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Rating: 
Summary: This can put color printing on a network inexpensively
Review: *Note: This review is from pcworld.com*
Pros: The Business Inkjet 1100 series printers are intended for high-capacity use--as ink jets go--and for easy attachment to your office network. If you want to connect the printer to your network right out of the box, the 1100dtn is a much better value: It costs just $299, and you get a second input tray that boosts total capacity to 400 sheets. Both models sport an internal duplexer for two-sided printing. Another feature that qualifies the 1100d as a business printer is its oversize ink tanks: Each $34 tank yields approximately 1750 pages (according to the vendor), making the per-page expense less than 2 cents per page for black text. In my print samples, text looked solidly black and sharp overall, but slightly blobby on curves; coated ink jet paper didn't improve text quality significantly. The 1100d prints gray-scale photos surprisingly well, with good detail and attractive textures; color photos on glossy paper looked good but captured less detail than we'd like. The 1100d printed color graphics very quickly, tying the speedy Epson C84 as the second-fastest ink jet I've tested. For a business printer, around $199 (and $299 for the networked model) is an attractive price. Hewlett-Packard sells other business-oriented ink jet printers that print faster and, in some cases, take wide-format paper--but a network-ready ink jet printer with automatic duplexing costs at least $1099. Similarly equipped color laser printers start at about $1000 these days. Cons: If your office laser printer churned out text at 4.3 pages per minute, you'd hear lots of griping. But that's the tested speed of the 1100d over a USB 2.0 connection, and it shouldn't be any faster on ethernet (I didn't test it using this connection, however). HP ships the 1100d with half-size ink cartridges, so it may not be long before you have to spend $136 more for four full-size cartridges at $34 each. HP's mediocre documentation leaves it to the user to figure out the printer's features: I received a setup poster with illustrations but no text; a short, multilingual manual; and an on-screen guide that was thorough on maintenance and troubleshooting, but short on the printer's day-to-day usage. One minor annoyance: The tray cover, which is thinner than on previous HP models, felt flimsy and was difficult to close. The 1100d has a parallel port along with its USB 2.0 port and a slot for the optional network adapter. If you accept the option, HP's software installer puts a utility on your PC that automatically orders replacement ink cartridges from HP when your ink levels get low. The 1100d has one 150-sheet paper tray; the 1100dtn adds an extra 250-sheet paper tray. The 1100d is big--at 19 inches wide by 17 inches deep, it's the size of many laser printers--so it needs its own desk. Verdict: The 1100d makes an attractive and inexpensive alternative to color lasers, if you can live with its slower print speeds.
Rating: 
Summary: hp business inkjet 1100 disappointing
Review: Having read magazine and on-line reviews from a variety of sources on the 1100 and previously owning a HP 932c, I thought this was the printer for me. (I need good text and color graphics capabilities to create teaching materials for elementary and middle school students, as well as letters to parents, etc. Not necessarily professional quality, but it should be neat and clean.) I followed installation instructions exactly. There were no problems there. My disappointments are 1) This printer is noisier than my 932c. 2) The print quality for text is not the quality I expected, albeit it is relatively fast for this type of printer. (I have not tried color, graphics....nor will I if I can return the printer.) I printed in black: "fast normal" and "best." The results? A creaseline abt 1/8" along the left margin. Dash lines, faintly colored, abt 1/2" from the left margin. I then tried gray scale: "draft." The results were the same. After printing abt 15-20 pp, none of these problems resolved themselves. I suggest potential buyers see and hear this printer before buying. It's back to the drawing board for me. Wish the 932c hadn't been d/c.
