Well, our old Canon color printer had been in the process of biting the dust - paper jams, funky print quality, the whole nine yards - and there I was in the process of ordering a new computer from Dell Direct. As long as I was talking to the folks down in Austin, I figured, I might as well spring for a new printer at the same time.
Now, my needs are simple: I print out an occasional spreadsheet, the Christmas newsletter, and once in a while a joke or two. Nobody at my house is that hung up on printing out photographs or massive documents, so we've gotten along just fine, thank you! for years with a series of Canon inkjet printers. So laser printers and special photo-quality printers weren't what I was looking for. Don't need a scanner (got one that's rarely used), don't need a fax machine (got one that never receives any faxes), don't need a copy machine - so the all-in-ones were pretty much the definition of "overkill." Given that I was at Dell, that didn't leave me very many choices. In fact, that only left me one choice, but what the heck? That's why there's a Dell 720 Color Printer sitting on my desk at this very moment. But would you want one? Let's have a look...
With a current price of about $50, the Dell 720 is a pretty good price for your low-end color inkjet printer. Heck, I paid $74 for the thing (memo to self - wait a couple of weeks next time). So what do you get for that $50? Well, the specs tell you that the Dell 720 is a color/black and white printer that has a maximum resolution of 4800x1200 in both color and B/W. Top printing speed in B/W is 13 pages per minute; in color it's 8 pages per minute. The printer has twin cartridges - a CYM cartridge for color and a separate black cartridge. The things are pretty expensive at about $25-28for a refill (Office Depot), but that's pretty paltry compared to a laser printer cartridge.
Since the CPU is a Dell, I had absolutely no compatibility problems when installing. I found included in the box a CD with drivers for Win XP/2000 - there are no drivers for any other OS. It also contained photo productivity software including proprietary Dell Photo Studio software, the same stripped version of PhotoShop that came with my digital camera, and a trial version of PaintShop Pro (with a very irritating reminder screen). Both a color and a black-and-white cartridge were included in the package. Setup is a snap - plug in power cord and printer cable and you're good to go.
The device is all plastic except for a few parts like the rails for the print head. It's lightweight, though seems well made - no badly fit parts, no cheesy-looking gaps in the joints. Directions for installing or replacing cartridges are embossed inside the top cover, and are clear and concise. The paper trays for input and output close much more smoothly than on my previous inkjet printers. Durability-wise, it's too soon to tell - but if the cats don't knock it off the desk, I can easily see the 720 lasting as long as my last color inkjet printer (which was seven years). It's warranted for one year.
The printer has a medium-sized footprint of around 8-1/2 inches x 16 inches, though when you open up the output tray it takes up a 16x17-inch space. Paper - any good quality plain paper works - loads in a vertical position, with a maximum tray capacity of about 100 sheets. That last seems a little optimistic, if you ask me. The paper tray accepts legal and letter-sized paper (plus A4, A5, A6, and B4), envelopes, and card stock (3x5 and postcard). In theory it prints banners, but they can only be 8-1/2 by 17 inches. Not much of a "banner," if you ask me. Dell also claims the 720 will print on transparencies, photo paper, and labels. Can't tell it by me, but Michael's never lied to me (Susan, OTOH...)
Unlike olden days, the 720 doesn't connect to your CPU through a serial port but through a USB port, presumably one reason why it's incompatible with older OSes. Just like olden days, though, I had to come up with my own printer cable - at a cost of some $15. Bummer. Anybody out there need a slightly used printer cable?
Living with the 720 is a bit different from those old Canons I'd had. For one thing, the driver for the 720 is a great deal fancier than the old one - instead of merely popping up a print monitor window, this driver includes a cunning little graphic of the amount of ink remaining in your cartridges (the Dell Ink Management System™), and a progress bar for the printing job. Those I definitely like... It also has an "Order Ink" button that takes you straight to the Dell Online site, where the prices are - wonder of wonders - quite competitive with the BigBox stores.
The driver has lots of bells and whistles on the "print preferences" panel, including wizards to help improve print quality or perform tasks that you may not encounter frequently, such as photo and banner printing or creating a banner. There's context-sensitive help on steps, like "how to load a banner." Nice touch, Dell.
Now as for printing itself, remember that my needs are modest: Black and white printing is crisp, although print density is not the highest quality, especially with certain fonts (like me, the 720 seems to dislike Times New Roman). Line drawings get better treatment - I've printed Corel figures and MapQuest maps, and had highly satisfactory results. Photographs are... well, photographs are about as good as photographs always are on inkjet printers. I tried a picture in both color and black and white, and got good color reproduction and excellent grain in both cases; the color version being a bit better than the B/W. Print speed, especially in color, pretty much reeked. Both prints were on plain paper, and I am sure that they'd look better on photo paper.
If you have modest needs and a slender wallet, I'd recommend the Dell 720 as a pretty good compromise position at a very good price. You don't get the high-end graphics of a photo printer; you don't get the high-speed turnaround of a laser printer; and you don't get a scanner, fax machine, or copier. You also only pay about $50. I'd strongly suggest this as a good second printer on a home network (the drivers support a peer-to-peer network) or a printer for people like me who don't find it necessary to print everything that comes across their screen.
Points you'll want to remember:
• Compatible only with Windows XP and Windows 2000
• Requires a 16x17-inch footprint on your desk when in operation
• Refill cartridges are in the $25 range (B/W) and $28 range (color)
• Comes with a very friendly driver
• Extremely easy to set up with WinXP
Create impressive-looking documents in color or black and white with the Dell Color Printer 720. This printer produces professional looking brochures,...More at eBay
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