Printer Reviews

My wife gave me a HP Deskjet 450CI for XMAS 2002 as I was travelling a lot and it seemed a decent solid printer that was compact if a little expensive. I was looking for a basic printer that could do most basic printing in a compact form. I was not looking for awesome performance in any aspect.

The good: Printer prints decently and quickly. Printer is pleasing in shape and compact.

The bad: Printer does not handle cardstock (fairly common deficiency here) or full size photo paper.

The ugly: Printer suffers NUMEROUS jams (to the point of being unuseable) - paper is pulled in approx an inch, jams, then software comms problems begin. I have seen the problem discussed in a number of online forums. This apparently is a design problem relating to the pinch plate which may have been corrected in printers made after July 2003. If you are in warranty, HP will fix the problem but if you are like me and the problem occurs after the warranty expires fixing this design defect is on you.

Bottom line: Before buying: 1. Make the seller take the printer out of the box so you can check the production date (only located on the serial tag on the bottom of the printer) (how many vendors will do this?). 2. Verify that "no kidding" this design defect has been corrected.

Postscript: I have been highly satisfied with every HP printer I have had until this one. This printer has not yet gone through a single complete ink cartridge and has never run card stock or photo paper. I do not want to deal with repairs so today I scavenged the ink from this one - threw away the 450CI - and installed the ink in my new HP PSC1350. The jury is out on the PSC1350 for now.

I'm not sure why some other folks have had trouble with this printer - I have never had a single glitch & I have put it to the test. I travel a TON & take my laptop & printer with me almost every trip - the HP 450ci has withstood the wear & tear of over 50,000 of travel (air, car & train) in the past 9 months & aside from a few scratches here & there you'd never know it wasn't fresh out of the box.

I also have used my HP 450ci to print almost anything you can think of - text docs on regular mid-weight paper ("new" or recycled, both work fine), 8.5x11 photo paper, 4x6 photo paper, transparencies, labels, even t-shirt iron-on transfer sheets - not a single problem. Hope I didn't just jinx myself! :)

Seriously though - if you're looking for a portable printer that's rugged enough to really travel, but also looks slick sitting on your desk or pulling it out of your bag in a client's office , the HP 450ci is THE way to go. IMHO. And no, I don't work for HP! I actually am not a big fan & have NOT liked some of their other products, but the 450ci hasn't let me down.

If you need a portable printer this is a great choice. It is well-built & solid without being too heavy to take with you. At the same time, it's versatile enough to be your everyday desktop printer too. I have tried a number of the "portable" printers that are available and so far the HP450ci looks the best, is built the best, and has lasted the longest even with a lot of use. In summary: It's well-built, light weight and the print quality for text & pictures is good.

I bought this to unit replace a dead Lexmark Z53. It looked larger and more solid than the dirt-cheap printers; I calculated that perhaps this one would also not eat expensive ink cartridges as fast as those do. It also has separate printheads and ink cartridges for each of the four colors, which can allegedly save some money. I'll be printing articles, resumes, letters, and maybe the rare book-length document, but not massive numbers of pages.

Around this price range you can get either a really low-end laser printer or a higher-end inkjet. I was considering both options and finally decided I'd like to have something from the mid-to-upper end of the technology's available lineup rather than one from the bottom of the barrel. I am quite satisfied with the unit so far; but because I haven't printed thousands of pages yet, consider this review a bit preliminary.

Setup is not very difficult, but if you've never set up this kind of hardware before, it might seem a bit dismaying. There are a lot of tape strips to remove, a somewhat unusual fold-out clamp to hold the printheads in place, and not-all-that-clearly-marked internal foam block to remove. The wordless poster that comes with the unit is adequate, although some of the drawings are not very clear, and the larger paper tray shown on the poster did not come with my version (the 1100d). It is available as a separate option, but I probably won't bother; you might want one if the standard 150-sheet tray sounds inadequate.

If you've set up an inkjet before it should not be difficult. This printer seems to have an optical sensor it can use to calibrate itself -- you can watch as a little light illuminates the test page it is printing -- and it seems to have done a good job! I was pleasantly surprised. I did wind up reinserting the black printhead more firmly to try to correct some lightness and banding visible on the test page. It seems to have done the trick -- or maybe it is just "broken in" after a few pages -- and I'm quite satisfied with the print quality.

