Customer Reviews

HP Photosmart C3180 All-in-One Printer, Scanner, and Copier

5 star:		(74)
4 star:		(48)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(19)
1 star:		(57)

 

 

After extensive research into printers for my home office and an intensive review of my budget, I finally settled on the HP Photosmart C3180 without seeing any reviews. However, I figured that the price was right, the HP reputation is strong and the functions of the printer are what I need.

I connected the printer as soon as it arrived (piece of cake, even for a novice like me). I then began to use it very heavily. I am so impressed. THe quality of the print is incredible, the printer is versatile and it moves fast (especially when in the economical fast mode). The difference in operations and results between this printer and those in the $250 to $300 price range is negligible.

As far as looks are concerned, the printer is sleek with a very small footprint, even taking the paper tray into consideration. It has a clean appearance without an industrial look. It is great for today's offices with a more contemporary appearance.

The only possible issue that may detract from this printer is the same as may be found with any inkjet, with the exception of the very high end inkjets. Inkjets tend to be a little noisy as it prints at the speedier settings. This printer isn't any different.

I recommend this printer for anyone who wants a stylish all-in-one printer that performs like a high-end printer and yet who is not willing to spend the $400 plus price of the more expensive printers.

I bought this to replace my old beloved Canon PIXMA ip1500 after about two years of faithful use. In the end, the print head clogged up, and even after several alcohol soaks, I could not revive it. My Canon was a blessing as far as ink prices were concerned, and I wanted a good printer to replace it. I decided that I was going to step up and get a multifuction printer this time.

I settled on this one after reading the reviews on Amazon. I am very pleased with my purchase. For starters, the printer looks amazing. It is very sleek, and it doesn't look like your typical office machine at all. It is very well designed, and everything fits together in a compact way. One thing that made me leap for joy with this printer was the ink cartridges. They are not as cheap as my beloved PIXMA ip1500 ink cartridges, but there is a reason for this. Older printers used to have a separate print head that the ink would fit into. That was great, but if the print head got clogged, you would be screwed (just as I was) because you either had to replace it, which would end up costing much more than the original price of the printer, or you would have to get another printer all together.

With the Photosmart C3180 ink, the print head is actually built into the ink cartridge! That means that if the print head ever gets clogged, then you don't have to worry about getting another print head or another printer. You just have to get a new ink cartridge to replace the print head. That is amazing! The printer will last for that much longer.

The ink is good as well. I get excellent print quality for what I use it for. The controls are easy to use, and you can plug you memory card right into the unit and get great pictures directly from the card. The one touch controls are pretty straight forward if you ask me. The scanning and copying is good as well.

If I have one issue with the printer, it is the tray. The printed pages have no where to go but on top of the unprinted ones. The tray was not desinged well to keep the printed pages separate from the ones being fed into the printer, but if you just be careful about watching what you print, then that is not an issue at all.

I am very impressed with this printer. The more that I use it, the more impressed I become. I am satisfied with this, and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a powerful all-in-one printer at an exeptional price.

It's hard to argue with a combo scanner/printer that didn't cost you anything. I received mine free after rebate with the purchase of my new MacBook. Neverthless, there's a few things to be aware of:

PRO's

- The scan quality is very good. I'm pleased with the results I've gotten from the scans I've made so far.
- The print quality is also quite good. However, it's not quite as perfect as the higher-end PhotoSmart printers.
- Print speed is very fast, especially at draft settings.
- Tidy, space-saving design. I like the horizontal orientation of the scanner lid, and how it opens on the "front." The paper tray lifts up and snaps in place -- even when paper is loaded -- helping you regain a significant amount of desk space when it's not in use.
- PC-less copying. You can drop a document on the scanner bed, press the buttons on the top of the C3180, and get a very nice reproduction in a very short period of time. Nice bonus to be able to set the print quality and BW/Color right on the panel.
- Integrated flash memory card slots. This keeps me from having to connect my camera to the computer when I want to transfer some pictures. Very handy.

