink cartridges. Instead, ink from the cartridges is pumped to the printheads...meaning that a good amount of the ink in the starter cartridges supplied with the printer will be used up by the time ink is pumped to the printheads--meaning that you will get "low ink" warnings very soon in your experience with this printer. Take my advice: order a full set of the 564XL cartridges the same day you order the printer.
4. The ink is not especially expensive. OEM cartridges are available on Amazon for FAR below retail...and even less than the $12.95 Walgreens charges to refill cartridges.
5. To those who complain about no cable being included, I must ask: Is this the first USB printer you have ever bought? Even if it is, every Staples & Wal-Mart on the planet carries the appropriate cable.
6. As clearly stated, this printer will print on 13x19 paper. If you open the box and discover that it's much bigger than you expected, you are dangerously unobservant. Read the specs, here and on the excellent HP site.
7. Stay around during the software installation for this printer. You actually have to push a button & do a couple of things to complete the installation (test print, etc.)
8. I have no idea why a few reviewers report installation problems and/or poor print quality. I was getting great prints 30 minutes after setup & installation.
9. A basic test: Using the built-in card slots, print a photo directly from the printer. Print quality okay? If so, open the same photo on your computer and send it to the printer. Print quality NOT okay? Don't blame the printer, please. Color management is screwed up somewhere in your software. GI,GO.
10. I was going to end by echoing other reviewers: if you only occasionally print larger than 4x6 and 8x10, you don't need this 13x19 printer...but at less than $150, why not? Go for it.
Update, April 2010:
1. Still very happy with this printer and the quality prints it produces.
2. For photo printing, I have essentially switched over to the HP Advanced Photo Paper recommended for this printer. Packs of 8˝x11 and 13x19 are readily available from Amazon at a good price. Note: the HP Advanced glossy paper is very much so. The "satin-matt" would be more appropriate for some subjects or display settings.
3. 13x19 prints have exceeded my expectations. One caveat: I do all of my photo printing from Qimage, a printing utility with some very sophisticated interpolation algorithms. When you're printing large, it can make a noticeable difference.
4. Other papers: I have started making photo note cards using matte cardstock (coated for inkjet printing) from [...]. I did not know that it was possible to get that level of quality on matte stock. The special size and thickness feeds reliably through the B8550.
5. It's a bit quirky to set up a special paper size AND the printer settings which you wish to use for that special paper. The first thing you have to do is name the special paper you're setting up. As soon as you enter a name, the "Save" button lights up. The natural thing to do is click on it. DON'T. Don't save ANYTHING until you have entered ALL of the printer settings you wish to use with this special paper size. If you do, the EXISTING printer settings--which probably aren't what you want--will be saved and used with the special paper size you just set up. It took me 20 minutes and much cursing to figure this out.
6. Considering the price of 4x6 and 5x7 prints at photofinishers these days, I thought I'd never use the paper tray dedicated to these sizes. I was wrong. It's very handy for test prints (and test strips, if your photo-printing software has that feature).
7. You will get an "out of paper" message if the stack of paper you've loaded is not absolutely all the way forward in the tray. I think that sometimes just the vibration of the printer is enough to shift the paper back just a bit. No biggie.
8. I repeat that this printer is not an ink hog. The XL cartridges are available at reasonable prices. Note that if you're near a Staples store, you can recycle these or any other cartridges for $3 in Rewards after signing up for the program.
9. I considered buying a "true" professional photo printer from HP or Epson until I found out that a full inkset could run $240. This printer gives me knockout 13x19 prints, and that's more than good enough for me.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Don't waste your time or money
Run! Don't do it! Get something else!
I bought this printer a year or so ago to be able to occasionally print large format photos. Read more
I bought this printer a year or so ago to be able to occasionally print large format photos. Read more
Published 5 days ago by S. Benedict
does not play well with the Mac...
I absolutely hate this printer. I was convinced from the HP website and other (cough, cough) reviews that it might be a good, cost-efficient printer in which to print my portfolio... Read more
Published 1 month ago by CD
Just dandy!
Arrived fairly promptly. Described as almost new, but I found no evidence of any use at all. A cable listed in the carton contents, was missing, but then a comment in the... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Fred G. Hill
HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE Printer.
Briefly. The paper feed struggles no matter what size paper you are using. INK Hog. Wont print when in is low even though there is still some ink in the cartridge.
Published 2 months ago by Vincent Watson
pretty good
The cd that came with it did not include windows 7 operating system and I had to call tech and they had to help install. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Marilyn Price
Nice photos when it wants to co-operate!
I can't remember when I have been sooooo frustrated with anything in the computer/printer field. I am very sorry I purchased this photoprinter. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Patsy A. Stiles Vaughn
No Repair Service
I've had the photosmart printer for just over a year. The warranty expired and they do not service photosmart printers since they are considered disposable. Waste of my money.
Published 3 months ago by Neil
Great photo quality but there are other issues
* Pros: This printer produces photos at awesome quality. It also takes 13x19 paper size, which is targeted mostly scrapbookers. Read more
Published 3 months ago by T. Menegay
Do NOT Buy this printer
Worst printer I have ever owned. USB port is extremely wonky -- disconnects from the printer on 5 out of 10 jobs. Wireless worked ONCE, and then never worked. Read more
Published 4 months ago by T. Auclair
Rename it "PhotoDumb" printer!
I usually buy HP printers, but this one from work makes me think twice. I was given the task to fix this "HP PhotoSmart B8550" printer that has not worked since the day it was... Read more
Published 5 months ago by Stepon Yor
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