Rating: 
Summary: Works nicely out of the box on MacOS X (Panther)
Review: I bought this to unit replace a dead Lexmark Z53. It looked larger and more solid than the dirt-cheap printers; I calculated that perhaps this one would also not eat expensive ink cartridges as fast as those do. It also has separate printheads and ink cartridges for each of the four colors, which can allegedly save some money. I'll be printing articles, resumes, letters, and maybe the rare book-length document, but not massive numbers of pages. Around this price range you can get either a really low-end laser printer or a higher-end inkjet. I was considering both options and finally decided I'd like to have something from the mid-to-upper end of the technology's available lineup rather than one from the bottom of the barrel. I am quite satisfied with the unit so far; but because I haven't printed thousands of pages yet, consider this review a bit preliminary. Setup is not very difficult, but if you've never set up this kind of hardware before, it might seem a bit dismaying. There are a lot of tape strips to remove, a somewhat unusual fold-out clamp to hold the printheads in place, and not-all-that-clearly-marked internal foam block to remove. The wordless poster that comes with the unit is adequate, although some of the drawings are not very clear, and the larger paper tray shown on the poster did not come with my version (the 1100d). It is available as a separate option, but I probably won't bother; you might want one if the standard 150-sheet tray sounds inadequate. If you've set up an inkjet before it should not be difficult. This printer seems to have an optical sensor it can use to calibrate itself -- you can watch as a little light illuminates the test page it is printing -- and it seems to have done a good job! I was pleasantly surprised. I did wind up reinserting the black printhead more firmly to try to correct some lightness and banding visible on the test page. It seems to have done the trick -- or maybe it is just "broken in" after a few pages -- and I'm quite satisfied with the print quality. Driver selection was automatic, and when I plugged in the USB cable and opened MacOS X 10.3's Printer Setup Utility, it had already chosen the driver. I never actually inserted the driver CD. That's actually more due to Apple than to HP, but I was impressed anyway. This inkjet is also unusual because it has a duplexing unit. It holds the page to dry for a moment, then pulls it back in, passes it through the duplexer to flip it, and and prints on the other side. There is a price to pay for this paper-handling, though. The effective top margin on the back of the page is Iarger than it is on the front (when I print the printer's PDF file brochure, the very top of the content on the back side of the page is cut off). The full user manual mentions that when printing for duplexing, you will want a minimum top margin of 0.46 inches. This is significantly bigger than the 0.12 inches the unit is capable of on the first side. It also looks like there may be a tendency to slightly misalign the vertical spacing of front and back. Keep this in mind if you intend to print double-sided brochures; the unit apparently has some basic physical limitations on what it can do with the second side that don't apply to the first side. It should be noted that this is not truly a photo printer: it is not "full bleed" (it can't print right to the edges of the paper). It does a reasonable job, though; I tried a 450 dpi, 3150x1970 pixel image, on HP bright white inkjet paper, and it looked OK; under a magnifier I can notice, up close, some very fine dithering artifacts here and there (distinct from JPEG-compression artifacts). I next tried the same image on Epson glossy photo paper. If you tell the print driver that you are printing on not just any photo paper, but specifically one of the seven specific types of HP photo papers, an extra print quality option appears: "Maximum DPI." I took a guess and said that my paper matched "HP premium plus photo paper, glossy." I chose "Maximum DPI." The result does look subtly different than the result on HP's bright white paper; the colors are more saturated, and the dithering used to reproduce fine variations in shading look more like smooth blends. It is difficult for me to tell how much of the improvement, if any, comes from the driver's "Maximum DPI" setting and how much comes from the different ink-absorbing properties of the photo paper. In any case, the output on photo paper looks very nice. I can't guarantee that a professional photographer making fine-art prints would be satisfied, but you will probably be satisfied. I also learned the hard way that on this unit, unlike the Lexmark Z53, the paper is flipped during printing: photo papers should go in the tray with the glossy side down! This is another detail mentioned in the user manual -- but note, this "manual" is not in the box; it is on the enclosed driver CD-ROM. I guess HP has decided that since people don't read manuals, they won't bother with one, and instead they include only the setup poster and very minimal "Getting Started Guide." I don't think it is too cynical to imagine that they don't include a printed user manual so that we'll be inclined to print it out ourselves, thus getting a head start using up some of that expensive HP ink.) Anyway, so far I'm quite satisfied. Unlike the dirt-cheap inkjets, or the weird-looking multi-function devices, this one seems reassuring: a larger footprint, a little more weight, and a more solid feel. I am taking off one star only for the somewhat slightly disappointing duplexing and documentation; if you're the type who doesn't read manuals anyway, and you don't need perfect double-sided printing with maximum print area on both sides, these details won't bother you.