Driver selection was automatic, and when I plugged in the USB cable and opened MacOS X 10.3's Printer Setup Utility, it had already chosen the driver. I never actually inserted the driver CD. That's actually more due to Apple than to HP, but I was impressed anyway.

This inkjet is also unusual because it has a duplexing unit. It holds the page to dry for a moment, then pulls it back in, passes it through the duplexer to flip it, and and prints on the other side. There is a price to pay for this paper-handling, though. The effective top margin on the back of the page is Iarger than it is on the front (when I print the printer's PDF file brochure, the very top of the content on the back side of the page is cut off).

The full user manual mentions that when printing for duplexing, you will want a minimum top margin of 0.46 inches. This is significantly bigger than the 0.12 inches the unit is capable of on the first side. It also looks like there may be a tendency to slightly misalign the vertical spacing of front and back. Keep this in mind if you intend to print double-sided brochures; the unit apparently has some basic physical limitations on what it can do with the second side that don't apply to the first side.

It should be noted that this is not truly a photo printer: it is not "full bleed" (it can't print right to the edges of the paper). It does a reasonable job, though; I tried a 450 dpi, 3150x1970 pixel image, on HP bright white inkjet paper, and it looked OK; under a magnifier I can notice, up close, some very fine dithering artifacts here and there (distinct from JPEG-compression artifacts).

I next tried the same image on Epson glossy photo paper. If you tell the print driver that you are printing on not just any photo paper, but specifically one of the seven specific types of HP photo papers, an extra print quality option appears: "Maximum DPI." I took a guess and said that my paper matched "HP premium plus photo paper, glossy." I chose "Maximum DPI."

The result does look subtly different than the result on HP's bright white paper; the colors are more saturated, and the dithering used to reproduce fine variations in shading look more like smooth blends. It is difficult for me to tell how much of the improvement, if any, comes from the driver's "Maximum DPI" setting and how much comes from the different ink-absorbing properties of the photo paper. In any case, the output on photo paper looks very nice. I can't guarantee that a professional photographer making fine-art prints would be satisfied, but you will probably be satisfied.

I also learned the hard way that on this unit, unlike the Lexmark Z53, the paper is flipped during printing: photo papers should go in the tray with the glossy side down! This is another detail mentioned in the user manual -- but note, this "manual" is not in the box; it is on the enclosed driver CD-ROM.

I guess HP has decided that since people don't read manuals, they won't bother with one, and instead they include only the setup poster and very minimal "Getting Started Guide." I don't think it is too cynical to imagine that they don't include a printed user manual so that we'll be inclined to print it out ourselves, thus getting a head start using up some of that expensive HP ink.)

Anyway, so far I'm quite satisfied. Unlike the dirt-cheap inkjets, or the weird-looking multi-function devices, this one seems reassuring: a larger footprint, a little more weight, and a more solid feel. I am taking off one star only for the somewhat slightly disappointing duplexing and documentation; if you're the type who doesn't read manuals anyway, and you don't need perfect double-sided printing with maximum print area on both sides, these details won't bother you.

This printer is a great choice for a home office/hobbist.
It prints up to 4800dpi (good enough for most color prints)
and I especially like the built in duplex mode for printing manuals. The ink refills are expensive (most are) but last a reasonable amount of time. But for $199....a great buy.

Later, I plan on purchasing a separate printer for just color photos (dedicated printers are the best way to go). For now, this one does just fine for the price.

I'm a Division Director and purchased the HP Inkjet 1100 for my office. I'm required to produce correspondence such as business letters, letters to the general public, and interoffice memos. I've owned numerous printers, both laser and inkjet. This is my favorite. The question is "how do you plan to use the output from the printer?" If you want business quality text for letters/memos and office quality color for printing slides or articles from the web printed quickly in relation to other inkjets, this printer is superb. If your aim is to print highly detailed photographs, there are better alternatives.

