HP OfficeJet 7310 All-in-One Printer by Hewlett Packard Office
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Digital camera reviews of HP OfficeJet 7310 All-in-One Printer
Digital camera Review: Great Multifunction Printer with Grossly Overpriced Ink
Summary: 4 Stars
As a repeat HP customer, I have been very satisfied with their products. Prior to purchasing a 7310, I owned a previous generation multifunction, the HP 155xi. Very similar to the 7410 (with two paper trays), it worked flawlessly for two years before I decided to sell it during a cross-country move. After eight months of use, the 7310 has performed well without any major problems. Like most users, I am a bit alarmed at the cost of the ink.
The true beauty of these "higher-end" multifunction printers is their ability to provide users with a self-contained office. With sheet-fed scanners, they can perform large document scanning to foster digital document archival. While I have not been able to go completely paperless, I have scanned thousand of pages of documents directly to Acrobat with this printer and its predecessor. It makes for keeping receipts, invoices, contracts and owners manuals an organized process. With my "Virtual File Cabinet", I have 750 documents stored. These would otherwise be consuming an entire metal file cabinet and requisite floor space.
What amazes me about these printers (i.e. 7310 and 155xi) is that they do NOT appear or feel very solid. For example, when you pick up either printer, the plastic creaks. The paper trays appear as if they would break off if a load of greater than ten pounds were applied. Yet, after printing and scanning thousands of pages of documents, there has not been one failure. Moreover, I have moved multiple times while owning both printers and neither experienced any damage during transport.
Adding to solid construction is a great feature set and printing speed. While many of the features on this printer are superfluous, the overall performance is far better than with cheaper models. The 7310 is very fast, both during printing and scanning. Also, unlike the really low-end models, the copying capability uses processing power resident in printer. It does not need to be connected to a computer and, as such, is very fast.
A nice productivity feature on the HP 7310, also not available on low-end multifunction printers, is a duplexing ability. Double-sided printing is a great weight and space saver when traveling. The only caveat is that the process is very, very slow. Don't attempt to print large double-sided documents five minutes before leaving for the airport.
Like most users, my biggest complaint with this printer is the cost of the ink. The practice of paying outrageous sums on ink cartridges to subsidize the original equipment costs is standard throughout the industry. Printer manufacturers should be a bit more transparent on their true cost of ownership. Obviously, they have a reason not to do this. In my use of the printer, I am finding the ink cost to be a major expense. This is, in part, because I never have time to price shop during the time crunches when I typically need the ink.
Similar to other peripheral manufacturers, HP wants to capture as much of your desktop space as possible. The printing software has annoying splash screens that indicates the status of the cartridges. Moreover, in the single time I installed 3rd party ink, I received messages thanking me for using Genuine HP ink cartridges - every time I printed a document. This was incredibly annoying. The fixes I found on the web did not work.
What is particularly amusing, and perhaps offensive to some, is the enclosed "recycling" envelope that comes with new HP ink cartridges. This prepaid envelope, with the empty cartridge, goes back to HP so that it can demonstrate its environmental leadership. Of course, HP doesn't want the empty cartridges to go back into the hands of companies that refill and remanufacture them. Although I haven't done the calculations, I would assume the transportation and handling costs would actually do more harm than good to the environment. My suggestion is to fill the prepaid envelope with torn up remains of the consumer packaging that comes with the cartridges.
In the latest incarnation of its high-end consumer multifunction inkjet printers, HP has done a great job of packing both performance and a extensive feature set into a device the average user can afford. While generally a good value, the ink dramatically increases the total cost of ownership. It you can tolerate paying $30 for each cartridge every few months, then you will enjoy this nice addition to your home office.
Pros
Great print quality
Extensive feature set
Duplex printing
Cons
No duplex scanning
Outrageous ink
Invasive Software
Digital camera Review: Great Printer for Home Office; Best Buy Yet
Summary: 5 Stars
PROS: I have a Home Business & this Printer is Great, only have it for a week now, but really impressed. The Photo Printing gives a very professional look, Scans, Copies & does Auto Double Siding which helps with saving paper. Easy to use, love the Legal Size Flatbed Scanner (major reason for buying this Model). Networking Capability, Screen on Panel to look at pics that are loaded. I am really Happy with this Purchase.
CONS: a little noisy when first printing because the tray above the Paper Tray dosen't clip in, so it rumbles a little; but this is not a reason to not buy it. Also the Image Sofware was short a few editing techniques that had been on earlier software, The Software is basic So if you have intense editing to do I suggest getting stronger software, but for Simple Techniques this software is good enough.
Digital camera Review: Great Value for the Money
Summary: 5 Stars
Due to steep discounting the HP 7310 now looks to be a great bargain. HP recently posted an updated software/driver set for Mac OS X and so far I can say the printer has performed flawlessly. For Mac users the new printer U/I is much more intuitive than previous versions and I had no problems with the installation. This is my fifth HP printer and I think it has the best feature set and output of all. I can't address the Windows side of the house other than remark that this printer works well under Virtual PC.Digital camera Review: Great features but still buggy
Summary: 3 Stars
I was looking for a multifunction device that could be both a home office printer and a network printer for other computers in the house, and this product from HP had more of the features I was seeking than any other I found. Unfortunately, it has been a chore to get it to work, and the first unit I received had to be exchanged because of a hardware problem. The good news is that HP tech support is generally pretty good at diagnosing and addressing these kinds of problems, but the bad news is that it is a real time sink to go through something like this. And still, if I do the 'typical' install of drivers and software, the process destroys my desktop's network drivers (apparently as it automatically uninstalls a scanning program that goes with my old HP Scanjet). If it all worked, it would be awesome, and the parts that do work are pretty neat. But they still need to get the bugs out of this, and I'm feeling like I was a little too quick to jump on this new product.Digital camera Review: Great printer - terrible software
Summary: 4 Stars
As others have said here, this is a great printer once you get it set up. My only complaints are that I'd like it to have separate ink tanks for each color & I wish there was a better way for it to "catch" the printed output.
I read the reviews here before I purchased it & decided I wanted to install the basic feature driver rather than the full software package. Read C Moore's review here for the details on that. I was able to get the printer set up with my wireless router but even the basic feature software wouldn't install. It still detected a firewall even though I had it turned off - the installation seemed to continue but wouldn't work correctly after it finished.
However, I was able to install the printer using the HP Deskjet 990c driver. I just installed it as a local printer - install to the LPT1 local printer port, no plug & play, no sharing, don't print the test page, select the Deskjet 990c driver, which already comes with Windows XP. Then I went into the printer properties & created a new tcp/ip port using the ip address of the printer (print the configuration page to get this after it's plugged into the router). I can print from anywhere in the house on either of my laptops. I am able to scan to a memory card - haven't tried scanning to the laptops yet.
The printing is quiet & fast & of good quality. I didn't want a lot of the features included in the large software package - just something to work reliably on my network for printing & scanning. Using the Deskjet 990C driver made this printer a good solution for me.