CON's

- Doesn't come with photo ink cartridge
- Doesn't come with USB cable
- The lights are always on. If this printer goes into a power-saving "sleep" mode you've never know it, because the bright green panel lights never dim or go out.
- Macintosh drivers assume/require the printer is directly attached to your computer via USB. If your printer is shared by a Windows machine, for example, you'll have to use a lame public-domain print driver designed for a different model. While it prints well enough, you won't be able to control print quality, etc.
- Scanner lid is not hinged, so it is difficult to scan pages from thick books.
- "Smart" scanning software doesn't always guess the right size of the page.
- Paper handling is spartan; output is dropped directly on top of fresh sheets, and both kind of sit there on a "ledge." If you don't extend the little arm on the ledge, printed pages WILL shoot out to the floor as they are ejected.
- No fax support. You can't just put a document on to the scanner and push a button to fax it. Not only is there no phone jack/fax modem built into the the printer (understandable given the price) but there is nothing in the software to make it easier to use your computer's built-in faxing abilities. It would be nice if for the hundreds of megabytes of software installed on your system, a small portion of them were given over to this very useful function.
- Small point: The lights and text accompanying the buttons on the control panel are clear and understandable, but could be designed much more consistently/attractively. The untidy look of it detracts from an otherwise very neat, clean, and attractive box.
- Windows driver software is a bloated, memory-gobbling pig. This is probably the biggest negative about this printer. HP just can't seem to write a lean, efficient driver package anymore. Instead, they force you to install at a minimum the "HP Solution Center" which seems like it was written for 6-year-olds, with gaudy graphics, oversized buttons, and wizards for everything. With my old trusty CanoScan, I could push a button and the image popped up in my favorite drawing program. Not so with the HP software, which wants to control every image on your computer, build an album everytime it launches, etc. Even after all that, it leaves the image in a "Temp" folder deep inside the bowels of your computer, instead of in "My Pictures" where it belongs. Don't forget the obtrusive/intrusive "auto update" software and other ancillary programs. Even when not using the printer or scanner, the various HP-related programs take up about 75MB of system RAM in the background. This could really slow everything down on slower/older computers with 128MB-512MB of RAM. It's nice to have this kind of software for people who might need it, but a "lean" option should be made available for people who want to use it more efficiently. I know it's possible because the Mac OS X drivers are much smaller and cleaner.

OTHER COMMENTS

I really like the hardware on this printer and I would absolutely love it if the software side weren't so bulky and resource-hungry. You can't really "go wrong" at this price. (In my case, "free.") It fits nicely on any desk, and is the perfect device to have within arm's length for quick prints and scans. If it weren't for the lack of network printing support on the Mac side and for the bloatware on Windows, I would give this printer 5-stars.

I installed the printer drivers on two PC's. Enabled file and printer sharing through my network cards. Connected through a linksys router. I was up and running in less then 20 mins.

The craftmenship is excellent. Looks better in person then in the pics. Print quality is adjustable to save ink. Nice little unit with easy to use lighted buttons. A printer, scanner and copier all in one for less then $80 you cant beat it.

Oh....and dont be fooled into thinking you need to spend the extra money on a more expensive model just becasue they offer a 2 or 3 inch LCD panel, because you dont. Those LCD panels are useless considering you can view and change all the printer settings right from your pc without leaving the comfort of your chair.

My only complaint is that they dont supply the USB cable, which I think is totally rediculous. Circut City wanted 30 bucks for the cable, what a rip off, I got it for $8 at PC Club. HP does supply a black ink cartridge and a color ink cartridge. They are very easy to install. You have to buy the photo quality ink cartridge seperate.

The numbskull from Florida in the previous post that gave this printer a rating of 1...... well you can tell by his post, he is an idiot and sounds like tech supports worst nightmare. He should just get rid of his computer and go back to using calculaters. I hear they make them solar powered nowadays. This is definitly a 5 star product.

After going through reviews of 15-20 printers, I decided to eye on HP PSC 3180 All-in-one. I just bought this printer today from Officemax, as the printer was on deal ($30 rebate), as well as the lady at officemax-counter gave me another $15 gift card (possibly back-to-school offer). Overall, I paid $55 for this awesome printer, which has a reg. price of $100. Sweet Deal!
Needless to say, I am awestuck by the printer's amazing performance. Its simplicity (to start up), vivera color features, lots of features with card slots, optimal space-occupation, high resolution, aggresiveness to print and price are unbeatable compared to other printers.
Next I took photocopies of my color and b/w documents, as well as prints of the scanned documents, in both cases with excellent outputs.
Finally, I took colored prints (6" x 4") of 3 photos (from my Canon A620 7.1MP digi-cam), I couldn't believe my eyes. Every details and features of the pictures came out perfect with vivid colors and in less than 15 secs!
I couldn't discover any cons, neither I want to. This is another great printer from HP. I was thinking to buy HP PSC 5610 4-in-1, but I think I made the right decision going for this PS C-3180 printer. Though the price is cheap, it doesn't compromise with the quality.
I would highly recommend it to other customers who are looking to buy printers for home or at office. Thanks HP.