I love the two paper trays - a luxury to which I'm unaccustomed from other inkjet models. I store our organization's letterhead in one tray and plain paper in the other. You switch back and forth between the trays by clicking on "Properties" from the Print Menu that is revealed after clicking on "Print". The option of duplex printing (printing on both sides) is also standard on the printer using the same procedure referenced above.

The printer comes with 4 separate high capacity print heads and 4 separate ink cartridges, one each for black, magenta, yellow, and cyan. This allows you to replace only what is needed. I saw the reference to the print heads below. They have a capacity life and are only replaced when worn out. From the web, I found that the black print head needs replacing after 16,000 pages and the other three (magenta, yellow, cyan) after 24,000 pages. You'll go through a lot ink cartridges before the print heads need replacing. When that happens, the print heads are no more expensive than a standard ink cartridge.

I am highly satisfied with this printer. Again, it all depends on how one intends to use it. For business and home use: printing correspondence, presentation slides, spreadsheets, webpages and web quality graphics, I find this an exceptional product with good printing speed. Of course, that's why it's marketed using the name HP 1100 "BUSINESS" inkjet. If you're into photography, you might look elsewhere.

This printer prints very well but I wouldn't recommend it for the Macintosh OS (any Mac OS). I spent over 50 hours of troubleshooting and talking to their support team only to find out that this printer wouldn't print multiple digital camera pictures on a page using the network connnection. *I've been testing printers for the last 19 years.

The printer prints fine using the USB port but that defeats the purpose of buying a printer with a built in network card. They wouldn't take it back. I tested it on 5 different Macs without success but support said they couldn't duplicate the problem.

It works great on Windows XP.

No more HP products for me, ever.

Purchased this printer online and performed install in mixed (i.e. Mac & PC) environment office using wizards on install CD. Installation was virtually automatic. Even our IT people has no complaints about it.

Have experienced no difficulties printing with either Mac or PC printing. I think this is a great printer for the price given the features (built-in networking, duplexing, etc.). It give good ouput at standard settings and great at normal and above. Of course as with most HP inkjets the ink is pricy.

I have two computers and wanted to a network one printer for both. This proved to be the best solution! My only problem was that I run XP and forgot to shut off the firewall that blocks network activity. Once I got that sqaured away it worked like a charm! The print qulaity is excellent! Since each compuuter has a firewall product installed with the virus program there was no problem in turning off the built in XP one found in My Computer Properties.

This is generally not a bad printer however it does tend to overheat paper so that it comes out curly, which is very annoying if you print large documents or want to print high quality.
The support desk said to resolve this by setting the paper type to 'transparency' for normal paper printing which indicates that this is a typical problem. It also doesnt solve it. Overall Im not very impressed with either printer or support and wouldnt get another Brother printer.

This printer is all right, but I just had to replace it after a year due to a paper jam that I couldn't clear, and ultimately resulted in black pieces of plastic (probably a gear tearing up inside) falling out the bottom. When paper jams it is difficult to get out, and in this final case, a piece got lodged someplace I couldn't even see. I tried to take apart to see and remove the jam, but this is totally impossible as well.

The printer prints very slow if you send any major chunck of graphics to it, or use the high resolution settings. I had maximum memery too, so memory wasn't the issue.

First I bought an HP LaserJet 1300. I liked the printer and it was fast, but my wife's business' letterhead gets printed on a slightly textured paper and I just couldn't get the LaserJet's toner to adhere well to the paper. After trying every conceivable configuration of print settings, I finally conceded defeat. So back the HP went and I skeptically went with my second choice, the Brother HL-5050... I didn't have high hopes that a cheaper printer would do the job since the HP couldn't handle it... Although it is somewhat slower than the HP (especially for graphics), it has handled everything I have thrown at it, without having to even mess with different print settings. It printed beautifully on the slightly rougher paper, something I could never coax the HP into doing... I am very happy with my "second choice" and the fact that it worked out better and yet me less is icing on the cake...

This basically glues a plastic sheet to your shirt with your design printed on the plastic. Wearing it feels like you might imagine it would, and it doesn't survive washing very well, even if you wash it by hand very gently. The directions tell you to iron it for much longer than it can handle. If you do as you're told, you'll burn it.

