BCNImage Printers

I’m disappointed in this printer because it has several flaws. First, you have to wait for it to go through all sorts of gyrations before it prints when it’s been sitting for a while. Then after it prints it does the same thing again right after it prints. It moves the print head back and forth, it does some paper feeds and other such things. It’s huge amount of wear and tear that doesn’t have to happen. I’ve owned a lot of HP printers and none of them did this wasteful behavior. I don’t expect this printer to last nearly as long a previous HP printers even though it’s an “office” printer that should be designed for higher wear and tear.

On previous HP printers it was easy to print normal paper and envelopes without having to change things. To print an envelope on this printer you have go through and setup for an envelope when you want to print one. Another waste of time.

Today it ran out of black ink. We have only had this printer a few weeks and have not done that much printing. Our old HP 5100 consumer level printer lasted much longer than this per cartridge. Come on! This is suppose to be a office printer that has big cartridges that last a long time. I guess it’s just smoke and mirrors from HP.

My feeling is that HP has gone downhill a lot from what they used to be. We have owned a lot of HP printers and this printer falls way short of the old HP printer quality.
Rating: 2 / 5

Had it about 6 months now and went through several sets of ink and just under 400 pages printed.

Overall:

I like the printer and it does exactly what I bought it for. I actually like that it does NOT have all of the extra multifunction junk I don’t need. Print quality is great; good contrast, no colors seem to be over saturated, and nice detail. I actually prefer the matte finish of an ink jet over the glossy finish of a laser for what I wanted to do. I disagree with other reviews about it being slow or noisy. I leave it on all the time but it goes to ’sleep’ automatically; waking it up and printing is very quick. However if you shut it down all the way then yes it takes a minute or two for it to boot up. Noise is a mater of perspective and preference; my first printer was dot matrix with tractor feed; that’s a loud printer! This printer doesn’t bother me; it’s quiet enough.

Pros:

Very happy with the print quality. I bought it mostly to print out card stock models which have detailed textures, lots of color, and I wanted good quality at a cheap price… this printer delivers just that.

Ink cost per cart is actually pretty low compared to most. Just buy the larger sized ones if you do moderate to heavy printing because you’re going to blow through them. Honestly though if you’re going to be printing a lot just go buy a color laser; the price per page is lower in the long run. I know HP claims this thing is cheaper to print with than a color laser but it’s all a numbers game… it’s really not when you come down to the reality of printing. I wanted an inkjet because most color lasers print too dark, magenta is over saturated, and I don’t like the glossy finish for my cardstock models. If those things don’t matter to you then color laser really is the way to go.

Handles heavy cardstock (110 lb) with NO issues. Automatically feeds it it and will even do the auto duplex with the heavy cardstock. This was a big deal for me and it does exactly what I need it to.

Auto duplex is neat. I rarely use it but when I do I really like it. Manual duplex is annoying!

Has four separate ink carts. I really like this because you only need to replace the color cart runs out. With ink carts that have all colors combined you have to throw out the whole thing when only one color is gone.

Wireless is nice; I didn’t really care at first but I ended up having to use it because the software sucked so bad. I just couldn’t get it to work reliably over the USB cable (maybe that’s why they don’t supply one!) It also has a regular RJ45 jack for an ethernet connection to.

Print head is separate. This is a huge deal for longevity. That’s usually the first thing to kill your consumer level ink jets. The print head gets clogged up or burnt out, can’t be easily cleaned, typically is integrated (not removable), and when it gets this way the whole printer is junk. With this one the print head can be removed and replaced; one of the most underrated features of this printer that should be pointed out every time. Read all of the other reviews on other inkjets that people loved for 6 months to a year, then the print head got clogged or burnt up beyond repair, and now the printer is garbage.

Cons:

Setup was a 4+ hour process and I’m not a novice when it comes to computers (software or hardware) or even printers. I’ve installed and operated Xerox plotters with their own servers and software, business class multifunction centers, lasers, ink jets, dot matrix, of all different manufacturers over the last 15 years…. NONE of them have been as annoying to setup the software for as this printer. Hands down, bar none, the most annoying and buggy software I’ve ever delt with for a printer. (second place would be the Xerox XES 54″ plotter) The install software would just sit there for 30 minutes at a time doing nothing and then fail! Instructions CLEARLY said do NOT plug it in until asked… sometimes it would never ask me and then fail to install. Other times it would ask me to plug it in then fail to recognize the device and fail installing. I ended up just setting it up for wireless (which was it’s own nightmare because the same crappy software needs to run to do this) and doing it that way when I would have preferred the higher speed USB connection. That said now it’s up and running with no problems since so after a frustrating night it’s been solid ever since. So this is what I mean by sacrificing time for money; it’s cheap but you spend a lot of time setting up the thing.

It’s an ink vampire to say the least. The ink carts claim you can get 300 pages under ‘normal’ printing. Now I’ll be first to admit that I’m doing full page color prints (read: not ‘normal’ printing) but I’m only getting about 80 pages per cart. The quality is great but it really soaks the ink to make that quality. Thankfully there is a ‘draft’ mode if you don’t care about quality and it spits out jobs VERY fast using far less ink. So far I see no difference in quality or ink consumption between normal and high quality.
Rating: 4 / 5

We have 2 laptops, one on each level of our home. The HP 4780 wireless printer allows us to print without any of those extra cables. Works great. Its placed in on a desk, laptop can be used from couch or bedroom. We don’t print alot but when we do, the hp 4780 does its job.

Price was cheaper than Best Buy or Staples, no sales tax, reasonable shipping (which still made the item les than the big box stores.
Rating: 5 / 5