Rating: 
Summary: Another Economical, Quality Printer From HP
Review: A number of factors convinced me to get this printer: 1) I'm an HP printer loyalist, and I wanted to upgrade my reliable HP 842C, which still works great!; 2) The 3820 had a couple of features I found useful (a print-cancel button and ink cartridge ink-level indicators); 3) The 3820 was rated a "Best Buy" by Consumer Reports, and 4) last, but not least, the price.The printer installed VERY easily. (It practically installed itself. About the most work I had to do was connect the cables!) The print quality is great! (For those who are having print-quality problems, did you calibrate your printer via the Printer Assistant software?) Speaking of the Printer Assistant software, that is VERY useful and informative! OK, the unit IS on the noisy side when going into print mode, but then so was my 842C. All that noisiness just seems to go with the territory with HP printers. All in all, if you're looking for a quality printer at a VERY economical price (and you don't mind a little noisiness), you can't go wrong with the 3820! (If it were a little quieter, I would have given it five stars.)
Rating: 
Summary: NOT WORTH THE AGGRAVATION...
Review: I purchased this printer in January 2003 when it was on sale at BEST BUY after seeing that Consumer Report gave it a good "best buy" rating in their February 2003 issue. While it worked good for about 3 months, it died one week after the 90 day warranty expired (what a surprise). After contacting HP Service Center they replaced the original unit with another HP 3820 on exchange. This second unit worked fine until last week when it did what everyone elses has done - indicated a paper jam that wasn't there, and a mechanical error with the cartridge cradle as the cradle itself seemed to freeze on the right side. This time HP offered nothing by way of their producing a pretty unreliable and flimsy unit overall as a remedy after we contacted them. When it worked, it did so pretty nicely (although it was a bit noisy and clunky) which validates the one star I gave it. Last week we replaced it with a Canon i560 from Amazon which so far has been way more quiet, prints just as nicely, and offers a much better warranty. Plus, if you expect on purchasing this HP unit and buying replacement cartridges in the future (which you obviously will) you better hope that President Bush appropraites some additional tax cuts ASAP to help offset their expense...They are EXPENSIVE!!!
Rating: 
Summary: HP makes printers easy to use.
Review: I have owned this printer for over a year and am quite pleased with it's performance. Although I never claim to be a computer guru it seems to me that this printer easily sets up and prints beautiful photo quality pictures also. It has two types of inputs to allow either a USB connection or serial bus connection to a computer. I have in fact used both connections for two different computers connected to it at once with no problems at all. This is much easier to use than the Sharp Multifunction Interface piece of crud I had before.
Rating:
Summary: If its free okay but do not buy!
Review: I got this printer with the purchase of an Apple Ibook. It worked great for about 6 months. Since then I have had nothing but jams, grindings noises, and finially failure. I am very disapointed with this HP product. I buy only Apple computers and have never had an issue with an HP printer until this one. I have had Epson and Canon printers that have not held up with my macs. It was cheap so I got some use out of it but would not advise anyone to buy it.
Rating:
Summary: Great performance at a great price
Review: I rather like this printer.
It gives great performance at a great price.
Unfortunately it does have a weak point (ie. the broken cog problem) but this can easily be solved using a simple modification and repair.
see http://www.fixmybrokenprinter.com for details.
Rating:
Summary: THIS PRINTER WILL FAIL
Review: Pros: BEFORE IT FAILS, the 3820 provides decent quality printing for a reasonable price. The software is simple and effective: the drivers are simple and fast and the HP Printer Assistant (help system and toolbox) is quite good. Cons: THIS PRINTER WILL FAIL. DO NOT PURCHASE IT. My 3820 failed after about 6 months of light use - roughly 500 prints, mostly black text, near the end of the first black cartridge, and shortly after the brief 3 month warranty had expired. This is apparently a very common problem with the 3820: a small cog in the self-cleaning mechanism fails, causing the printer to stop printing altogether - it makes a lot of noise, then slowly feeds paper through, but the print head doesn't move. This is actually common enough that there is a website dedicated to it (http://fixmybrokenprinter.co.uk/), run by a guy in the UK who specializes in remanufacturing the cog (which is not practical on such a cheap machine). Read the reviews on CNET to see many other users who have had the same problem I just described. The bottom line is that if this failure occurs, you have to just buy a new printer. If you've already purchased ink cartridges, you will be stuck with them because new HP printers do not accept the cartridges used in the 3820. I bought the 3820 largely because Consumer Reports rated the 3820 a "Best Buy" in 2003 (and again the May 2004 issue). Given this problem, however, it seems that the 3820 is anything but a smart buy.
Rating: 
Summary: I hope I can return the ink cartridges ;-)
Review: I got this printer free w/ rebate with my computer package purchase in May 2003. It worked very well from day one. I used
cheapy Canon printers, and a HP photosmart before this one, and they were fine. The HP photosmart 1000 was built like a tank ( Compared to this one)but had a lot of problems with software running on a Window 98se. The 3820 was very noisy but worked great. (Notice the word- workED ) Today, after I stocked up on ink cartridges last week, there was a paper jam ( I don't remember the last time it had a paper jam, if ever) I checked the back and discovered the door was attached to the unit with 4 flimsy brittle plastic levers and 3 of them had broken off. The door would not stay in place, therefore causing paper to jam. I am disapointed that HP could not design and engineered this to last longer, even for a cheap unit like this one. The 3820 was working flawlessly and disabled by 4 flimsy little knobs that could have been made a little thicker. MAYBE they indeed designed it this way!!! I am thinking maybe I've been using HP too long, I am going to check out some Canon printers later today.
Rating:
Summary: I'm glad with this printer
Review: I got the HP 3820 some weeks ago and I'm satisfied with it, fast printing, a pretty good quality, well, if you're thinking to prints 70% photos and 30% text, this is not your printer, get a HP Photosmart. At this moment, I rate this item with 5 stars , but...
yeah, has a litte of crack sounds (but I don't think it is too important), wait about 20 seconds before start to print, not too much ink, but I'm think it is enough. Finally, how I said, I'm glad with it to print documents with a good quality and somes photos.
I choosed this printer and not the other options that I have:Epson C62, and any Canon model... by these reasons: 4 STARS.
Rating:
Summary: JUNK
Review: I wish I had read these reviews before purchasing this printer. It worked for the first 6 months, and since then it has been 1 issue after another!!! Adding insult to injury, HP has been of NO assistance either. My final issue was the "cogs". If this is such a common problem why doesn't HP address it? On well, this product married with the terrible customer service has left me frustrated, and less that 1 year later, in search of a new printer.
Rating:
Summary: 3820 Buged
Review: After a short time using my 3820 is refused to print with the Msg. that the black ink cartridge was empty. I went out and purchased a new HP brand cartridge and installed it...it continued to give me the same Msg. so I took the new cartridge back and exchanged it for another new one...same thing..refused to print with the message that the cartridge was no good. I'm about to throw it out...any comments or suggestions as to what I might due?
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