Rating: 
Summary: Inkjet Printer of Choice for Low Cost Color Printing
Review: I currently have five of these printers (or the network, dual paper tray 1100dtn) in use, with another on order. This printer has been established as the color desktop printer of choice for the company that I work for, replacing the previous favorite HP 895, which is no longer available.
Desktop color inkjet printers are notoriously expensive to operate. Typically, the more the printer costs up front, the less expensive it is to operate the printer over the printer's lifetime. The HP 895 printer originally sold for around $300, and had a reasonably low operating cost, with color ink at half the cost of that for the HP 900 series printers. Given the less than $200 for this printer, and a lower operating cost than even the HP 895, this printer is a bargain.
The printer features high capacity separate ink cartridges for black (ships with a half capacity black), cyan, magenta, and yellow. Print heads are purchased separately from the ink cartridges for about $30 each, and will last for 2-3 ink cartridges (print heads are identical to those used for the large HP DesignJet plotters). Print quality is on par with that of the HP 900 series printers, producing great looking color prints on photo paper, and decent color prints on regular copy paper.
The printer features automatic duplexing, but that feature is not intended for high volume printing. Printing is very quick, but using the automatic duplexing introduces an approximately 30 second delay to allow the ink to dry before the printer outputs to the backside. It takes the printer up to one minute after being powered on before it is ready for use, which may make it less than ideal for occasional printing.
The 1100dtn version has dual paper trays (automatically uses second paper tray is the first is empty), network adapter, and built in print server. The printer can be controlled either by a server (network clients print to the server, and the server queues the jobs to the printer), or the print jobs can be sent directly to the 1100dtn over the network. Print jobs tend to complete much quicker when sent directly to the 1100dtn over the network, but are less controllable when printed in that manner. Cost of color printing rivals that of single pass color laser printers (considering total cost of ownership of each, the 1100d may be several hundred less expensive), and produces better looking color prints than a color laser (color output from a $9000 color copier with finisher is roughly equivalent). Text output is good, but not nearly as sharp as color laser output.
For moderate to heavy usage, keep an extra print head for each color on hand to avoid sudden print head failures.
Rating:
Summary: Unexpected disppointment
Review: I thought I finally found a printer that met my needs: auto duplex, independent ink cartridges, reasonably fast, low cost per page, and priced right. And it was made by HP, which I've always thought highly of (at least for printers). I eagerly opened the box and set up the printer (which took a little time but was easy enough). It didn't come with a cable, so I just used the parallel cable from my trusty HP 722C. I powered up the printer, installed the software, and... was quickly disappointed. Attempts to run the HP Toolbox consistently failed (after a long pause of nothing happening): "Toolbox for HP Printing System for Windows has encountered a problem and needs to close." The same thing happened at the end of every print job. A note to HP was responded to the next day: "the Toolbox won't work with a parallel cable on Windows XP" (but no mention of that anywhere in the docs or HP's web site). So, I went out and bought a USB cable. Again the same problem. This time a phone call got me a slightly different answer: "the Toolbox won't work on XP, period -- uninstall the toolbox" (easier said than done). That seemed to solve the problem, but I can't perform Toolbox functions such as monitor my ink level. So, I wasted some time and some money, and I don't have the full functionality I expected. HP needs to update the info on their web site. But at least the 1100d prints well, and the auto duplexing is nice (albeit not as speedy as I would like). And the colors of photos are off, but I've yet to dig into that.
Rating:
Summary: Unexpected disppointment
Review: I thought I finally found a printer that met my needs: auto duplex, independent ink cartridges, reasonably fast, low cost per page, and priced right. And it was made by HP, which I've always thought highly of (at least for printers). I eagerly opened the box and set up the printer (which took a little time but was easy enough). It didn't come with a cable, so I just used the parallel cable from my trusty HP 722C. I powered up the printer, installed the software, and... was quickly disappointed. Attempts to run the HP Toolbox consistently failed (after a long pause of nothing happening): "Toolbox for HP Printing System for Windows has encountered a problem and needs to close." The same thing happened at the end of every print job. A note to HP was responded to the next day: "the Toolbox won't work with a parallel cable on Windows XP" (but no mention of that anywhere in the docs or HP's web site). So, I went out and bought a USB cable. Again the same problem. This time a phone call got me a slightly different answer: "the Toolbox won't work on XP, period -- uninstall the toolbox" (easier said than done). That seemed to solve the problem, but I can't perform Toolbox functions such as monitor my ink level. So, I wasted some time and some money, and I don't have the full functionality I expected. HP needs to update the info on their web site. But at least the 1100d prints well, and the auto duplexing is nice (albeit not as speedy as I would like). And the colors of photos are off, but I've yet to dig into that.
