HP 925C: An Excellent All-Around Printer
Written: Mar 26 '01 (Updated Mar 28 '01)
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Pros: Excellent print quality, fast, good included software, quiet, inexpensive to operate.
Cons: Possibly not quite as good at photo printing as the six-color photo printers.
The Bottom Line: The HP 952C has all the bells and whistles of a modern printer with speed and quality that either exceeds or is in par with the competition.
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| domitron's Full Review: Hewlett Packard Deskjet 952c InkJet Printer |
Over the last week, I looked around at the various options under $250 for photo-quality printing. Having a 2.1 megapixel camera and knowing such high resolutions are fairly useless without the ability to realize them through print, I thought it was probably time to upgrade my HP 722C that I bought over three years ago.
I considered various replacement inkjet printers under the $250 price point I had set for myself. In the HP line, I immediately realized that to get significantly better picture quality than my HP 722C, I would have to get a PhotoREtIII printer, such as those of the 900 series. I didn't zero immediately in on the HP line despite having only good experiences with my old HP 722C. I first considered two comparable offerings from HP’s biggest inkjet printer competitor, the Epson Stylus Photo 780 and the Epson Stylus Color 880.
The Epson Stylus Color 880 is really more directly positioned to compete with the HP 952C as it is designed a general-purpose printer, but I was disappointed to read review after review claiming the output text was not as sharp or defined as the printer's Epson predecessors, both qualities the HP 952C’s text clearly demonstrates. Also I was not impressed with the inferior paper handling of the printer when compared to the HP line (which are known for their outstanding paper handling). Lastly, the output tray holds few pages (30 sheets compared to the HP’s 120) and the feed mechanism is said to jam more often.
Being primarily designed for photo printing, the Epson Stylus Photo 780 offered some really nice features not found in either the HP 952C or Epson Stylus Color 880. For example, it has was Epson terms “borderless printing,” a feature in which the printer can print to the very edge of the paper. It has colorfast inks said to be highly fade-resistant, lasting for decades without noticeable deterioration in picture quality. It also uses a six-color printing process as compared to the four-color process used by the other two printers. The extra two primaries (light cyan and light magenta) are reputed to provide a slight edge in picture quality. The main reason, however, I went with the HP 952C is the long-term high operation costs of the Epson Stylus Color and, to a larger extent, the Epson Stylus Photo.
Despite the fact the HP ink cartridges are still expensive, they are rated much longer than other printers and are high capacity yielding a significantly lower print cost per page. Here are the facts as gathered by the official corporate web sites: the HP 952C’s high-capacity color cartridge (C6578AN) is rated for 970 pages at 15% density for $55. That comes to 5.7 cents/page, 30.5% less than the Photo Stylus and 24% less than the Color Stylus! The high-capacity black-and-white cartridge (51645A) gives 833 pages @ 5% density for $30. That comes to 3.6 cents/page or 41% less than the Photo Stylus and 16.3% less than the Color Stylus! To add an ironic spin on all of this, an Epson cartridge does not have a new spray nozzle as HP's always have. If the nozzle clogs hard on an Epson--and they do clog from time to time--you could be in for another printer which may be why Epson store display models often have clogged jets while HP's don't.
But one may ask, "Why is ink price so important to me?" First consider that paper and ink costs are the two ways you actually PAY for an inkjet printer and should be considered the real cost of the printer. Printers are sold at around the cost of manufacture. The companies depend on your purchase of paper and ink to pay for the printer. While you can buy some generic or off brand paper (use Epson paper on an HP for example) and get away with it, buying generic or off-brand inks is risky at best--too risky for me. So, given all else equal, the real cost of the Epson offerings are considerably higher than HP's because the operating cost (specifically the ink cost) is higher. I didn't like the thought that if I went with an Epson every time I would print a page, I'd be putting down more money than an HP with nearly equal print quality, so I decided to go with the HP 952C for my all-around printer.
How about photo and text quality? Both are great, and while I can't say the HP 952C definitely has the edge in picture quality compared to the Photo Stylus (a printer practically designed for picture printing), I can say the picture quality is excellent. Given a quality sheet of high-gloss photo paper, the color is almost dead on. The contrast is high. The picture is sharp and alive. The “point-of-inkjet-detection” (that is, when you know the print not on real film) on the photos with the best paper and quality source material is about 1 foot in good lighting where this point was closer to two feet with older technologies such as the HP 722C. The printer is fast and has the same great paper handling that all HP DeskJet printers have. The driver is very, very good with all sorts of bells and whistles to tweak color accuracy.
However, the most pleasant surprise with the HP 952C was the photo software. I typically don't expect much from the supplemental software of a $200 product, but the HP PhotoSmart software is excellent! It is very simple to use and fast. It's basically a digital picture adjust and place program to maximize paper usage and picture quality. It'll let you perform the picture adjustments that are usually important such as white-point setting, sharpening, highlight/midtone/lowlight adjustments, etc. The whole program is well polished, and I've only detected one bug so far. I'd have paid $35 for this program alone!
In conclusion, I highly recommend the HP 952C. It has all the bells and whistles of a modern printer with speed and quality that either exceeds or is in par with the competition. The printer is the more inexpensive to operate than its competitors and comes with a winning software package!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 199
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
domitron
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Reviews written: 1
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