Customer Reviews

HP Photosmart C4180 All in One Printer, Scanner, and Copier

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I am an admitted HP loyalist. I did purchase an Epson to see what the fuss was about. Ended up donating it to Salvation Army less than a year. This C4180 replaced it. I like the fact that only two cartridges are needed. I never purchase the photo version toner. Plain color works just fine.

Puzzled by some of the negative reviews. I hooked mine up to a Mac G5 and also loaded the software. Print jobs look fine. Photos are terrific. Copies for routine household chores (report cards/articles)are very clear. But the real pleasure is the scanner.

I had a 3-yr old flatbed scanner (also HP) that just wasn't giving me the clarity I needed. My goal was to convert all those baby pictures to digital files. This tool really fits the bill.

I finally figured out that it's best to run the scanner from the computer, not the on-board console commands. It also helps to permanently add the HP Scan Pro software to the row of programs that appear along the bottom of the screen.

I've gone through about 600 photos. Although it can scan 4 photos at once(4x6), I found that placing 3 is better. Why? With more space between the photos, the scanner detects 3 distinct objects. That means you don't have to go in later to crop and "file-save as" a file with 4 different photos. What's even better is that each of the 3 photos gets saved with it's own file name. Say I call the first file as "Disney". The 2nd and 3rd file would get named "Disney 01" and "Disney 02".

There are some quirks in the software. When launching it, it tends to default to TIFF files which can take lots of memory. Be cognizant of this and remember to adjust your settings before your first scan of a session.

Overall I am thrilled with the output. And feel better knowing my favorite photos now have a high-quality digital back up. Don't know why it works so well for me but not others. Could be that I am on a MAC. Why not give it 5 stars? Because it's my way of sending a message to all printer manufacturers who insist on bleeding us dry with annoyingly small/over priced cartridges. Epson was worst, HP is a little better.

I just purchased and set up this printer several hours ago. Being on a Mac (OS 10.4.7), I found set up occurred easily and quickly. First, I followed the 14-step "Start Here" poster. Once the software was loaded, it transferred from CD and ran through its installation application quickly (about 10 minutes).

In my set-up, the C4180 is connected by USB cable to a G5 iMac. I also have a G4 PowerBook and both machines are connected by wireless network. Copying, scanning and printing from the iMac was successful. But to print over the wireless network required that I activate Printer Sharing from the Internet & Network > Sharing preferences (accessed from the System Preferences). Once this was done on the iMac, the C4180 showed up as a printer on the remote PowerBook.

One hitch occurred during scanning. I placed a map on the glass and used HP's Photosmart Studio to control the scan settings. I set the scan to 200 dpi and enlarged the preview frame to scan the whole image. After clicking OK a warning came up that I didn't have enough memory to complete the task (I had 1.5 GB of RAM and no other software running). So I brought up Photoshop and controlled the scan from there. No problems (and the scan completed at 200 dpi). I'll have to return to Photosmart Studio and dig into how it works.

For ease of set-up and immediate gratification, this printer fulfills my needs and meets my expectations perfectly.

Just bought mine yesterday, set up was quick, easy, no glitches no problems, it was so obvious what to do with it, read on instructions later.
HP has done a great job with this printer at a very reasonable price, my first attempts at printing photos were just great,very happy with this printer, I think at any price its hards to beat.
Tried scanning and then scanning and printing, all very successful.
Only negative I have is that HP does not give you full ink tanks with their printers, its a bit more than a sample, but, ok, the printer is so good, I accept it.
Their method of using another cartridge for printing 4 x 6 prints fits neatly on the side and is unseen,yet, works so well when pluged into the printer.
A top printer at a great price.

Bought this printer in April. Probably printed 20 pages on it in 3 months since I have another printer hooked up. When it worked it printed great pictures. Ink cartridges ran run out too quickly though. In July it died. Got a "paper jam" error without any paper in it. Contacted HP service, which is overseas in Asia now. Mostly the rep read off what you can find on their web page. Most of the time I couldn't understand him anyway. It wasted 1 hr until they agreed to send a remanufactured one to replace the broken printer. 10 days later, the replacement showed up. All was well until the next morning. The color cartridge has some kind of leaked and I needed to run the clean cycle a few time to get it to print in color every time the printer sat for more than 12 hrs. With how little ink is in the HP 95, this was a problem. So I called them again this time I spoke to a supervisor. They sent another remanufactured printer. 10 days later is showed up. And guess what, it doesn't work. The second replacement will not power up. This was after the supervisor said he would make sure QA double checked the printer before it went out.... Currently I'm working with a case manager (one step higher than a supervisor), who is not very helpfully. It's been three days and still no solution. I originally bought a C4150, and they sent a c4180. Seems like there are a lot of broken 4180s. If they send back a 4150, I'll return it and get my money back and buy a Canon. Its too bad, my old HP printer is 7 yrs old and working great. I wanted an all in one to clear up some space..

I've had this AIO for about a year and it worked fantastic with everything up to and including Windows XP.
Never encountered any of the bugs I've heard reported.
Phenominal quality and speed.

I recently installed Windows Vista Home Premium
and NONE of it's software worked(compatiblity issue).
I now have to scan through MS Paint.
HP has no immediate fix for this problem other
than a generic driver download.
I highly reccommend it for many,but not if
you're going to run any version of Windows Vista.

I got this printer as a gift from my employer. Functionally, it's a very nice printer, scanner and copier and I was very happy with it unitl I ran out of ink. The HP 98 b/w cartridge it uses has a capacity of only 11 ml (HP 56 is 19 ml). It does not take too many pages of printing to use it up. Office Depot does not make any remanufactured ink cartridge for it and you have to pay full price for the HP original.

It may be an inexpensive printer to buy but it is an expensive one to keep.

It was sad. We puchased this printer from HP about eight months ago for more than $200. It is about half that price now. It stopped working a couple weeks ago. HP sent a (refurbished) replacement. It does'nt work either. The next replacement is on the way however after several hours of speaking with people from HP who have very heavy accents, as well as paying shipping cost for three printers I am very dissapointed.

I have this printer for just over 1 1/2 yr with very light usage...just finished the original ink and put in 2 brand new HP cartridges 2 weeks ago and was still working ok up to yesterday. I tried printing an email today and did not pay attention to the paper tray which only had 3 pieces of paper left. Paper jam!! The roller fed all 3 paper into it. After clearing the paper jam from the back of the printer (the paper was intact without any missing piece), I was not able to make it work again....paper jam error won't go away no matter what I did. A called to HP 800 # got me an Indian customer service rep. She would not even patch my call to support since the warrrenty has expired. In order to talk to technical support, I would have to pay $35 to have support for 14 days. I am going to junk it and look for another brand. What a waste of money for a good looking printer with all the cool functions but does not last.

Edit:
I almost junk it...then I found a fix...not from HP but from other user. Check this out if you have the same paper jam problem: http://www.fixya.com/support/t203152-hp_photosmart_c4180_phantom_paper_jam

This link just save me $70 to have it exchanged by HP.

I looked for a while for something affordable but good. I picked this one based on reviews. I like this printer. It is fast and does a good job. The only thing I don't like is that it it sounds like a cheap printer as it makes noise when it prints (like the plastic shakes), but otherwise for the money, it is excellent. It was easy to set up also.

I find this printer to be extremely noisy and the print cartridges keep getting jammed.