This paper is great for projects, simple to use, and inspiring. My problem with this product is that the transfer cracks after a few washings. I wouldn't recommend it for t-shirts or any fabric that gets thrown in the washer/dryer frequently.

This is a good product at a good price. Got a few tips tho. Do not expect things to work on first try prefectly be prepared to waste a t shirt or test the paper on a pillow case. Cut close to the edge not right on or else it doesn't adhear properly causing it to wash off. Yellow oust side means you burnt it. All in all good product to try.

This is one of the worst products I have ever used. It gives you no detailed instructions for ironing on, like how long you are supposed to do it; it just says "iron the transfer onto light fabric." It ruined the brand new white tank top I bought for this project...and left me angry and frustrated. I would have given it 0 stars but that wasn't an option! Phone # on package, but you end up with an answering machine, and I did find in very small print (that you aren't looking for when shopping) it does say, "We shall not be responsible for incidental or consequential damages related to the use of this product." I guess that says it all, doesn't it?

This is the best trasfer paper I have ever tried, and I've tried many! I was making T-shirts and sweat shirts for all of my family and friends when the Sept. 11th incident occured, and the more I made, the more people wanted them. I was taking pictures off the internet and copying them onto trasfers and making the shirts. Eventually I was making sweat suits too! Even before the stores were coming out with them. I can honestly say that these transfers not only looked the best, but held out through many washings! Anybody with a brain can follow the simple instructions on the package. If they can't then they have some serious issues. My 6 yr. old son even knew how to do it! I won't buy any other trasfer but this brand!

I used this product over a year ago to create matching shirts for a business organization. The directions were very easy to follow and left us error-free. The shop owner still tells me that they turned out great and they wear them often. I am currently designing another project for her.

I've tried just about every HP paper type together with my HP Deskjet 5655 to resolve smearing problems. A4 or Letter sized Premium Photo Paper Glossy or Plus Glossy will smear seriously. If you look at the prints you get a feeling that the color is building up on top of the paper rather than being absorbed by it. You can even feel it. And if you put water on it, you can wipe it practically white clean in 10 seconds. Doesn't matter if you wait 3 minutes or 3 months, result is the same.

However, make the same prints on 4x6in or 10x15cm HP Photo Paper, and they come out perfectly. You can even wash!!! the photos 10 seconds after printing and not a single trace of ink will come off. I blame the paper, but I'm starting to think that the HP printers only use the Photo Ink for small papers and that the regular Ink is used for large papers (I don't see any other pattern in my test results). I've wasted hundereds of dollars trying to get permanent printouts on Letter/A4 sized paper, but so far failed. I'm currently limited to using it for 4x6in printing only.

You can not get better color from your computer printer for pictures then by using Hewlett Packard Glossy Paper. HOWEVER
unless you live in 30% Relative Humidity year round it will wrinkle like a lasagna noodle. Bite the bullet and buy the much more expensive Premium PLUS Photo Paper unless you want to keep your pictures under glass or only show them in the winter. Please note, under glass does not mean in a frame, they will wrinkle there also.

FANTASTIC photo quality paper, but sheets stick together as they go through the HP printer.........other than the nusiance of having to reinsert the paper, this product is outstanding!!

I bought my 2250PS from [a local store] back in January 2001 and its been a reliable old mule over the past 24 months. It's started squeeking when printing. Surprisingly, it doesn't do it every time I print; only occassionally. Also, like ALL HP printers, the rollers are starting to pull two sheets of paper when I try to print on anything exotic. I need to get in there with denatured alcohol and clean those rollers with qtips. My buddy did it on his Epson and it worked great. Highly recommended if you inherit an HP printer.

Definitely go to the HP site and get the latest drivers. ...

Type in 2250 and click the little arrows.

The 2250 PCL driver can do amazing things -- print 4 pages on one page; the PostScript driver can also print amazingly accurate Illustrator proofs.

The printer honestly is somewhat of a workhorse. I am definitely keeping this printer until it dies or I die (whichever comes first). My next printer however will be an Epson photo printer for printing photos. The 2250 certainly does a great job printing photos on HP paper. But it really was designed for printing Web pages and documents.