Let me add my accolades regarding this outstanding hardware/software package. The unit is compact, considering all its functions, and easy to set up and use. It prints super images, makes excellent copies with one touch, and scans with high quality and ease. The software works seamlessly with the hardware. I am especially happy with the scanning function. After so many years of marginal printers, and inferior multi-task machines, it is a great pleasure to own something that really works and delivers high quality images; and at a reasonable price. I highly recommend this unit as an effective and reliable home/office machine.

UPDATE: March 26, 2007
Six months later, after I purchased this printer, I say BRAVO! The only thing that I can say bad about it is the fact that it DRINKS INK! However, all INKJETS drink ink. This is a very quiet printer and it has a great improvement over changing the 2 ink cartridges--very fast and easy compared to older HP Inkjet printers.

September 19, 2006
Below is my report after just owning the printer for a few days:

This is my 3rd purchase of an HP All-In-One Printer, Scanner, Copier. I owned the PSC ALL IN ONE 2100 for 3 1/2 years until it coughed and died last month. Then September 18, 2006, bought the F380 HP, it was dead on arrival. Said I would "NEVER" buy another HP. Well, I ended up bringing the F380 back and getting the HP C3180. So far, so good. I have owned this printer since Sept 19, 2006 and it is doing great as yet. Scans flawlessy, prints everything, including pictures perfectly. Printer is quiet and copies quickly! The only things SO FAR that I can say negative about this is that it DRINKS INK! The reason I gave this 4 stars and not 5: 1) Drinks Ink 2) I miss the old software that the previous HP All in Ones came with, the newer photo software is bare bones at best. Bought MS Picture It as it has more features. 3) Have only owned this about 3 weeks. I plan to do an update on this should it "DIE" on me...Till then...
UPDATE: November 26, 2006-Still working great! This is one of the easiest to use printer/scanner/copiers that I have ever had! I love the fact that each time you print, it gives you a report of the remaining ink levels. This is a big help! I have found that the black empties very quickly. I have since bought the double pack of it to have on hand. The color ink has lasted me about 1 to 1 1/2 months. All of the INK JETS DRINK INK! This is is only negative thing I can say, but as I said, ALL INK JETS DRING INK! But for the money, I do love this printer!

The one-star reviews on Amazon of this printer are all 100% correct and accurate - this printer is an utter failure by HP, and that's why they're giving it away (it came with Maintosh Powerbook for free). Both the hardware and software of this printer simply do not work, and the print quality is horrible.

- The paper feeder mechanism simply does not work. It does not recognize 4x6 photo paper, and defaults to 8.5x11 regular paper. It feeds 4x6 photo paper incorrectly each time, resulting in a crooked picture.
- The print quality is horrible. I'm using the highest quality non-HP photo papers, but it makes no difference. The same photo on an equally cheap non-HP photo printer comes out starkly better.
- The software is full of bugs. Viewing multiple pictures and clicking on one does not result in the photo being displayed in the main window. This level of blatant bug is hard to believe but true.
- The cartridges are tiny and run out after only about dozen prints. Again, UNBELIEVABLE!
- After each print, the paper selection on the printer itself defaults back to 8.5x11 paper. Even if you select the 4x6 paper on the software, the printout comes out terrible. Unbelievable incompetence on the part of HP...

If you're looking for a GREAT multi-function machine, go for Brother 7820N.
If you're looking for an outstanding but economical photo printer, go for CANON i470D.

My Epson Inkjet died and I needed a new printer pronto. Tried HP because unlike Epson, you get a new print head with each cartridge plus the Epson inkjets have a bad history of drying out from infrequent use and completely dying, like mine did.

Have never had a HP printer and am very happy with the PhotoSmart C3180. Well made, nice design, great fit and finish, compact footprint and excellent quality. Very easy to use and works well with Apple's OS X!

I just sold my Canon ip5000 and have this HP as a replacement. The Canon is a hellava printer, so I was curious how this one would stand up in terms of quality. Interestingly enough, it did very well. The Canon was a little faster and less noisy, but certainly not worth the additional $250 retail. For $99, you can't go wrong with this printer.

One thing I did notice was the size of the ink tanks on this printer as they are very small. Many have stated that the printer runs dry of ink very quickly, and this may be true, but the ink tanks are small so what do you expect? Proportionally, the tanks are the same price as the larger tanks as they are cheaper but you get less ink. This printer also does not have a permanent paper tray at the bottom that you keep paper in. So when you want to print, you have to open the front and place your paper in, then remove when you are done. You could keep it in there, but it looks sloppy to me as I have a very clean workplace. This lack of feature is not a deal breaker, but worth mentioning.