Why I Purchased a Color Printer...
Back in the fall of 1996 when I replaced my Panasonic dot matrix with an HP LaserJet 6P, I wondered how I ever did without it. The LaserJet gave me the speed and power to quickly print quality black & white documents for both work and school. At the time, I found Lasers to have a higher printing quality.
So in 1999, with color printers at a higher level of quality, I finally decided it was time to buy one, taking the first steps toward setting up my own digital darkroom, allowing me to practice photography without the prohibitive costs of film and processing.
I looked at a number of different printers, and ended up buying the P1100 because of a special rebate offer made by HP at the time, which gave me $100 US back for buying the printer with an HP Photosmart digital camera.
Installation and Setup...
The P1100 is easy to set up, so long as you carefully follow the provided instructions. The printer supports both USB and Parallel Port connections and the software for it is easy to install. HP gives you an installation CD with the drivers and software you’ll need to get going.
Overall, the HP software is good for people starting out, but more advanced users may wish to use Adobe PhotoDeluxe or PhotoShop, Corel PhotoPaint, Draw or KPT Vector Effects for PhotoShop, Broderbund’s Print Shop Deluxe, or MGI Software’s PhotoSuite.
Overall Print Quality...
The print quality, or resolution, is amazing, at 600 dpi for the black ink cartridge (dpi = dots per inch - that is, the number of ink droplets put onto each inch of the paper), and up to 2400 by 1200 dpi in color.
The imaging technology used for both black and white printing and color printing is known as RET technology, allowing for a wonderfully smooth, vibrant and fast printing job to be processed by the P1100 and other similar HP printers.
I do all my final copy marketing and business management reports off of the P1100, as the machine gives me professional looking results, helping me create wonderful looking, visionary strategic plans that have really helped to set me apart from the crowd at college. And the printer’’s ability to print photos is amazing! I love being able to whip off 4 by 6 photos instantly from my Digital Camera.
The P1100 can use a variety of photo printing paper, but you get the best results if you use paper that is manufactured by HP, however you can also use a number of different types of specialized paper, from producers such as AVERY Paper Products.
Black and Color Cartridges...
The P1100 uses two cartridges, a Black ink cartridge and a Color cartridge. The black cartridges are nice and cheap, I can get a 42ml cartridge for $38.99 Canadian, but the color cartridges are more expensive. They come in two sizes, 19ml which runs you at about $50 Canadian, or the larger 42ml cartridge, which is a better deal as it has more ink, at about $85 Canadian. Overall, these large capacity ink cartridges go a long way. I just wish they were cheaper!
Paper Trays...
The P1100 has two trays, the first being for your 80-100 pages of your standard 8 1/2 by 11 or 8 1/2 by 14 sheets, as well as envelopes and other paper types. The second tray that the P1100 comes with is a specialized tray for 4 by 6 photo paper. The only difficulty about this tray is in order to use it you have to disengage the normal paper tray below it by sliding it right out, otherwise you’ll have the whole printer jam up when it tries to feed paper.
The P1100 also comes with a device known as a duplexer. What this does is allow users to easily print anything onto paper, DOUBLE-SIDED! This is a wonderful feature that I’’’’ve had no problems with, and it’s wonderful to use when printing off reports, webpages or anything else quickly, without wasting any pages. If only my LaserJet printed double-sided as easily as the PhotoSmart does. It’s a dream come true!
Speed...
The printer comes with a 4MB buffer, which is fixed and can’’t be upgraded as you can with a laser printer. But nevertheless, the P1100 is still amazingly fast, printing approximately 12 ppm (pages per minute) in black & white; and 10 ppm in color.
Digital Camera Compatibility...
The big sell for me in buying the HP P1100 Photosmart Color Printer, along with the HP C200 Digital Camera was the simple fact that the P1100 is totally compatible with a wide range of Digital Camera Card formats, including Type 1 and Type 2 Compact Flash cards. The P1100 actually has two slots on the side of the printer to which you can easily slide the cards into. Once they are in, you can print them directly from the card or download them to your computer.
The printer also has HP JetSend Technology, allowing you to send via an ’’infra-red’’ type technology, print jobs directly from laptop computers or other devices to the printer. Personally, I have never used this technology, although it is on both my LaserJet and my Photosmart printer. But, it apparently works very well.
Accessories, Durability and Build...
The HP Photosmart P1100’’s accessories are fairly basic, but essential for the use of the overall printer. Inside the box you get the printer itself (obviously), the duplex module for double sided printing, a power cord, one black and one color cartridge, a users guide and easy to read setup poster, as well as a photo paper starter pack with coupons for purchasing other kinds of paper (and many packs of photo paper that you buy will come with special deals for getting free sample paper packs in the future). The only thing the HP Photosmart P1100 doesn’’t come with is either a USB or Parallel cable.
The buttons on the unit are also very nicely labeled in color, so they are easy to remember for easy access. The top of the printer easily opens up for easy access to the cartridges themselves, which just pop out when you need to replace them. And you can also press a button that will clean the cartridges automatically, making them fresh, new and ready to use after a lot of use.
Overall, the HP Photosmart P110 is very durable. The look of the printer is also very ’’smart, ’’ smooth and streamlined, giving the product an almost futuristic, out of this world appeal. The unit is also very light weight, making it easy to access and move if neccessary.
Final Thoughts, Pricing and Warranty Information...
For me as a student who is into digital photography, the bundled rebate offer of the P1100 printer and the C200 digital camera helped me take the dive into the wonderful world of digital photography. The prices of all Photosmart models has also been dropping steadily over the last few years (even though the cartridge costs have not!).
The P1100 comes with a basic one year parts and labor warranty, along with a 90 day basic warranty on the software and ink cartridges that come with the unit. HP also updates its website regularly with newer drivers and software upgrades, and the installation CD also puts a direct link to the HP photo printing software website, where users can interact with other users whenever they want.
In 2001, I plan to purchase the HP ScanJet 6350C Scanner, the HP PhotoSmart S20 negative scanner, as well as a CD-Burner Disk Drive. And then, my digital darkroom will be complete, allowing me to work with both old and new sources of photographic supplies to create some very cool artwork, from the comfort of my own home! So keep your eye on digital technology, it’s on the way and it’s definitely worth getting into!
Grade: A+