Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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234 of 245 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Is this Price 4 Real? Amazing!, July 11, 2006
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.
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68 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Photosmart an intelligent printing choice., November 7, 2006
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.
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93 of 100 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Sweet little device; fat, ugly Windows drivers, November 27, 2006
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.
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