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Written: Apr 02 '01
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Pros: Excellent color mode.
Cons: Buggy Macintosh software, paper feed is not straight.
The Bottom Line: Unfortunately my list of problems outweigh the list of nice attributes for this model. I'd say pass on this one.
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| lawrance's Full Review: Hewlett Packard Deskjet 952c InkJet Printer |
I bought this printer because I gave my HP 895Cse to my sister. Being that this was an "upgrade" and two years newer, my expectations were pretty high. Especially after the outstanding performance of my first HP printer!
The software that came with the printer was already outdated so I downloaded the newest drivers from the HP website. Lucky I have a cable modem because 10MB for a printer driver is ridiculous. While the driver helped with some of the new issues, I have to say, I really miss the 895Cse. Here's why...
With the 895, the driver was smart enough to "memorize" the last used settings. For me, the draft mode was what I used 99% of the time. I primarily need speed, not quality. When it was time to do a color project, I would alter the settings and hit the "save settings" button. This saved my new settings to get me through my projects and when I was done, I would reverse the settings to draft mode for super fast output.
With the new driver (which is required to use with the new printers) the driver will take the settings back to "default" mode which is set to a nice quality but slow color output mode. I had to create a "draft mode" setting and save it as I did before, but now I have to manually select this "draft mode" from a drop down menu EVERY time I go to print! This has slowed me down as it creates an additional step every time I hit the print button. (Which is often.)
Another bug I found is that it wont output pages from QuarkXpress at 100% - I spent over two hours figuring out that you have to put your page size at 104% to get 100% output! What's up with that? The problem may be with Quark, but I did not have this issue with my old HP. (The old HP would not print more than one copy at a time without freezing in Quark.)
The 952C is not any faster even though it's 2 years newer, and the "draft mode" is not as nice. In fact it's very choppy looking. I have cleaned the print heads numerous times and still get black banding in virtually everything I print. I'm wondering If I have a bogus black cartridge. I'm not sure I'm going to keep the printer long enough to find out.
The last issue I have is the paper feeding. It's straight about 50% of the time. It drives me nuts. Especially if I'm printing on letterhead. I'm not sure if I'm being too picky on this one, but to me printing uphill by 2mm across a page is too noticeable to send out.
I do have a few nice things to say about the printer. It's nice and quiet, never jams, looks nice, and prints outstanding photo quality prints on coated paper.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 250
Operating System: Macintosh
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Epinions.com ID:
lawrance
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Member: Lawrance
Location: Fishers, IN
Reviews written: 14
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
Favorite things: Macintosh computers, Yamaha motorcycles, Detroit Lions football.
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