Rating:
Summary: Publisher of Tech Manuals
Review: I was impressed by the features of this printer. I purchased it to print tech manuals, two sided pages.
very happy with the first 60 manuals or so. Setup was not that difficult and operation was simple.
After the baby cartridge supplied with the printer ran out of black ink, I let the printer sit for about two months, partly because I did not need it and partly to get the best online prices for a new cartridge (unavailable incidently in my small town)
After installing the new cartridge, nothing but trouble, in fact complete non-operation.
I suspect that the ink conduit from the Ink Cart to the Print head contains dried ink. Very poor designing. A problem that can't be corrected by just inserting new units.
Some sensor also shut down the printer operation with any cart. The services do not perform either; alignment or head cleaning.
It may be due to my negligence in not replacing the cart sooner. But they should expect a knucklehead to do so!
Rating:
Summary: I Love This Printer !!
Review: I'm a Division Director and purchased the HP Inkjet 1100 for my office. I'm required to produce correspondence such as business letters, letters to the general public, and interoffice memos. I've owned numerous printers, both laser and inkjet. This is my favorite. The question is "how do you plan to use the output from the printer?" If you want business quality text for letters/memos and office quality color for printing slides or articles from the web printed quickly in relation to other inkjets, this printer is superb. If your aim is to print highly detailed photographs, there are better alternatives. I love the two paper trays - a luxury to which I'm unaccustomed from other inkjet models. I store our organization's letterhead in one tray and plain paper in the other. You switch back and forth between the trays by clicking on "Properties" from the Print Menu that is revealed after clicking on "Print". The option of duplex printing (printing on both sides) is also standard on the printer using the same procedure referenced above. The printer comes with 4 separate high capacity print heads and 4 separate ink cartridges, one each for black, magenta, yellow, and cyan. This allows you to replace only what is needed. I saw the reference to the print heads below. They have a capacity life and are only replaced when worn out. From the web, I found that the black print head needs replacing after 16,000 pages and the other three (magenta, yellow, cyan) after 24,000 pages. You'll go through a lot ink cartridges before the print heads need replacing. When that happens, the print heads are no more expensive than a standard ink cartridge. I am highly satisfied with this printer. Again, it all depends on how one intends to use it. For business and home use: printing correspondence, presentation slides, spreadsheets, webpages and web quality graphics, I find this an exceptional product with good printing speed. Of course, that's why it's marketed using the name HP 1100 "BUSINESS" inkjet. If you're into photography, you might look elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: It's A Decent Printer....But......
Review: It's a very quick printer and the feeder holds a lot of paper, but there are two major snags. There are four cartridges plus four printheads. Plus, there is very little support offered in the box: the only booklet refers to installation. The CD only offers support for the networked version of the printer. With all the pieces and parts, nowhere does it list which cartridges & printheads to purchase. There is no indication how long a printhead should last. As I am writing this, the "low black ink" light has been on for 75 pages. Yet, there does not seem to be any fading or change in the black ink. I'd say the tone is as clear as the first page. Am I supposed to change out a half-spent cartridge? I'm used to Hewlett-Packard printers being reliable and consistant. This printer has potential because of its speed. I have a small business and this is important. However, the cost of maintaining a printer is equally important. I am keeping my old printer as a back-up. It's slower, but cheaper to run, when all factors are weighed. And, the "low ink" light comes on when the colors actually fade.
Rating:
Summary: Great printer for <$200 !!
Review: This printer is a great choice for a home office/hobbist.
It prints up to 4800dpi (good enough for most color prints)
and I especially like the built in duplex mode for printing manuals. The ink refills are expensive (most are) but last a reasonable amount of time. But for $199....a great buy. Later, I plan on purchasing a separate printer for just color photos (dedicated printers are the best way to go). For now, this one does just fine for the price.
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