The all-in-one HP Photosmart C6380 printer
The new HP Photosmart C6380 has set a new standard in price, convenience and quality.
It lists for $246 but can be found online for as little as $159, making it one of the best priced all-in-one copier, photo printer, scanner and printer I’ve yet to try. It prints 4 x 6 photos in lab quality in as little as 18 seconds and for spits out crisp near laser-like quality black print at up to 33 pages a minute in draft mode. Color mode is almost as fast, at 31 ppm.
But what has won me is the ease by which it can be wirelessly networked to a home Wi-Fi system. I hooked it up yesterday and, by simply loading the software, had two desktops and two notebook computers connected to it in no time. I can print from any computer anywhere in my house or even on the back deck, using my Wi-Fi network.
The printer, on a desk in my home office, takes up a small footprint and has just one wire coming but the back - the AC cord.
The ability to easily share it among all the computers in my house - Windows and Macs - is a huge plus for me.
Here’s a video preview I did:
Like other recent HP models, it uses HP’s proprietary Vivera ink, which dries quickly, is virtually smudge-proof and delivers very realistic photo colors. HP claims its Vivera ink reduces print head clogging because it is exceptionally pure. And it touts that purity, along with special “protectants” mixed in, for helping photos, documents and graphics resist fading “for decades.”
I sample printed e-mail, a couple of Word documents and several 4 x 6 photos from all of my computers and it performed flawlessly. The 4 x 6 photos were of better quality than an older model Canon mini260 standalone printer I’ve been using for the past couple of years.
You can also print directly from memory cards or your camera. On the front of the printer are a series of slots for all of the major storage media used by digital cameras - Memory Stick, Multimedia Cards (MMC) Secure Digital (SD) SD Mini and CompactFlash (CF). There’s also a USB port for digital cameras that use the PictBridge feature.
The printer even has its own red-eye reduction button.
The printer comes with the five individual ink cartridges, which HP says last about 300 pages each. New cartridges cost $9.99. Since some of the colored inks last longer than the black, HP bundles a little widget that displays on your computer menu bar you how much life you have in the various inks.
But, if you need five of them, that’s $50.
It’s selling replacement ink, of course. This is how printer manufacturers make their real money. But from what I’ve seen so far with the HP Photosmart C6380, I’m thinking the quality of the printer will lessen the sting of the ink replacement.
