இ Fuzzy Wuzzy's Summary:
ѾѾѾѾ 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.
ѾѾѾѾѾ Excellent 5-fuzzies feature ratings:
ѾѾѾѾѾ 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.
ѾѾѾѾѾ 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:
✸ Perform "Red Eye Removal" editing on your photos.
✸ Print out ruled notebook paper, graph paper, music paper, a task checklist, and even a fairly challenging maze.
✸ Clean and align the printhead.
✸ 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.
✸ Set language and country/region preferences for the displays.
✸ Create and assemble photo album pages, create panorama prints, create wallet and passport photos.
✸ 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.
ѾѾѾѾѾ 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.
ѾѾѾѾ Good 4-fuzzies feature ratings:
ѾѾѾѾ 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.
ѾѾѾ Average not-good not-bad 3-fuzzies feature ratings:
ѾѾѾ 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.
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