Printer Review and Advice

ITReviews reviews the HP Photosmart C5180 and writes, “HP claims the C5180 has ‘the world’s fastest photo printing speeds’, with 15 x 10cm (6 x 4-inch) images at ‘best’ quality in 12 seconds, documents at 32ppm in mono and 31ppm in colour. In practice the 15 x 10cm photos averaged around 20 seconds and typical text documents reached 10ppm, which is still admirable. … The lack of PictBridge capability allied to the faded quality of scanned documents and off-colour scanned photos make this a disappointing addition to the usually exemplary Photosmart series, although you will still have fast reproductions and excellent prints from memory cards.”

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ITReviews reviews the Canon PIXMA MP830 and writes, “Print quality is generally good, with sharp black text and smoothly coloured graphics. Photo prints come out well rendered, with natural blending from shade to shade, but again, duplex pages are not up to the standard of single-sided prints. The costs of the ink cartridges and Canon glossy photo paper give page costs of 2.4p and 36p for 5 percent black and 20 percent colour pages, respectively. The black print rate is reasonable, but the colour cost is on the high side … The PIXMA MP830 sits at the top of Canon’s range of home and home office multifunction devices and the specification list shows enough goodies to get you interested. In most ways it fulfils its promise, though its ability to print on both sides of the paper is disappointingly slow.”

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Trusted Reviews reviews the HP Photosmart A618 and writes, “HP has followed the general move to selling consumables, in this case a single ink cartridge and paper, in one pack. The cheapest way of supplying your printer is to buying the Photo Value Pack, which gives you enough ink and 15 x 10cm photo blanks to produce 120 photos, for just over £21. This equates to 17.99p per print, which to our knowledge is the lowest print cost yet reached by an inkjet photo printer manufacturer. … The main advantages of this printer over its predecessors are the larger 18 x 13cm prints it can produce and the fully integrated Bluetooth support; you need no plug in dongle, here. While both features are useful additions, we’re not over-impressed by the combination of Vivera inks and HP’s advanced photo paper. The ink may dry quickly, but there seems little improvement in colour quality.”

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CNET Asia previews the HP Photosmart D7360 and concludes, “Technical specifications look promising. While the speed can only be achieved with the use of original HP media, the lower costs and print quality of the photo paper are easily incorporated into any photo printing workflow. The larger LCD is also another big plus since any additional viewable detail is always welcome.”

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IT Reviews reviews the HP Photosmart C4180 and writes, “Although the Photosmart C4180 is a smart and stylish printer with a decent list of features, we were unimpressed by the quality of its printed output. That criticism is a real surprise for an HP printer and it surpasses any considerations about the cost per page or whether HP should have included a PictBridge connector for digital cameras.”

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ITReviews reviews the Epson Stylus DX6000 and concludes, “the greatest flaw from the earlier models is still there and that’s the heavy ink usage. Even though the cartridges are split into four in the interest of economy, after copying just four A4 colour photos at best resolution, three-quarters of the coloured inks had vanished in our test. As one of the prime selling points is the memory card utility and the durability of the coloured inks, this is going to be a serious drawback if you’re frequently replacing cartridges at £7 a go. It’s a major disappointment, especially when the software bundle (which includes Epson’s Creativity Suite and ABBYY FineReader Optical Character Recognition) is uniformly excellent. What could have been a well-nigh perfect All-in-One for the customer on a limited budget is still seriously let down by ruinous ink usage. Print quality is of a high standard, though, and the new LCD viewer is very welcome.”

Pocket-lint reviews the Epson R2400 and writes, “Pricey the R2400 may be at a penny under £600 and each (original) ink costs just over £9 (don’t forget you need eight (or nine depending on the media) of ‘em), so this is a significant investment. However, it is really a pro’ machine capable of superb (nay, the best colour and mono results I have seen) that, if exhibiting and/or selling your work, colour or black and white, will pay you back quickly.”

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CNET reviews the HP OfficeJet 6310 and writes, “The printer ran into its worst problem with white text on a colored background; the text quickly became blurry and unreadable at small type sizes. The 4 x 6 photo print again showed noticeable graininess and slightly washed-out colors. We’d prefer better quality, even for simple snapshots, but the photo quality should be fine for casual business use for fields such as insurance or real estate.”

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ITReviews reviews the Canon Selphy CP720 and writes, “As you might expect, Canon makes a claim about the longevity of the prints from the Selphy CP720. Canon’s claim of 100 years is assuming the print will be stored in a photo album under certain conditions. 100 years is certainly competitive, and probably sufficient, given that you’d be printing from an archivable digital source anyway. Just be warned that durability will decrease rapidly if the print displayed in strong sunlight. … Overall, Canon’s Selphy CP720 impressed us. Prints were of a high quality and printed rapidly. What’s more, the printer was very easy to use and is a convenient size to stow away in a desk drawer when not in use.”

CNET Asia writes about the Brother DCP-120C: “The DCP-120C is a multifunction printer for both the home and the home office. It can print, copy and scan in both color and monochrome. The company claims print speeds of up to 20ppm in black/white and 15ppm in color, which is rather decent for an All-in-One. Print resolutions max out at 1,200 x 6,000dpi, while color copying and scanning resolutions are 600 x 1,200dpi and 600 x 2,400dpi (optical), respectively.”