Great Quality Printing from the HP Photosmart 7350
Written: Sep 18 '04
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Pros: Up to 4800 DPI printing, quiet, 4x6 paper tray, direct printing from media cards/camera
Cons: SLOW. Only holds two cartridges (forcing you to have to swap them out.)
The Bottom Line: Good printer for photos if you are willing to overlook the tediousness of constantly switching out cartridges.
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| bluedot-79's Full Review: Hewlett Packard Photosmart 7350 InkJet Printer |
Remember when families only had one computer? I never thought we’d have any need for more…but somehow, we’ve ended up with two PCs and a laptop at our house (and there is only my husband, me, and our newborn daughter living here!)
But that’s the reason we needed to buy another printer. We had another computer, but no printer for it. Thus began our search for a great deal on a new printer. After the bad luck we had with our old Lexmark X73, and our love of it’s replacement, the HP PSC2175 we felt that HP was the only way to go.
Then, I happened upon this HP Photosmart 7350 that was on sale at Ritz Camera. It was exactly what we needed. I happily took it home and set it up.
What’s in the box:
When you open the box, you’ll see your printer, power cord, HP photosmart software, two ink cartridges (HP-58 is the photo cartridge and HP-57 is the tri-color cartridge), setup instructions, and print cartridge holder. Replacement cartridges are easily found at discount and office supply stores. The HP-57 runs around $35 and the HP-58 runs around $25.
You will need to purchase a black ink cartridge separately. (I have found the HP-56 black ink cartridge to cost less than $20 at Target.)
Also, you will not receive a USB cable, so be sure to purchase separately one if you need one.
HP Photosmart 7350 Features:
The HP 7350 was a good choice for us because it has four memory card reader slots located on the front of the unit. This printer will support Compact Flash, SD, MMC, Memory Stick and SmartMedia cards. However, it does not support the XD card. With all of our cameras utilizing the SD card, we can easily print directly from the card or upload to our computer.
The direct printing is very easy. You just load your card and follow the directions on the printer's screen. This function also allows for the printing of an index print of all the photos on the media card. I have found that I like the index print, but rarely use this feature. I also don't think that the photo quality is as good when printing directly from the card.
The HP 7350 also features two paper trays. The larger tray holds your standard size papers and envelopes (up to about 100pgs)and the 4x6 sized paper tray allows for borderless 4x6 printing. The tray can easily be engaged or disengaged with the flick of a switch. It holds about 20 pieces of photo paper. This small tray is great for standard photo prints, and it saves me from wasting 8.5x11 photo paper. However, I sometimes wish I had the capability of using a small tray like that one to print out 5x7 pictures.
I have not had any problems with paper jams. Even heavy cardstock goes through with ease.
One major downside to this printer is the fact that it only holds two cartridges, forcing the user to constantly remove the black and install the photo cartridge when printing photos. This switching is a complete waste of time and can get very tedious.
I have also found that the printer is pretty slow. HP claims that it will print up to 17 pages per minute black and white, but that is in draft mode only. For "normal" mode, it's more like 10 or 11. Color prints are even slower. HP says it prints 11 pages per minute (again in draft mode). To print the best quality print, don't expect it to print more than one page per minute.
This model also lacks a color LED screen. I wonder if I would use the direct print more often if I could see the actual photo before I printed it out...without having to waste ink to print the index.
My Overall Thoughts
For the price, I would recommend this printer for the average person's home computer. I really feel like the quality of the photo printing is excellent when it is set at a high print setting.
There are a few features that it lacks (color LED screen, XD card slot, 3 cartridge printing, etc.), but I feel that it has been worth every penny that I paid for it.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 75.00
Operating System: Windows
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Epinions.com ID:
bluedot-79
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Member: A. Hagist
Location: Jacksonville, Florida
Reviews written: 31
Trusted by: 2 members
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