I remember myself jumping on my bed as the printer was being setup by some weird looking computer guy screaming over - ’Look ma, we have a printer!’. This was six years back - I no longer feel the same way about the printer although however, I do still jump on my bed occasionally (oh puh-leeze, dont you dare take this seriously!)
My first (and current) printer - HP DeskJet 670C. My first printout - some stupid poster with a black background and multi-colored patterns with bold lettering - ’Welcome to my room’. I think every kid loves to have a ’something’ to welcome people to their room even if they disgust interventions in their barbie-filled lives (No - I detested Barbie by this age, but its a good example regardless).
So anyway, the printer was ’Oh ma - so cool’. I printed out numerous original works - more multi colored black backgrounded posters - and showed off around the house. I remember printing out the tiger wallpaper you get with Microsoft Plus! and showing it to my grandmother - she was all ooh’s and aah’s which I now suspect were just to humor me.
It was a good experience while it lasted. I remember typing down entire homeworks and printing them out (that time it took me ages to type - but still!) to file them in hope for later refrencing (which I never did). The printer gave me nice comforting printouts. My short stories (inspired by Sweet Valley’s) were a rage among my friends. I remember taking out numerous copies of 12-page long stories (I actually started a series - 4 stories in all!) and distributing them among my pals.
I was so fascinated by the whole idea of a printer I actually wanted to print out a school newspaper - I dropped out when I realized what a hell load of crap I’d be in if my humorous anti-teachers newspaper actually fell into the hands of one of the faculty.
Anyway so HP was my best buddy in those days. Keeping my childish fantasies on Cloud 9. Soon I realized printing ’best quality’ printouts was diminishing the catridge fast - and how! The new catridge also cost a fortune in those days. So I shifted to ’Econofast’ printing which gave me printouts with degraded quality - still ok for a 10 year old.
Today as I look back to those days it makes me laugh. How I actually made utility by printing out humorous original birthday cards for my friends and they interpreted it as saving money. Today, the printer just sits pretty next to my monitor printing either recipies for my mum once in a month or printing out my poetry once a blue moon.
So fine - its okay for a person with limited usability - thats me. But if you’re planning to get a printer for loads of work - this is not it for you. My friend got her magazine quality fashion printouts from my printer. Four of them and my printer was out of ink - that hurt!
Still DeskJet 670C remains to be the most popular printer among limited-utility home computers. Its got problems with alignment of paper. It leads to a lot of paper jams. You have to play with the complexities of keeping the paper for 10 mins before you hit ’print’ and still, you get a diagonal-printed printout. If you load two sheets together - it takes both of them and prints halfways on both. Don’t ask me how I tolerate all this - I just do!
On the other hand, if you’re lucky enough to get the paper loaded in fine - you do have satisfactory printouts. So the bottom line, if you don’t have a fancy for funky multi-colored posters and if you’re okay with poetic works lying around in black and white - go ahead, buy this without hesitation!