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HP PSC 1210 Multifunction

HP PSC 1210 Multifunction

List Price: $89.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Does everything it promises!
Review: hp PSC-1210

Pro's,
1. Small & good looking.
2. Printer & copier work well.
3. Uses same ink as many other hp printers, so finding correct one at local store is easy.
4. Lots of controls on the panel.
5. Works fine without color ink cartridge (in something hp calls "reserve mode") for B&W prints & copies.
6. Black ink is reasonably priced for occasional users.

Con's,
1. Ink pricing is a rip off, but so is the case with Lexmark, Epson, etc.
2. Paper tray holds very few sheets.

3. Build quality is below average (for example Epson C84 is much better).
4. Even after paying high price, hp black #56 ink isn't really black. Epson C84 with durabrite ink has much better & blacker prints.
5. Prints slowly.
6. Uses a smart chip on ink tanks, so generic ink can't be used.

I paid a low price for a refurbished one and plan to use it as an occasional copier. If you need a copier & printer go for 1210. If only a printer is needed go for Epson C84 or Canon i450 or Samsung ML-1710 laser.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: 100% satisfied
Review: It is hard to believe that this printer is about $100. I have been using the printer for a few months now.

Pros:
-----
1. Photo-printer, scanner, color and B & W copier -- all in one.
2. Amazing performance for all of the above functions.
3. Photo printing quality amazing (on HP photo-paper).
4. More silent than my previous Lexmark Z52 printer.
5. Never had a paper jam even once (so far).
6. Approx $100!!! This is worth $300 of money spent on Lexmark!
7. Unlike Lexmark, cartridges do not go bad every now and then.

Cons:
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Ink is costly, but then so is for every printer.

No option to choose greyscale printout. I do 'not' see this as a problem because I have almost always dried up color ink than using it completely (with Lexmark).

Software is a resource hog. Computer takes longer to start. In the Task-Manager (Windows 2000), I see several HP executables and services running all the time. I see this as the one and only weakness in this printer.

Photo-quality:
--------------
Use HP photo-paper only. (No I am do not work for HP.) I tried photo-paper from Staples. Black looks real black only on HP photo-paper. This HP paper is costly by the way (~ $1 per Letter sheet)!

On ordinary paper too, photo looks better than many other printers.

(I tried several printers on display. Canon photo-quality is good but smears extra ink on the paper. Agreed that the printers on display are often abused (!), but still this is what your printer will most likely do! Confirmed from reviews on Canon i560 etc.)

Caution:
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1. Follow all the steps of the installation process as listed on the included chart. They are all important as mentioned! Printer will not work otherwise. Following these steps by itself was easy and printer was up and running in 10 minutes.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Why settle for just a printer?
Review: I don't usually comment on products with this many reviews, but this little all-in-one is so good that I'll risk redundancy. You see, I've been using my PSC 1210 fairly heavily for well over a year, and I just replaced the black ink cartridge for the first time yesterday!

On to the product details. The 1210 is a small and stylish Printer-Scanner-Copier; female friends have called it "cute" more than once. Although not technically a part of HP's PhotoSmart line, the flatbed scanner and color printing are good enough for most projects to call them "photo quality". It's also an excellent light duty copier, perfect for quick duplication of receipts and other odds and ends. As for compatibility, I've used mine with XP, OS X, and Red Hat, on USB 1.1 and USB 2, all without the slightest difficulty (although networking it was a bit of a chore). And did I mention ink economy?

No product is perfect, but my complaints are relatively few. The unit makes a scary-sounding "grinding click" when feeding paper, the bundled software is feature light (no grayscale printing option, no dry time adjustment, etc.), and the USB cable was not included. But all things considered, this reliable little multifunction machine is a great value and should be a perfect fit for most home users. Four and one-half stars, happily rounded up.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Value is the name of the game here
Review: For a little more than $100, you definitely get more than you pay for with the HP PSC 1210. The copying, printing and scanning functions are all serviceable, and that alone should be worth the purchase price. If you plan on using this product for personal use or a home office that doesn't require too much printing, this printer is a quantum leap from the ho-hum world of desk jets.

However, you do get what you pay for in some respects. The HP 1210 prints with about average clarity and acceptable (though hardly lightening) speed. The printer is also subject to periodic paper jams. The scanning function and affiliated software work realy well in terms of quality, but it's slow and not always the most user-friendly. The copier function is limited in that the copier is extremely slow and there is little room surrounding the copying area, making copying out of a hardbound book, for example, very difficult.