Recommendation: definitely print on good inkjet paper; don't just steal crummy copier paper from work! The 92 brightness Epson paper and the 108 brightness HP paper is beautiful. And come on, you're worth it!

I bought my 2250PS from Fry's back in January 2001 and its been a reliable old mule over the past 24 months. It's started squeeking when printing. Surprisingly, it doesn't do it every time I print; only occassionally. Also, like ALL HP printers, the rollers are starting to pull two sheets of paper when I try to print on anything exotic. I need to get in there with denatured alcohol and clean those rollers with qtips. My buddy did it on his Epson and it worked great. Highly recommended if you inherit an HP printer.

Definitely go to the HP site and get the latest drivers.

Type in 2250 and click the little arrows.

The 2250 PCL driver can do amazing things -- print 4 pages on one page; the PostScript driver can also print amazingly accurate Illustrator proofs.

The printer honestly is somewhat of a workhorse. I am definitely keeping this printer until it dies or I die (whichever comes first). My next printer however will be an Epson photo printer for printing photos. The 2250 certainly does a great job printing photos on HP paper. But it really was designed for printing Web pages and documents.

Recommendation: definitely print on good inkjet paper; don't just steal crummy copier paper from work! The 92 brightness Epson paper and the 108 brightness HP paper is beautiful. And come on, you're worth it!

I have owned many HP products and this is one of the best. The quality is excellent and the speed good. If you are looking for something more than a personal deskjet printer and need or are considering one that can be networked, this is it. The only detraction for me was the paper sizes. It's limited to legal and I was hoping to do small posters.

I have had this printer for less than a year and it is already dying on me. The paper jams about 75% of the time and it pulls more than one sheet of paper almost all the time. I do not recommend this printer to anyone. I will be replacing mine very soon.

This printer is great - cheap, fast, small and produces great text. The toner cartridges are pricey, but fine.

However, mine is jaming all the time. It feeds two or three pages together alot. Sometimes, it is jaming every page! Very frustrating. Some paper brands seem to work better, but I am not sure which. I use 20lb paper, maybe 24 works better, I don't know. It drives me nuts! Sometimes I have to put in one page at a time just to keep it from jaming. Sure, it is pretty easy to clear a jam, but if I dread printing a 15 page document because it is going to jam like to times. One thing that helps is to keep the paper guides snug to the paper - cuts down own the jams, but they still happen alot. Maybe sticking with laser printer paper helps, but copier paper and multipurpose jam ALOT.

If not for the Jams, I would give this printer a four star rating (five if the toner was cheaper).

Anyone have any advice?

Excellent printer so far. Very good printer resolution. Can become a network printer. I had problem with HP for this type of feeding tray. It fed 2-3 papers at one time when the printer got older. Hopefully, lexmark printer will not have this problem. If anyone have problem with feeding paper, please let me know.

I purchased this monitor from Comp-USA. It failed after 10 months. I took a month to straighten out the paperwork, Comp-USA had the wrong serial number on my invoice. The Refurbished unit arrived and died after 4 months. Not a very good track record for Sony! They would not replace this unit. They said my experiance was atypical. Probably not, based on other reviews I've seen.

The HMD-A200 was the first name brand monitor we purchased after owning an "off brand" 15" for several years with no problems. The Sony gave out 1 month and 24 days after the warranty ran out. The Sony was certainly not inexpensive, much more so in fact than many of the other brands. It did look great--right up till the screen went black. Your money is best spent on another product.

I must have spent two weeks straight researching monitors on the internet, reading reviews and looking over their specs. Then, I'd go to Best Buy, Circuit City, and other places to actually see the quality of the picture. This one really caught my eye. Besides being a great looking monitor, it has a beautiful picture and a good on-screen menu. The best part about it, for me anyway, is that it's a Sony. I've always had excellent quality from all their products, and there isn't a brand name that I trust more.
If you've been spending a number of days looking over a bunch of monitors like I did, you'll notice that you may never find one that has all good reviews. There are always people who think something else is better, but so far, I have yet to find one that exceeds this. Well, I hope this helps you in trying to find the "perfect monitor." Best of luck!