Great printer...eventually.
Written: Jun 01 '02
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Pros: Very user-friendly; excellent print quality.
Cons: Toll customer service; compatibility issues.
The Bottom Line: If you're lucky enough to have a trouble-free install, this is a great printer.
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| ianmaize's Full Review: Hewlett Packard PhotoSmart 1215vm InkJet Printer |
Well, I haven't written an Epinion in a while, but my most recent printer purchase qualifies, I think, for some commentary.
I bought the 1215 because I was looking for a replacement for my 722C that had bit the dust. My wife and I have a digital camera, so we were looking toward the PhotoSmart series due to the high resolution of printing, while still staying in a reasonable price range.
The printer prints wonderfully. Pictures are crisp, text is also excellent. Even in Draft mode, Grayscale (which we use most often for generic printing), the quality is better than almost anything I could get from the 722C.
That said, I certainly could stand to have some better support from HP. I am a fairly advanced computer/printer user, and I was not pleased with the level of knowledge of HP's support personnel.
First, I couldn't install the software that came with the printer. Each time I tried, it locked up the computer. So, a 45 minute toll call later, it turned out that the first time I had tried, the software had hung for some reason, and could not remove the remains of that failed install, and each successive try was doomed to failure.
Second, the card reader has been intermittently functional, and has caused some still unresolved compatibility issues with Win98. The card reader shows up as a drive letter on its own, and for some reason, any window that showed that drive letter (Open File dialog boxes in other programs, Windows Explorer, etc...) would hang forever, requiring reboot. So, another 45 minute TOLL CALL to HP wound up re-installing all software (again!), after which it still didn't work very well, but at least didn't hang the computer all the time.
Mind you, gentle reader, that I am a person that scours the Tech Support web site before calling (since that's mostly what the support rep will do anyway).
Well, after all that griping about software and support, the end result is that I like the printer. I have a USB card reader for the camera disks anyway, so I don't even use that feature of the printer. I do wish that HP would shift to toll-free tech support, but I can't fault them I suppose.
I hope this has been useful to someone. :)
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 249
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
ianmaize
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Member: Ian Maize
Location: Norfolk, VA
Reviews written: 9
Trusted by: 2 members
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