So, if you don't have a lot of money and you're looking for a multifunction printer, this is a great way to get in the game. It will enable you to do a lot of things, but you'll probably still have some of those hair-pulling "stupid printer" moments. If you're willing to spend a little more, or you're going to ask for a lot from your printer, it's probably worth your while to spend a little more on something better.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Excellent printer, good copier, fair scanner
Review: Okay, so this is HP's newest all-in-one.
As expected of these All-in-one's not all features are equally good, so I'll review each of them separately.

Printer: A+
This is real Photo-printer. I printed 3 4"x6" photos captured by my digital camera at 1600x1200 resolution, on the FREE sample Premium Plus Photo Glossy provided. Result? Absolute TOP notch. There's simply no way anyone can tell that the photos were not developed at a Kodak studio.

Copier: A-
You can use the copier without having to turn on your computer. I copied a color photo (of a face) in black and white mode, and it looked pretty decent. Document copy was excellent. Copying great photos (sunset) is not so good because of the scanner... see next item.

Scanner: B-
I tried scanning a stunning sunset photo taken from my SLR film camera. The result was disappointing. There are noticeable scan lines in the scanned image. It looked bad when "Set as desktop background". Didnt even try printing it. Text scanning was ok though...

Package: A-
Contents include: Printer, Power-cord, Free Glossy paper samples, good imaging software. All you need after getting your printer is a USB cable (why can't they bundle it??). I picked up a $7 USB2 6ft cable at local [store].

Overall Verdict: A
For the price, it beats HP's own photo printers hands down. (and they don't even copy/scan). So if you need a photo printer, with a decent copier and ok scanner, PSC1210 is the way to go. Not to mention that its the smallest All-in-one available. However, if you're looking to scan top-notch images to burn on a CD, invest in a standalone scanner. My friend has a epson perfection which scanned the sunset shot just fine.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Amazing price for amazing quality...
Review: After purchasing a lexmark all-in-one unit about a year ago, I got very skeptical that all-in-one printers could be of comparable quality to dedicated printers. HP has blown me away with the 1210. This unit is superb at printing quality quickly, has an excellent scanner that can scan at multiple resolutions. I tried scanning in a photo at 600 dpi and was very pleased with the sharpness and color accuracy. The last feature, and definitely not the least of them, is the copying feature. I can copy documents in black & white or in color very quickly, and it doesn't even involve the computer. I just hit copy on the printer, and instantly, the document is scanned and a copy is printed. On top of all this quality, this unit is extremely compact, and just looking at it, you might not realize that there's a scanner/copier in that machine capable of scanning quality scans of full size documents.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: No Greyscale Printing Option
Review: Prints nice BUT - most printers give you the option to print in greyscale to save the expensive color ink cartridge. I do this all the time when I want a temporary hardcopy of info. from a web site. The HP 1210 printer driver does not include this option. I contacted HP customer service and they confirmed. They gave me a hokey method of physically removing the color cartridge and changing the "configuration". I think this is HP's Marketing departments efforts to increase color cartridge sales. If you need a greyscale print option, DON'T buy this printer.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Very poor quality
Review: This gotta be one of the worst printers I've ever bought. I got this model because I wanted something small. I'd of prefered a laser model, but for this price, I figured I couldn't of asked too much. But the Malaysian-made 1210 is a joke. The ink cartridge leaked after less than a week. I took it back and got a new one, which started making tons of noise right after the 30 day exchange policy expired. And the paper feed tends to jam more often than other printers I'd had. Totally disappointed. Will never buy an HP again.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Poor scanning, paper feed, and software
Review: I, too, was lured by the low price of this item at Costco; however, sometimes you don't even get what you pay for. The paper feed only seems to work with one sheet; more than that and it grabs multiple at once. The scanning only works for single pieces of paper; anything at all larger that requires the lid not to be pefectly closed and you might as well take a digital photo instead. And don't get me started on the software; I'm a professional developer for a major software company, and it still took me several hours with low-level diagnostic tools to get it all installed correctly and working. All in all, a pretty miserable experience.

On the bright side, the printouts come across nicely, so I haven't quite thrown it into the trash yet.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Useless software
Review: The software provided with the PSC1210 does not work on Window 2000 and on Windows 98. The box says that both these operating systems are supported. Even after trying the remedial measures on HP support site, the software does not work properly. Do not buy this unless you want to waste hours struggling with the installation of software and you will get no good result.

You can use the printer (without any advanced options) and stand-alone copier function without the software also. But scanning... and converting to PDF cannot be done without correctly installed software.


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